The Manufactured Housing Forums

I have purchased a home that has fire damage to the master bed and bath. The circuit box is not in either room and suffered no damage. The rest of the home has conciderable smoke damage but nothing else. The problem is that when I contacted code enforcement (Elkhart,IN) I was basically told, that as long as the main box and wires are not damaged (which they are not,the fire was contained by the drywall) all I need to do is replace all the recepts and switches and have it inspected. I contacted the C.E. suggested electrician to check the main box and he commenced to tell me that I would have to pay him to replace the recepts and switches and have to pay him for all the materials and an expensive permit. By what he told me if I ever need to have anything done to the electrical ie. bad outlet or switch I would have to hire him and pay for another expensive permit. All of which he would cover and just bill me. I don't uderstan, according to him the replacement of a bad light switch would cost close to $100. If that is the case why is all the materials so readily available to the public and not just to contractors?

Just for the record I received an estimate from the electrician, $1300! I contacted another company and after they looked at the trailer I was told for $75 dollars an hour they could send someone to do the work. On the other hand if I wanted to replace all the fixtures they would charge me $75 dollars to inspect and ok the electrical hook up. So, I guess all I can say is ALWAYS get a second, third and even fourth opinion. Remember there will always be crooks out there.

You're certainly not beholden to any contractor to continue hiring him to do the work, even if he did it the first time.
As for him being required to replace the recepticles and switches, a strict interpretation of the NEC says ONLY a licensed electrician can do this work, even replacing a light bulb could be considered electrical work.

But local codes prevail, and most allow homeowners to do at least some of their own work to their own home. Some even allow you to do all of it as long as it gets inspected. You don't generally need a permit to repair existing systems but again, this varies with what it is. If your local inspector is saying it just needs inspecting, you might ask what they will be inspecting. He may for example, want to see the electrical after you've removed the old drywall and before you replace it with new to verifiy that the electrical behind it received no damage.

Can't imagine having to get a permit and inspection to replace a light switch, so there are probably other issues.

I've worked electrical rough wire and electrical hookup at several MH plants and in every plant I worked there was not one licensed electrician on the payroll. My brother works for Sterling (formerly Hart Housing, now owned by Forest River) and he said the only licensed electrician is the shop maintenence man, and he doesn't have anything to do with the building of the units. According to the NEC codes then the majority of MH's are not legally built. We would have high school kids on thier first jobs running wires and hooking up recepts and switches. Most of the people doing the work had no idea what the codes are. And the inspectors on the line usually only know the basics. As long as everything worked and the "High Pot " test showed no shorts everything was fine. As for the home I have I will have the damaged area completely gutted and all wires will be exposed. The remainder of the home just suffered smoke damage and I plan to replace all fixtures and clean out the soot and cardon (if any) that may have gotten in the boxes. It's just very confusing on the codes and regulations and I wanted to make sure I wasn't breaking any rules.

New switches and outlets are dirt cheap, on the order of less than .40 each at Home Depot or Lowe's. And changing them is not difficult at all. If you're not entirely sure how to do it, simply ask them and they'll tell you. I'm not one to promote working on an aspect of the house that you're not comfortable with, but trust me, replacing electrical outlets & switches is a piece of cake. Just make sure the breaker is turned off for the particular circuit you're working on. Assuming for conversation's sake that the bedroom has 5 outlets and 1 lightswitch, and the bath has 1 GFI outlet and 2 switches, the entire project (including new cover plates) you'll be around twenty bucks. The bulk of the cost would be from a GFI outlet, which would run about $12. Be sure to replace the GFI outlet with another GFI outlet if it's got one. If not, then it's probably GFI protected from another source (likely the main bath). If your master bath has a GFI outlet and the main bath does not, then the main bath is probably GFI protected from the GFI in the master bath. This is very common practice, since GFI outlets are somewhat pricy.