September-October 1999: An Inside Look at an Electrical Inspector's Job

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IAEI News>Issue Listing>September/October 1999 >An Inside Look at an Electrical Inspector's Job

An Inside Look at an Electrical Inspector's Job

Electrical Inspector Supervisor Lanny McMahill, of Phoenix, shares an inside look at an inspector's job. In Phoenix, a team of these city employees performs an estimated 110 inspections a day. Broken down, this workload amounts to each of the city's electrical inspectors averaging between 11 and 13 inspections daily.

by Jo-Ann Holstein. Reprinted with the permission of the Arizona Electric Times.

If you think you’re busy, you’re not alone. Put yourself in the shoes of a city of Phoenix electrical inspector. A team of these city employees perform an estimated 110 inspections a day, which customers have requested by phone. That number has risen during the last three years, according to Electrical Inspectors Supervisor Lanny McMahill. What’s more, it may actually be 10 to 15 percent higher, considering that often an inspector arrives to check a specific area and is asked to check additional areas while on-site.

Broken down, this workload amounts to each of the city’s electrical inspectors averaging between 11 and 13 inspections daily, McMahill said. The city currently has 11 electrical inspectors; two field supervisors; one electrical/sing inspector; and five annual facility plant inspectors, who work with large corporations such as American Express, Motorola, and Allied Signal on an ongoing basis. This team of inspectors covers the entire city of Phoenix, which the Development Services Department has broken into areas—north and south. Both areas have an assigned field supervisor who heads up a team of inspectors. Generally, this allows an inspector to consistently work in the same general area.

What does it take to be one of the city of Phoenix’s electrical inspectors—who are among the 150 site, mechanical, plumbing, structural, zoning and other inspectors in the Development Department?

McMahill said the city considers aspects such as number of years in the trade, formal training at nationally recognized institutions, apprenticeships and depth of experience. “There are two sides to the coin—formal training versus someone who has learned on their own,” he said. An inspector’s background can run the gamut from 5,000 to 6,000 hours of on-the-job training through a specialized school to someone who started in their father’s shop and went on to work in the field and learned on his own, McMahill pointed out.

“We’re looking for well-rounded individuals with good training and experience,” he said. Those individuals, if hired as one of the city’s electrical inspectors, then spend six-to-eight weeks riding along and training with field inspectors and supervisors before they begin making inspections on their own. Even after that point, new inspectors are closely monitored for 18 months afterwards.

“It’s a lot of on-the-job training,” McMahill noted. “You have to be fair, firm and willing to learn,” he added, noting he was an electrician for 17 years before joining the city’s inspection department and was “surprised at how much I didn’t know.”

“It’s not just the electrical portion. Often the job overlaps with structural, plumbing, zoning and other inspection areas and you need a bit of knowledge in those categories, too,” McMahill said. “A lot of issues come into play when you’re an electrical inspector.”

One of those issues is that electrical codes are continuously changing. Complicating this is the fact that various municipalities in the Valley of the Sun are under different codes. For example, Tempe, Glendale, or Mesa may be under the 1993, 1990 or 1987 code.

“There are always folks who aren’t involved in keeping updated. When codes change, there’s always a transition issue. We then have to take the leadership role and train people about the new codes and how to be compliant. It’s part of our job and an ongoing process,” McMahill said.

Part of that ongoing training includes the city’s outreach program, which recently involved a “one-on-one approach with the sign industry.” McMahill said presentations on how to be code compliant were given to sign contractors and installers, and resulted in more compliance and less “adversarial” relationship. According to him, similar training programs targeting other areas will be held in the future.

“Training is part of the inspection process,” McMahill said. “In the end, it makes it easier for everyone. We get the code compliance we need and the contractor saves time and money by passing inspection the first time.”

An Inspector’s Advice: Just Ask

You’ve got a job to do. But you’re not completely sure how to do it and still pass inspection. What do you do? Just ask, says city of Phoenix Electrical Inspectors Supervisor Lanny McMahill. “A lot of times, someone will go ahead and do the job, then find it doesn’t comply with Code. That’s why I always encourage people to ask first,” he said. Because codes vary from Tempe to Phoenix and other metro area cities, McMahill recommends contacting the appropriate city inspections department if you’re not sure of the code requirements.

At least one of those cities, the city of Phoenix, has taken steps to facilitate such contact. According to McMahill, the city has distributed the numbers to its inspectors’ cellular telephones to their customers. The inspectors also have voice-mail and carry pagers.

“We want to provide the necessary communication links. People need to stay current on codes, but when there’s doubt, the best bet is to just call and ask.”

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