Electricians in Montgomery County, PA: local licenses, permits and checks
Updated · KeystoneProGuide editorial team
What should you know before hiring an electrician in Montgomery County?
That some townships here have examined and licensed electricians for decades. Pennsylvania has no state electrician license, but state law let local licensing standards for electricians that were in effect on July 1, 2009 stay in place, and Labor and Industry says such local requirements can only be confirmed with the municipality where the work will be done. Lower Merion is the clearest example in the county.
How does Lower Merion license electricians?
Through an examining board. The township's electrical code chapter, first adopted in 1975, sets up an Electrical Examining Board of five members, who may be electrical contractors, electrical engineers or trade school teachers. Anyone who wants to work as a master electrical contractor, journeyman or apprentice electrician applies to the board, which inquires into the applicant's knowledge before a license is issued. Licenses expire on December 31 of the year they are issued and must be renewed each December.
The chapter also creates a narrower grade, the "master electrician limited special", who may carry out repairs and replacement in a single-family house but not install new electrical service or equipment. If you are having a panel or service replaced in Lower Merion, ask whether the license held by the person in charge covers new service.
What does Lower Merion say about permits and inspections?
- Permits. No person may perform electrical work in the township without first obtaining a permit, and the application must give the name and address of whoever will do the work.
- What is exempt. Replacing light bulbs or fuses, other minor repair work, and plugging a portable appliance into an installed receptacle.
- Inspections. These are made by the township's code official, an approved inspecting agency, or both. When an agency inspects, its certificate of approval must reach the code official within 15 days of the work being finished, and a contractor with an overdue certificate cannot be issued another permit.
- Fees. The township keeps each inspecting agency's fee schedule on file for anyone to see, so you can check what the inspection part of a quote should cost.
Parts of the chapter are old; its definitions still name the 1993 edition of the National Electrical Code, while a later section adopts the newer ICC Electrical Code. Treat it as a guide to how the township works and confirm details with its building office. Other Montgomery County municipalities have their own rules, and Labor and Industry's municipal table gives each one's building code official.
What is Montgomery County's housing like?
Large and mixed. The Census Bureau counts 350,351 housing units, 26.1 percent of them in multi-unit buildings. It estimates that 16.0 percent were first built in 1939 or earlier, below the state's 25.0 percent, and 8.1 percent since 2010. The Electrical Safety Foundation dates knob-and-tube wiring to before 1940, so roughly one county home in six is old enough to have had it originally.
Most of the rest dates from the decades after the war, which include the years when, the Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates, 2 million homes nationwide were wired with aluminum (1965 to 1973). The Census pages read do not break the county's housing down by those years. The CPSC's test is simple: look for "Al" or "Aluminum" printed on cables in an unfinished basement, attic or garage, and leave the inside of the panel alone.
Heating is mostly gas, at 56.0 percent of occupied homes, with electricity at 27.4 percent and fuel oil at 14.5 percent.
What happened in the county's recent fraud case?
In March 2025 the Attorney General announced that a man was sentenced by a Montgomery County judge to three to six years in state prison for taking more than $156,000 from homeowners for work he did not finish. According to the office, he took payments up front while giving another contractor's license information and had no registration number of his own. The work was remodeling and roofing, not electrical. The lesson carries over: check that the registration number and any township license belong to the business named on your contract.
How do you check a contractor here?
The Attorney General says electrical contractors working on homes must register for jobs over $500. Its contractor search can be filtered to Montgomery County and electrical work. In a licensing township such as Lower Merion, ask the township to confirm the local license too. PECO lists Montgomery among its counties but does not say it serves every address, so check your bill before calling about a meter or service line.
What Pennsylvania requires of electricians has the state rules, and electricians serving the county are on the Montgomery County electricians page.
Sources
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- 2020-2024 ACS 5-Year Narrative Profile: Pennsylvania, U.S. Census Bureau
- Chapter 72: Electrical Standards, Township of Lower Merion (eCode360)
- Pottstown-Based Home Improvement Contractor Jailed at Least 3 Years for Taking More than $156K for Jobs he did not Complete, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
- Contractor Licensing, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
- Municipal Elections and Contact Information, Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry
- Frequently Asked Questions: Home Improvement Contractor Registration, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
- Home Improvement Contractor Search, Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General
- Understanding Your Home Electrical System, Electrical Safety Foundation International (ESFI)
- May Is National Electrical Safety Month: Good News for Homeowners - Aluminum Wiring Fix Still Available, U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
- Company Information, PECO