ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion NEC & other Code issues Bummer Plumber

This week I was invited to an elderly lady's home to address the items on her home inpectors list that she had recieved during the sale of the residence.

One item that she had had done was to yank the old steam radiators for baseboard hot H2O

During the inital walk thru, I noted that most of the 10" to center older receptacles were 1/2 covered by the new baseboard which is appox. 8" high. Assuming some sort of explanation i made light of this.

In confronting the plumber ( without the customer's presence) as to the 'fix' here I recieved nothing but sour grapes, absolutley no remorse or regrets for his actions. He would not remove his baseboard, or be involved in any other action to make ammends, claiming he was there 'on estimate'.

The kicker was , that being a two family ( rentals are inspected here) I informed him that there would be an inspection, and it may be an issue.

He immediatly packed up his truck, told the old lady he could not work with me, and left!

Good for you and her!!!

well yes, but he's comming back when i'm not around to finish. i've been asked to raise, or 'turn on it's side' the receptacles here.
the baseboard sheet metal will need to move to do this. the older metal boxes are secured by 4 screws, 2 up, 2 down, the later 2 will be inaccessable. if the wire comes from below there may be no way to move the box up at all. this is all old ungrounded BX or cloth & tar nm, so if there is an incident that requires servicing of said receptacles the entire circuit may need to be abandonded due to lack of access, and this older home has too few circuits as it is. In the long run, i really feel this fool has done this lady wrong.

Recomend you call the electrical inspector ask him to bring along the plumbing inspector. Sounds like this could by a real fight for someone. Hope you have a strong inspection authority there. What you describe is just flat wrong. If the plumber knew this would happen, he should have made prior arrangements to get the outlets moved. If he found out after installing the first one he should have called then.