Playing with Electricity

Electrical work is never simple.

Sorting out the myriad variations on electrical licensing, training and qualifications can be next to impossible. Some states require licensing for electricians, including a two-year apprentice and journeyman program, while other states do not require any licensing.

Some states require "high-voltage" electricians to be licensed, while allowing "low-voltage" integrators to work without a license or training. And other states require both electricians and low-voltage integrators to be trained and licensed.

Companies also vary in how they work with electricians and low-voltage integrators -- while some have both on staff, others contract the work out, and still others don't see the distinction.

There's a reason for all this madness: demand.

With the increased business in structured cabling and voice data video (V/D/V), the distinctions -- high and low -- have gradually grown into two industries.

The low-voltage industry is growing by leaps and bounds due to the commercial demand for high-speed cabling for V/D/V applications.

NEC (National Electric Code) Digest reports on findings from the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA), which discovered that over the 2004-2007 period, the U.S. telecommunications industry will increase at a projected 9.2 percent compound annual rate rising to $1 trillion, while industry estimates place the value of the global structured cabling market at more than $4 billion.

NEC Digest also reports that two-thirds of electrical contractors are involved in various aspects of the low-voltage V/D/V market, including network cabling, CCTV, security/fire/life safety, access control, fiber optics or residential networking.

According to the National Electrical Contractors Association's (NECA) 2002 survey, 72 percent of all electrical contractors do data communications installation work, and 58 percent of the firms install fire/life safety systems.

According to other reports, low-voltage electronics V/D/V is the fastest growing segment of an electrician's business. The average electrician does $175,000 in low-voltage work per year.

Tale of Two Industries

Originally, there was only one electrical industry, not two distinct categories.

S&S Electric's history dates back to 1947, a time when electrical work was plain and simple. Shawn Smith, vice president of the Oldsmar, Fla.-based company, points out that the industry did not initially distinguish.

His grandfather, an electronics repairman, had a passion for wiring homes. The low-voltage work he did in the early years was done in commercial projects and not in the residential sector.

"We were doing low-voltage work before it was known as low-voltage work," says Smith. "We have always just considered it electrical work."

Starting in the 1980s, the demand increased for residential wiring for A/V, and the low-voltage industry began to take shape. Smith saw the work in front of him but didn't jump in right away.

"As electrical contractors, we were unsuccessful at defining our industry, so we let the alarm industry define it for us," he says.

"We quickly began losing more and more work to the alarm contractors. As they started to spread propaganda that electricians were unqualified to install low-voltage (at the time it wasn't much more then telephone, television and intercoms), many in our industry began to believe it. Other electricians considered low-voltage work to be beneath them and gladly gave it up to the alarm guys."

It was in 1998 when S&S Electric began to take the low-voltage industry seriously. "Enough was enough," says Smith.

"There was no reason for our customers [the production homebuilder] to have two or three different sub-contractors (electrician, alarm contractor and A/V installer) in their homes installing cable."