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Comment by InvertedRhodium | Hacker News Reader

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.

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laws requiring a third party to sign off on things you can do to your own property sounds like a violation of freedoms

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.

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.

No inspector in the world is going to open up all of the electrical fixtures and look at the wiring inside.

Mike Holmes would.

There were some splices from the 60’s that were completely inaccessible in a sealed attic that weren’t in junction boxes.

There were also some hot wires just dangling out of a box in the basement, and a couple fried plugs, so I and I assume the inspector knew that there were bound to be more fun surprises.

It’s not like the inspector is going to say “well we better open up this wall just in case”

Ended up rewiring one of the bathrooms after what started out as “change a couple of switches and add a GFCI”

It was inspected and specifically called out by the inspector in the visible areas, but there’s no way to know the full scope of the issues unless the inspector were to rip open walls and stuff.

Either way we got a good deal on the house and I’ve been learning a lot about how to fix it the right way.

You can do anything you want on your own property, but if said property burns down because of incorrect electrical work you did yourself, you might not get money from your insurance...

Where is this notion of "you can do anything on your property" coming from? A similar one is also "it's my car, I'll do what I want with it", etc. But all modification to both your house anr your car have a big possibility of puttinf others in danger. If you mod your car in a dangerous way or screw up your house electrical wiring, other unrelated people may get hurt - you don't have the right to do that!

Physics allows it? This in the same way one can commit crimes or at least that's how I read it. Clearly one can not do the things physics doesn't allow.

As you point out there are likely punitive consequences but those are after the fact.

Or they are just needed to ensure you are not accidentally making a future giant « why would I need a fuse here ? » barbecue that you may possibly sell to another person.

What "freedoms"? That term is used everywhere and rarely defined well. The freedom to "do what you want with your own property"? That doesn't exist - anywhere! You need to follow the rules and the only way to make sure someone is doing things properly (or at least know how to) is either to have them be certified in what they do or have someone who is certified check their work.

If you screw up your electrical wiring, your house can catch fire. If a house is on fire, the neighboring houses are rather likely to also catch fire. Once you have a handful of houses on fire, all bets are off - the entire neighbourhood might burn. Still think you should have that "freedom"?

So do you have any data to back this up?

Do home-owner repaired house catch on fire more often than houses repaired by licensed contractors?

My insurance company has never told me I can't repair my own house.

Easy to say things like this, but once you get out into the real world you notice a lot of America doesn't want to pay $150/hour to change a light switch...and has the knowledge to DIY it.

Back what up? I never made any claims about whether DIY is more dangerous or not. But the fact is that DIY or not, certain regulations must be followed when doing repairs - this is written into law in most countries. You're not allowed, for example, to hook up an oven to a 30A breaker using speaker wire. Because we can't trust that everyone will know not to do that, certifications have been designed to ensure correct knowledge and skill and those certifications are often mandated by law. You have two options - either get certified, so you can be trusted to carry out the work yourself, or get someone who is certified to at least look it over. Seems entirely reasonable.

> You have two options - either get certified, so you can be trusted to carry out the work yourself, or get someone who is certified to at least look it over. Seems entirely reasonable.

That it seems entirely reasonable is most of the problem.

Because people imagine that getting certified is a two week safety course, and that getting inspected is paying someone $10 to spend ten minutes looking over your five minute job.

But then the licensed professionals capture the regulators and the licensing requirement stops being about safety and starts being about gatekeeping, so getting licensed becomes impractical for anyone not full-time gainfully employed in that industry. And the gatekeeping and bureaucracy cause the inspection to require weeks to get an appointment and the payment of $150 over the replacement of a $10 light switch.

Then, you notice that the light in your living room flickers sometimes. You would be inclined to have your buddy the electrical engineer come have a look except that he's not a licensed electrician and you're not convinced that the lights flickering once in a while is a problem whose solution is worth $150. Two months later the light switch with the bad connection finally overheats and your house burns down. Or you're willing to pay the money but it takes 15 days to get an appointment and the amount of time you had before the problem became a fire was two weeks.

Making repairs to safety-critical things less accessible is dangerous.

Great point. My brother and I tried to get some type of electricians license in order to do our DIY work more "professionally".

I took household lighting classes at the local community college and our union electrician uncle helped use redo his house.

Impossible in my state to get a electrician license without doing 1+ years as an apprentice under a electrical company full-time. Once you get the "apprentice" license, you then spend another year or two under more supervision to become a journeyman.

At that point you are able to pull permits and work on your own. So 3-5 years working as a full time electrician. They expect you to learn everything on the job and eventually take a test.

More time to get an electrician license than to become a licensed police officer (250 hours of academy training).

Sweet. All of that to legally change a dishwasher in my house.

So all of the people on this forum spouting off about "certified electricians" are either part of the electrician racket themselves or have 0 actual clue what they are talking about.

>That doesn't exist - anywhere! You need to follow the rules and the only way to make sure someone is doing things properly (or at least know how to) is either to have them be certified in what they do or have someone who is certified check their work.

Dude, trust me. Yes there are building and electrical codes. Many are written in blood. The perception that there is no implicit freedom to be found anywhere is unique to our internet worked world where you can pull the tail of the invisible cat and have it yowl at the inspector in short order.

What you are probably struggling with, is the concept of the Social Contract's primacy. There are those that believe what is allowed starts with a yes/no from the biggest baddest enforcer of their idea of the Social Contract. I call these folks Hobbesian. Then there are those who see the Social Contract itself as something subject to the independent acceptance in whole or in part by independent, free-thinking agents. I call these folks Locke-ian. They are famous for the intellectual fireworks that get set off if you lock them in a room together to settle their differences.

The reality is, the truth is something more akin to: let's implement paperwork and objective inspections so people have a safe recourse, but leave the door open for people to do what they want with things they own, and only argue about the more philosophical notes when there is a clear and present breach of decorum by one party or another.

This arrangement tends to keep both parties reasonably happy.

I honestly have no clue what you're on about. There's nothing philosophical about this discussion - it's entirely practical. We don't want to get hurt by other people's mistakes, therefore we don't let people do things where that is a possibility without training or supervision by someone who is trained. You do not have the freedom to do XYZ when society has decided that if you attempt to do XYZ, measures should be taken to stop and/or punish you. The fact that you have the ability to do XYZ and that the authorities we have delegated to ensure you don't do XYZ are doing their job well is entirely besides the point.

People don't want to get hit by a car, so we've collectively agreed to require that all drivers pass an exam that proves they know how to drive safely enough to bring the risk of them running someone over with a car to an acceptable level. The general freedom to drive a car does not exist - we've collectively limited it to only those individuals, who pass our standard. Similarly, everyone does not have the right to build their own airplanes and fly people around in them, because those people could get seriously hurt - we have limited that "freedom" to only people who have proven that they know enough about how to build and/or fly planes to, again, decrease that risk down to an acceptable level.

As a Kiwi I tend to see it more as common sense. What freedom does one have with half a house lying on top of them?

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