City Council may consider liberalizing its regulations for licensing plumbers and electricians to encourage more competition in those trades, in hopes of reducing costs for builders and homeowners.

A couple of council members are also open to discussing whether to allow owner-occupants to do their own plumbing and electrical work, provided they obtain permits and submit to inspections.

“We’re going to look at our options to see if there’s a new balance we can strike between allowing qualified and skilled tradespeople to work, while continuing our responsibility (for) public safety,” said Rebecca Brown, director of the Department of Codes and Inspections.

Staff will begin by examining the licensing policies of other municipalities, City Manager Marla Marcinko said.

The issue came before council several months ago with a resolution to allow journeymen to qualify for masters testing sooner by supplementing their experience with overtime, but council tabled it for deeper discussion.

That discussion began at a work session last week.

During the meeting, council members brought up one case in which a plumber licensed in Johnstown and in business for himself was denied the opportunity to take a master’s test for Altoona, because he hadn’t worked as a journeyman under a master for the required two years.

Should the city prohibit established tradesmen with impressive resumes from trying for a license just because something is lacking in their experience, a council member asked.

Council members also brought up the frequent case of out-of-town tradesmen who obtain one-time licenses — the limit is one per year per tradesman — for particular jobs, most of which involve building local outlets for large restaurant or retail chains.

A member asked if the city prohibits such obviously qualified tradesmen from seeking licenses to set up businesses here.

Safety measure

In Altoona, only licensed master plumbers and electricians can obtain permits for most plumbing and electrical work, although owner-occupants can re­place water service lines or water heaters, provided they obtain permits for service lines, Brown said.

To become a master and qualify for a license in Altoona requires four years as an apprentice under a master, successful completion of the journeyman test, then two years as a journeyman under a master, followed by successful completion of the master’s test — with permission needed from the city’s Plumbing and Electrical boards to take those tests, according to Brown.

There are 82 plumbers and 101 electricians currently licensed by Altoona, Brown said.

“Safety was and remains the sole reason for the requirement that only qualified, licensed tradesmen conduct work to the mechanics of buildings in our city,” states a memo distributed to council members at the meeting. “Requiring licensing is not a money-maker for a municipality; it is an educational mechanism for an individual to learn a trade and conduct work in a responsible, safe and regulated manner.”

Those safety concerns are especially important for Altoona, because much of the city’s housing is old — 100 years or more — built of wood and other flammable materials and close together, according to the memo.

Dangers from badly installed plumbing include the potential for backflow contamination of the city’s water system, mold from leaks, sewer gas from improperly constructed drains or vents and pathogens in sewer effluent that leaks or backs up through drains, according to officials, tradesmen and online sources.

The main dangers from badly installed electrical components are fire and shock.

Competition lacking

It’s critical to maintain some kind of quality assurance, because some people will cut corners if they can, Marcinko said.

But there’s not much competition in the trades within the city, said Councilman Matt Cacciotti, a contractor.

When Cacciotti needs to hire a plumbing or electrical subcontractor and doesn’t like the quoted price, the response sometimes is, “if you don’t like it, try to find someone else,” Cacciotti said.

More licensees leading to more competition could bring down the price and help the public, Cacciotti said.

Licensing of tradesmen has value, according to Ed Cardy, a vice president in the Erie office of Building In­spection Underwriters of Penn­sylvania and a former director of Altoona’s De­part­ment of Codes and In­spections.

It tends to boost workmanship standards, and the experience guidelines help generate tradesmen who have a lifetime commitment and take pride in their work, Cardy said.

Still, Altoona might benefit by relaxing the experience requirements, he suggested.

It certainly wouldn’t make sense to scrap them altogether, as a good test-taker who doesn’t know which end of a pipe wrench to use might be able to pass a master’s exam, he said.

But it might help to make them more subjective, while fortifying efforts on the post-licensing end, Cardy suggested.

Instead of the strict requirement that a journeyman work for two years under a master, for example, the city could give its Plumbing and Electrical boards the responsibility for evaluating what the applicant has done, like businesses evaluate job applicants’ resumes, Cardy said.

The city could counterbalance this concession with closer monitoring of li­cen­sees’ performances — may­be by adding a requirement for recertification every two or four years, coupled with questioning about failed inspections and about complaints from contractors and homeowners, Cardy said.

“It’s a two-tiered ap­proach,” Cardy said.

“It’s something a lot of people have wanted,” said Tom Schultz, a retired journeyman electrician and member of the Electrical Examiners Board, regarding the proposal to relax the rules. “It could be bad, and it could be good.”

“I guess I could see that side (for relaxing the rules),” said Mike Seidel, a master plumber and member of the Plumbing Board. “But (those rules) were put in place for a reason.”

Most license applicants already licensed in big cities would probably exceed the minimum requirements for Altoona, Seidel said.

But that might not be the case with a licensee from a small town, he said.

Cacciotti would like to see the rules adjusted.

“We should definitely make it easier,” Mayor Matt Pacifico said.

“I’m interested in making it more competitive, but keeping it safe,” said Councilman Erik Cagle.

Unlicensed work

If the changes are fair, there may be less “under-the-radar” work, Council­man Dave Butterbaugh said.

Such under-the-table work is “reality,” Butter­baugh said.

It’s a reality that has been increasing in the absence in recent years of in-house plumbing and electrical inspectors in Altoona, a reality that has generated complaints from tradesmen who are unlicensed, the memo indicated.

The third-party inspectors the city uses also serve other municipalities and simply don’t have the time to “patrol the city for unpermitted work,” the memo states.

Presumably, if the city relaxed its licensing standards, some of those unlicensed practitioners might obtain licenses, which would likely mean the work they performed would be inspected, thus improving safety in the city.

The city needs to find the right “balance,” so the regulations work to maximum benefit, Butterbaugh said.

“We need to find the right place to be,” he said.

Owner-occupant issue

Generally, council members, however, seemed to shy away from the idea of allowing owner-occupants to do plumbing and electrical work in their places of residence.

After the meeting, however, Butterbaugh and Cac­ciotti said they’d be willing to talk about it, at least.

That change “could be viable if we could somehow be assured homeowners would obtain permits,” so their work would be in­spected, the memo states.

Permission for homeowner trades work is not uncommon:

Among 10 Pennsylvania cities listed in a chart in the memo, Allentown and Lan­caster permit homeowners to do plumbing work, New Castle permits them to do some plumbing work and Harrisburg permits it if the homeowner takes an exam.

Among those same 10 cities, Allentown, Easton, Erie, Lancaster, Williams­port and York permit homeowners to do electrical work, while New Castle permits them to do some electrical work and Harrisburg permits it with an exam.

One drawback with allowing homeowners to do such work in Altoona would be the current lack of in-house plumbing and electrical inspectors, according to the memo.

That’s a problem because letting homeowner do plumbing and electrical work requires direction, advice and answers to questions, along with more frequent home visits, the memo states.

The third-party inspector the city uses lacks the wherewithal to provide such help, being “only available by telephone for one hour each morning” — mainly for scheduling purposes, the memo states.

Actually, the city’s policy of prohibiting trade work by owner-occupants where there is no business interest involved — the property isn’t being rented out — has been deemed illegal by courts in some jurisdictions, according to Cardy.

The prohibition can lead to irony, he said.

Cardy is certified in plumb­ing and electrical work, but if he returned to Altoona and bought a house, he’d be prohibited from doing work in that house — even though, if he had his old job back, he might be in a position to inspect that same work, he said.

Allowing owner-occupied plumbing and electrical work would more likely im­prove, rather than compromise safety, because homeowners tempted to do the work on their own — to exercise their abilities, test themselves or save money — would be able to pull a permit and get it inspected, an option they currently don’t have, according to Cardy.

Almost invariably, homeowners would take care not to do shoddy work in their own places, Cardy said.

Plus, any good inspector would be able to detect problems, he said.

If the homeowner is simply incapable, he would need to hire a contractor to finish, Cardy said.

Seidel also doesn’t have a problem with letting owner-occupants work in their own homes, provided they’re willing to pay the cost of obtaining a permit.

“People are already doing it (illegally),” he said.

“People may view our licensing as ‘over-regulating,'” the memo states. “But regulations aren’t a bad thing, when it comes to public safety.”

The issues need more discussion, Pacifico said.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 949-7038.