As an electrician I am subject to the whims of a town electrical inspector. Inspectors come in all shapes and sizes with lots of different attitudes. Some operate their own electrical contracting businesses and others are professional inspectors whose sole job is to oversee the electrical work in the particular town or city in which they work. It is possible to develop a relationship with a particular inspector that may reign good or bad. All of these things contribute to unfair advantages within the industry.
There are many different attributes in your average inspector. Some of them are fans of the "pencil-whip" philosophy. These inspectors tend to arrive at a home unwilling to make anyone's life any more difficult than it need be. This can go so far as making sure you have a cup of coffee ready to secure his signature on the building permit. Others will take a general look around and determine the chances that you did a proper job based on the neatness of your work. It's very rare you will find an inspector who can point out everything that you did wrong but most guys have a few key infractions that they look for. Through their daily inspections they will isolate a mistake that is made often, or that would be the result of a recently changed code. Thus he may find that you did not install the proper number of smoke detectors but not notice that you cut your wires too short. One more example of how many things can be missed is after you have installed every receptacle and light fixture the inspector will not be able to tell whether you made secure wire connections. This is only the beginning of the joke I call the National Electrical Code and it's enforcement.
Depending on the size of the town, the wire inspector can be employed full-time with a salary or paid by the inspection. The former is most likely to be found in larger towns and cities. A town with 50,000 people or more will most likely have enough money to pay an inspector full-time. This can help or hinder you depending on some of the points I laid out in the previous paragraph. Some of them will be more lenient because they won't get paid more money for failing an electrician and extracting an additional inspection fee. Others will take their job more seriously because it is their bread and butter. They have less incentive to rush through your inspection and will also feel pride in generating money for the building department which can help give their friends at work a raise.
On the other side you find smaller towns who employ an inspector as needed. He will get a flat rate for each inspection he does with rates fluxuating depending on the size of the work being performed. Usually these inspectors operate their own electrical business. When doing work in the town they inspect for, the neighboring town will send over an inspector to avoid a conflict in interest. Also, if the inspector happens to find someone who has not pulled a permit in the town, he is not allowed to assume the work. That leaves one glaring conflict of interest that goes unchecked.
A certain inspector/electrician was called upon to do work on two different occasions by two different contractors in the same town for which the electrician is the inspector. After waiting for this electrician to show up at the jobsite to do the work, both of these contractors turned to my old boss, who also blew them off. Then they called me. At this point I obviously will need to pull a permit because the inspector knows about the work and it is a small town. The first job I started, and my plan was to pull the permit the next day on my way back to the job to finish it up. The inspector got very upset, claimed I was trying to do the work without a permit and demanded a double fee for not pulling the permit beforehand. What I did is a very common practice in this field. In fact when you pull a permit the inspector almost always asks if you are ready for inspection. His claim was ridiculous and I responded by telling him that I wasn't an idiot. I wouldn't be stupid enough to think I could get away without pulling a permit after hearing that the town inspector was supposed to have done the work. He failed me for one minor infraction that normally he would have just said, "I'll sign off on this, just make sure you (insert task here)." Eventually I was able to get this situation solved, but I haven't heard from that contractor since and it wasn't even my mistakes that led to this situation.
The second job was a similar situation. The contractor couldn't find an electrician so he had to call this inspector to do the work. The inspector told him he would start Wednesday but didn't show up. The contractor again tried my old boss, who blew him off yet again and finally his helper reminded him about me and he got a hold of me. This time I pulled the permit before I did the work, and started working. The following week the inspector pulled into the contractors driveway (they both live in this same town) and nonchalantly pretended he was ready to start the job. The contractor told him that he waited long enough for him and that he had me doing the job. I'm sure you see what is developing here. When the inspector came to inspect my work he asked if the lights I had were rated to have insulation touching the light. This was on a porch where there was to be no insulation. Furthermore it is a summer home with no use during the winter. He told me that someday someone could come in and blow in insulation in the future. I said, "That's true in EVERY case, why would it even be legal to sell these lights if that was a problem?" He tried to blow it off, he even buttered me up by saying, "I like your work Jay, (blah blah blah)." It was obvious that he was upset that yet again I was doing work that he was supposed to do...and for a better price.
Two instances where I was penalized (it also cost me money) by an inspector with a grudge against me through no fault of my own. He had every opportunity to do both of these jobs and he simply took too long. Like I was saying, you can develop a relationship with an inspector and before I even did these jobs I had a relationship with him. My old boss used to work for this guy until my old boss got his own license. And now somebody two rungs down was doing these jobs faster and better than his guys could have. In the beginning he was always good to me, most of my inspections with him were mostly mini-lessons that helped me learn and chit chat sessions where we talked about other electricians and other things going on in town. I don't see that continuing.
Now that I am in competition with him he holds a lot of power over me. He can always find one little thing that I did wrong and make me correct it (which costs money most of the time) and in the previous case, he can even decide that he wants things done a certain way just to make it difficult on me. I can get away with avoiding him sometimes, but he tends to drive up and down the streets of his town looking for any kind of construction going on. Furthermore he knows enough people to spread rumors about my work. My only recourse would be to call the state board, but that creates two new problems. Unless I had enough to get him completely removed from his authority, I would never have an easy inspection in his town. Secondly, in the eyes of other inspectors who need to protect the pseudo-integrity of their positions they will also look to discredit me before I can report them.
This is the kind of lack of equality that I speak of so often. I have no problem with the fact that this inspector has more money than me; he has worked harder and longer to develop a business. But where he can use his authority to hinder my growth, just because his insecurities are rising, that's where I have a problem.
