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Residential Electrical Inspectorl Certification and qualification

J

joetheinspector

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Joined
Jan 1, 2010
Messages
152
I am going to start studying for my residential electrical inspector certification. My background is in general building. any suggestions on what to study for the test?

Any suggestions on what to study to know how to be a good inspector?
 
ICC has online training that helps to point you in the right direction. That being said, I took mine under the Uniform codes, so it was everything. Now, for residential electrical, I would toss the NEC and only concentrate on the IRC, way easier to navigate for a test. To gain inspection knowledge..........find a Master Electrician with about 20 years experience, hopefully running his own company, or was with the same company for that amount of time............helped me a bunch................, and Index.......Table of Contents
 
Greetings,

I have several tricks I've devised for marking my books. One of them is that I go throught whatever material (books) allowed in the tests and with a pen, circle every number of numerical value. Some pages may have a lot of circles but that's ok. All of the ICC tests I've taken will have a large amount of questions with a number for the answer as in percentages, measurements, etc. When scanning a page looking for a number it helps to not have to read everything else. It kinda messes up the book a bit but that's ok by me. You might try it with an old code book you don't use and see how it works. Works great for me!

BSSTG
 
BSSTG,

I did the same thing except I used a hi-lighter.
 
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BSSTG AND Ice

Very interesting strategy. I have taken a few ICC certification test and passed most of them and all of them eventually. I have never tried your strategy, However, I will try it out. I will have to let you know how it works out.

THANKS for the info
 
I have the same background as you and the parts of Residential Inspector I didn't know had to do with sizing and wiring methods. Just not stuff I had ever used even as a residential inspector, might use it more if we had a plan review for electrical.
 
Yep

The way my brain works, I need to compartmentalize (if that's a word). I use several colors of hilighters and then circle all of the numerical values. Although I use several colors of hi lighters, I don't use them a lot. I will use one color for key words, another for key topics, etc. That way when I'm scanning the book for an answer I have some direction. An example would be the recent Tx Residential Accessiblity Specialist test I took. In the book I hilighted with one color the references to historical buildings with which I had difficulty understanding the scoping requirements, what was exempt, etc. Sure nuff, there were questions on the test that dealt with historical bldgs and I was able access the answers quickly. Passed the test too, whoop for that. I've probably taken about 40-50 code tests over the last 30 years and I've learned what works best for me. BTW, I've passed almost all of them the 1st time. The exception to that was the Houston Master Electrician test which I finally passed in March of '89 after about 5 attempts. That was a long drawn out slugfest!

Bottom line is work on a system that works for you. Devise a system of marking your books. Don't mark them too much, that can be counterproductive IMHO.

BS
 
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