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I'm pretty good with electrical diagrams and such, and I know exactly what one needs to do to stay about as safe as one can. I've fished (ethernet) wires befor

I'm pretty good with electrical diagrams and such, and I know exactly what one needs to do to stay about as safe as one can. I've fished (ethernet) wires before. I still hire electricians, because it's the only practical way to buy electrician's insurance for a project. I know a retired electrician. He hires electricians for anything nontrivial, for the insurance. That said your broader point has a lot of merit. I hire plumbers for anything more complicated than snaking a drain, and it's because of their specialty knowledge.

gambiting 5y ago
What do you mean electrician's insurance? I do have a so called "DIY insurance" on my home policy - if I damage something while doing a DIY project(drill into a cable or a pipe for instance) my home insurance will cover the repair. Is that not enough?
- akiselev 5y ago
  No, that's just for incidental damage and probably legally mandated by your state. If your house burns down to due to DIY wiring, the insurance company won't pay out a dime (if the inspectors discover it). Electricians have liability insurance provided by an organization specializing in policies for practicing tradesmen. If an insurance company fails to disqualify a homeowner's policy and pays out, it will then go after the electrician and his insurance to recoup their losses. Residential electrical fires are extremely preventable so insurance companies almost universally refuse to insure homes with DIY electrical work because the homeowner is the one liable.
  - barbacoa 5y ago
    What exactly is diy electrical work? Many states let you file a homestead permit to do your own non-trivial electrical work.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      Just because your state allows you to do the work does not mean that your insurance company will cover your loas is your work burns your home down.
    - IgorPartola 5y ago
      I am curious about this as well. Is swapping out light switches and outlets something to be concerned about or is it the more major stuff like running wires, adding breakers, etc?
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    What country are you talking about?
  - markkanof 5y ago
    There is just no way this is correct. First, most municipalities in America anyway allow a homeowner to do their own electrical work. You are required to get a permit for the work though and then have it inspected by the city inspector to verify the work was done correctly. But second and maybe more importantly how would you ever be able to get insurance on an older house. There may have been dozens of different electricians and homeowners that did work over the years. Who would the insurance company go after if a problem occurred.
    - akiselev 5y ago
      > First, most municipalities in America anyway allow a homeowner to do their own electrical work. You are required to get a permit for the work though and then have it inspected by the city inspector to verify the work was done correctly They allow them to change sockets and light switches. Anything requiring a city inspector is literally the same thing as getting a licensed electrician. Municipalities have a lot more insurance than an electrician does, often unwritten by the same reinsurers as the electricians. > But second and maybe more importantly how would you ever be able to get insurance on an older house. There may have been dozens of different electricians and homeowners that did work over the years. Who would the insurance company go after if a problem occurred. The insurance company goes bankrupt and the state bails out the homeowner. That's why we have electrical contractor surety bonds.
      - mox1 5y ago
        I've read over my home-owners insurance policy very well. There are no provisions that say anything about "electrical work requiring a city permit shall be done by a licensed electrician". Do you have any evidence to point to where someone changes a dishwasher or some other small electrical project, and later insurance denies a claim? I can imagine scenarios of gross negligence (wires run all over exposed, gas leaks, etc. etc.), but if we are talking small mistakes by homeowner during a un-permitted DIY project, I have a very very hard time believing insurance is going to scour the rubble to investigate...like literally how to you prove that!?
      - jjeaff 5y ago
  - shimon 5y ago
    This idea that DIY wiring can invalidate your insurance policy is widely repeated, but I don't think it's true. Homeowner's insurance routinely covers preventable disasters. Did you leave a candle on or a heater plugged in and start a fire? Did you not cut down a tree that was looking unhealthy and it fell on your home? These are all situations where your insurance would pay a claim. The cases where they would not pay a claim are more along the lines of "deliberate arson". You may well need to certify that work is permitted in order to get an insurance policy. Relevant reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/does_anyone_have_hard_evidence_that_homeowners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/doe...
    - jjeaff 5y ago
      Ya, it's total bologna. Insurance covers stupidity as well as acts of god unless specifically excluded otherwise.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Hmmmm I'm not so sure. I'm in the UK not in the states, so the laws are different I'm sure, but in UK you only need a licenced electrician when adding/removing an electrical circuit and for any electrical work in the bathrooms. So say adding a new spur from your fuse box to add electricity to your garage or a garden shed - that sort of thing. Any work on existing circuits(adding sockets, light switches, new light mounts etc) is fair play and doesn't require a permission or any paperwork. Instead you just get an electrical inspection done and an electrician signs off on the house as a whole. Like someone else said - when you buy a house you don't know how the electrical wiring was done and by whom. Paperwork is required only for the things I mentioned above - new circuits added after the house was built mostly. And even then someone would need to prove that it was done after construction. So even if the insurance company wanted to deny a claim due to a DIY fitted socket....I think they would struggle, as there's absolutely nothing forbidding me from installing one, and most importantly - my contract with the insurance company doesn't forbid me from doing so.
einpoklum 5y ago
TBH the electricians I know tend to rely on their know-how to just do things right rather than on somebody else with the ability to sure in case it all burns down.
- einpoklum 5y ago
  s/sure/sue.
InvertedRhodium 5y ago
Here in NZ, a lot of work on your own property is legal - even some relatively complicated stuff - but the catch is that you need to find a qualified inspector to sign off on it. The reality is that unless someone knows you and your work personally (friend, relative, w/e) it can be really difficult to find an inspector who is willing to sign off on some random persons work as there is a liability component (nowhere near as large as there is in the US, we have publicly funded "accident insurance" called ACC) in doing so. That being said, anything I can legally do myself I do and I am sure to maintain good relationships with the inspectors I know.
- propogandist 5y ago
  laws requiring a third party to sign off on things you can do to your own property sounds like a violation of freedoms
  - NegativeLatency 5y ago
    The prior owner of my house was very free with his exposed wire nuts and other sketchy wiring practices then. I’ll take some level of safety that my house won’t burn down or electrocute me over absolute freedom.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      You should have a house inspected before you buy it. It's not necessary to monitor and restrict all owners to protect possible future buyers who don't want to inspect a house before buying it.
      - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
        No inspector in the world is going to open up all of the electrical fixtures and look at the wiring inside.
        gogopuppygogo 5y ago

gambiting 5y ago

What do you mean electrician's insurance? I do have a so called "DIY insurance" on my home policy - if I damage something while doing a DIY project(drill into a cable or a pipe for instance) my home insurance will cover the repair. Is that not enough?

akiselev 5y ago
No, that's just for incidental damage and probably legally mandated by your state. If your house burns down to due to DIY wiring, the insurance company won't pay out a dime (if the inspectors discover it). Electricians have liability insurance provided by an organization specializing in policies for practicing tradesmen. If an insurance company fails to disqualify a homeowner's policy and pays out, it will then go after the electrician and his insurance to recoup their losses. Residential electrical fires are extremely preventable so insurance companies almost universally refuse to insure homes with DIY electrical work because the homeowner is the one liable.
- barbacoa 5y ago
  What exactly is diy electrical work? Many states let you file a homestead permit to do your own non-trivial electrical work.
  - shkkmo 5y ago
    Just because your state allows you to do the work does not mean that your insurance company will cover your loas is your work burns your home down.
  - IgorPartola 5y ago
    I am curious about this as well. Is swapping out light switches and outlets something to be concerned about or is it the more major stuff like running wires, adding breakers, etc?
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  What country are you talking about?
- markkanof 5y ago
  There is just no way this is correct. First, most municipalities in America anyway allow a homeowner to do their own electrical work. You are required to get a permit for the work though and then have it inspected by the city inspector to verify the work was done correctly. But second and maybe more importantly how would you ever be able to get insurance on an older house. There may have been dozens of different electricians and homeowners that did work over the years. Who would the insurance company go after if a problem occurred.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    > First, most municipalities in America anyway allow a homeowner to do their own electrical work. You are required to get a permit for the work though and then have it inspected by the city inspector to verify the work was done correctly They allow them to change sockets and light switches. Anything requiring a city inspector is literally the same thing as getting a licensed electrician. Municipalities have a lot more insurance than an electrician does, often unwritten by the same reinsurers as the electricians. > But second and maybe more importantly how would you ever be able to get insurance on an older house. There may have been dozens of different electricians and homeowners that did work over the years. Who would the insurance company go after if a problem occurred. The insurance company goes bankrupt and the state bails out the homeowner. That's why we have electrical contractor surety bonds.
    - mox1 5y ago
      I've read over my home-owners insurance policy very well. There are no provisions that say anything about "electrical work requiring a city permit shall be done by a licensed electrician". Do you have any evidence to point to where someone changes a dishwasher or some other small electrical project, and later insurance denies a claim? I can imagine scenarios of gross negligence (wires run all over exposed, gas leaks, etc. etc.), but if we are talking small mistakes by homeowner during a un-permitted DIY project, I have a very very hard time believing insurance is going to scour the rubble to investigate...like literally how to you prove that!?
    - jjeaff 5y ago
- shimon 5y ago
  This idea that DIY wiring can invalidate your insurance policy is widely repeated, but I don't think it's true. Homeowner's insurance routinely covers preventable disasters. Did you leave a candle on or a heater plugged in and start a fire? Did you not cut down a tree that was looking unhealthy and it fell on your home? These are all situations where your insurance would pay a claim. The cases where they would not pay a claim are more along the lines of "deliberate arson". You may well need to certify that work is permitted in order to get an insurance policy. Relevant reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/does_anyone_have_hard_evidence_that_homeowners/ https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/7vwe23/doe...
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    Ya, it's total bologna. Insurance covers stupidity as well as acts of god unless specifically excluded otherwise.
- gambiting 5y ago
  Hmmmm I'm not so sure. I'm in the UK not in the states, so the laws are different I'm sure, but in UK you only need a licenced electrician when adding/removing an electrical circuit and for any electrical work in the bathrooms. So say adding a new spur from your fuse box to add electricity to your garage or a garden shed - that sort of thing. Any work on existing circuits(adding sockets, light switches, new light mounts etc) is fair play and doesn't require a permission or any paperwork. Instead you just get an electrical inspection done and an electrician signs off on the house as a whole. Like someone else said - when you buy a house you don't know how the electrical wiring was done and by whom. Paperwork is required only for the things I mentioned above - new circuits added after the house was built mostly. And even then someone would need to prove that it was done after construction. So even if the insurance company wanted to deny a claim due to a DIY fitted socket....I think they would struggle, as there's absolutely nothing forbidding me from installing one, and most importantly - my contract with the insurance company doesn't forbid me from doing so.

einpoklum 5y ago

TBH the electricians I know tend to rely on their know-how to just do things right rather than on somebody else with the ability to sure in case it all burns down.

einpoklum 5y ago
s/sure/sue.

InvertedRhodium 5y ago

Here in NZ, a lot of work on your own property is legal - even some relatively complicated stuff - but the catch is that you need to find a qualified inspector to sign off on it. The reality is that unless someone knows you and your work personally (friend, relative, w/e) it can be really difficult to find an inspector who is willing to sign off on some random persons work as there is a liability component (nowhere near as large as there is in the US, we have publicly funded "accident insurance" called ACC) in doing so. That being said, anything I can legally do myself I do and I am sure to maintain good relationships with the inspectors I know.

propogandist 5y ago
laws requiring a third party to sign off on things you can do to your own property sounds like a violation of freedoms
- NegativeLatency 5y ago
  The prior owner of my house was very free with his exposed wire nuts and other sketchy wiring practices then. I’ll take some level of safety that my house won’t burn down or electrocute me over absolute freedom.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    You should have a house inspected before you buy it. It's not necessary to monitor and restrict all owners to protect possible future buyers who don't want to inspect a house before buying it.
    - TheCoelacanth 5y ago
      No inspector in the world is going to open up all of the electrical fixtures and look at the wiring inside.
      - gogopuppygogo 5y ago