DIY Electrical Work Regulations

In New Zealand the law and insurance requires that only registered electricians can work on household wiring, with paperwork per house to confirm. Surprisingly enough most people are unwilling to do something illegal, that will also void their house insurance.Perhaps the laws and insurance rules are less strict where you are?I also think that very few people feel comfortable working on household wiring, and very few people are comfortable with fixing plumbed in appliances.I will add tha

Probably because you can't generally install them yourself, and you need a licensed electrician to do that.

You can't legally do your own electrical work? Shiver...

Hah, once we needed some extra wiring for some lights at our booth, the electrician came to have a look and said “sorry I’m not insured to add wires” and just left. And nobody wanted to do the job on such a short notice. Luckily no one said anyting when we just plugged the cables ourselves

Absolutely. This is well within my comfort level for messing with inside my private home - I understand the underlying system, the problem they’re trying to solve, and why it’s a bad solution.Certainly don’t go screwing around with mains electricity until you can articulate all of the above, and have an electrician friend show you how to make proper connections and such. But for most of HN… it wouldn’t be hard at all. Stripping insulation off 6/3 wire would be the hardest part of the pro

Yeah, that's fair, but it's low risk if done properly, whereas a lot of the electrical work homeowners get up to introduces risk even if executed as intended :)

Not sure if there's an additional certification, but it would not surprise me at all that an electrician here would not want to work on a home with an unusual setup that they're not particularly familiar with.

take the other person's advice - get an electrician.

Can't this be avoided simply by making sure the property owner gives you wiring instructions in person?

It is the same in the US. The actual labor can be done by anyone, but a licensed electrician has to be willing to accept liability for it.It is quite a racket in some towns, as some electricians will have an “expedited” relationship with the town’s inspectors, so you basically have to hire certain electricians if you want your project to move along smoothly. The electrician will come by and walk through for 5 min glancing here and there and sign the paper for $10k or $20k or $30k depending