Electricians in Bucks County, PA: permits, inspections and older wiring
Updated · KeystoneProGuide editorial team
What should you know before hiring an electrician in Bucks County?
That the rules change at the township line. Pennsylvania has no state electrician license, and the Department of Labor and Industry says any local licensing can only be learned from the municipality where the work will be done. The electrical permit comes from your township or borough, and two Bucks townships show how far apart the arrangements can be.
How do electrical inspections work in Bucks townships?
Differently from one township to the next.
- Newtown Township says that since January 1, 2023 it completes all electrical inspections as part of its own permit process, so a project no longer needs a separate review by an electrical underwriter. It lists electric work among jobs that need a permit, and residential low-voltage communications wiring among those that do not. Its codes office is on 215-968-2800.
- Nockamixon Township takes the opposite approach. It says applicants must hire a third-party electrical underwriter licensed in Pennsylvania for the rough and final electrical inspections and hand the inspection cards to the township code official. It also has a separate generator permit application, and notes that its code officials are part-time.
So in one township the inspection comes with the permit fee, and in another the homeowner or electrician arranges and pays an outside agency. Ask which applies before you compare quotes, because one electrician may have priced the agency's visits in and another may not. Labor and Industry's municipal table lists each Bucks municipality with its building code official's contact details.
How old is the wiring likely to be?
Mostly postwar. The Census Bureau estimates that only 9.9 percent of the county's 257,260 housing units were first built in 1939 or earlier, against 25.0 percent statewide, and that 5.7 percent were built since 2010. The Electrical Safety Foundation dates knob-and-tube wiring to the 1800s through the 1930s, so in Bucks that system is the exception rather than the rule.
The decades in between are where the county's housing sits, and they include the years when aluminum branch wiring was used. The Consumer Product Safety Commission estimated that 2 million homes were wired with aluminum between 1965 and 1973. The Census pages do not say how many Bucks homes were built in those years, so the only way to know about your own is to look: the CPSC says the cable sheathing in an unfinished basement, attic or garage will be marked "Al" or "Aluminum" every few feet.
Why does heating matter to an electrician here?
Because electricity heats a large share of Bucks homes. The Census Bureau puts electricity as the main heating fuel in 30.9 percent of the county's 249,187 occupied homes, against 25.3 percent for the state, and fuel oil in another 23.6 percent. In an all-electric house, a winter outage takes the heat with it, and that is when portable generators come out. The CPSC says an average of nearly 100 people a year in the U.S. die of carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators, and that they belong outside, at least 20 feet from the house. Connecting one to the house wiring is a job for a transfer switch installed by an electrician, and in Nockamixon, at least, a permit application of its own.
PECO lists Bucks among the counties it serves, but its page does not say it serves every address in each county, so check the name on your bill before you call about an outage or a new service.
How do you check a contractor in Bucks?
Two ways. For the state registration that most electrical contractors working on homes must hold, the Attorney General's contractor search can be filtered to Bucks County and to the "Electrical" type of work, though the office warns that the type-of-work field is new and incomplete. For a local license, ask your township.
If a job goes wrong, the county has its own office. Bucks County Consumer Protection says it mediates complaints against businesses inside or outside the county, and the problems it lists include false statements that repairs are needed and incomplete or unsatisfactory home repairs. With 77.8 percent of the county's occupied homes owner-occupied, most households here hire and deal with contractors themselves.
What Pennsylvania requires of electricians covers the state law, and electricians serving the county are on the Bucks County electricians page.
Sources
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Bucks County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- Township Building Permits & Related Forms, Newtown Township
- Permits & Forms, Nockamixon Township
- Consumer Protection/ Weights & Measures, Bucks County
- Home Improvement Contractor Search, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
- Contractor Licensing, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
- Municipal Elections and Contact Information, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
- May Is National Electrical Safety Month: Good News for Homeowners - Aluminum Wiring Fix Still Available, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
- Understanding Your Home Electrical System, Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI)
- Winter Storm May Knock Out Power; CPSC Warns of Deadly Carbon Monoxide and Fire Risks, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
- Company Information, PECO