03-09-2026, 11:09 PM
I was told that building to code was doing just the bare minimum. I hear ya on the inspection side. When I wired up my electrical panel for a generator hookup, I actually reached out to our building inspector with two different interlocks I was looking at. One had a UL listing and the other didn't. He said either would be fine, I went with the UL listed one despite it being a bit more, but figured on the insurance side of things, that one would probably save my butt. So I put in the new breaker, having to shift all the other breakers down two slots. While in there, I neatened up all the wiring with that little touch of OCD. Printed up a new breaker room list, labeled all the important breakers with red and the rest with white labels. Pretty proud of myself. Put up a new board to mount my meters, GFI outlet, and the conduit. Inspection day comes and the inspector takes a look. Asked one question about labeling the panel and breakers before he opened the door which was immediately answered when he looked at it. I then asked him if he wanted me to unscrew the panel so he can inspect the breakers. Nope. "I trust you". Damnit! I worked hard on this! I wanted him to see it. It does give me that bit of a confidence boost that I'm not a total idiot and I know what I'm doing. But that's one of the nice things I like about this state, the homeowner is allowed to do all of their own work without requiring a contractor. VT is going to be even more interesting since they're like "We're not going to scrutinize whatever it is you're building, just make sure it doesn't kill anyone"...