Ah. The incumbants have spoken.
I rest my case.
On what? I'm a licensed architect and a licensed building inspector. I've been in the profession for more than thirty years. It's difficult enough to get licensed electricians to do the work to code sometimes. Any time you get unlicensed people involved, it can be impossible. I know this to be fact ... I see it in the field on a regular basis. And I also know first-hand that it costs more to run the departement of building inspection in most municipalities than they take in in permit fees, so the argument that these laws are just to make money goes out the window.
What is the factual basis for your contention that inspections aren't necessary?
Here's an example: satellite television systems. A couple of years ago I changed from cable to satellite. I prewired my house and ran the antenna wires to the point on the exterior where the dish would be mounted, because I didn't want to see a bunch of spaghetti strung around the outside of the house.
So the first thing the installers wanted to do was string a bunch of spaghetti around the outside of the house, to bring a wire back to the electric meter downlead. They claimed it was "required" for grounding. I threw them off the property. The next day my boss and I called NFPA and talked to the man who wrote the "National Electric Code Handbook." He confirmed that satellite dish installations are covered by the code, so the installers should have taken out a permit (they never do). And he confirmed that, while grounding is required, the way the installers proposed to do it was NOT in compliance with the code. First, the length of wire would have been too long. Second, it would have included several 90-degree bends -- not allowed. Third, the point to which they proposed attaching the ground wire isn't even grounded on my house.
I went back and installed a compliant grounding system, then I called the company again and they sent a different crew. The second team actually knew their stuff, and they recognized immediately that the grounding system was done right. They were happy campers because it made their installation super easy -- it took them half the time they had figured and were able to go home early for the weekend. The first crew were subcontractors, who barely spoke English and who drove an unmarked pickup truck. The second crew arrived wearing company uniforms, in company vans.
