(Radio Iowa) – The National Electrical Manufacturers Association is calling on Governor Reynolds to item veto a proposal added to a budget bill that would change building codes for homes, duplexes and townhouses. Representative Jeff Cooling, a Democrat from Cedar Rapids who’s an electrician, says the building code currently requires electrical outlets to be at least three feet away from a bathtub or shower.
“This would shrink that to right up to the edge, right outside your shower or bathroom stall,” Cooling said. “…We obviously know that is a danger.” Cooling says ground-fault circuit interrupters would no longer be required on kitchen counters if the proposal becomes law. “Your ground fault circuit interrupter…that protects you and your family from electric shock,” Cooling said. “…The language here would put you and your family and our constituents at risk.”
Cooling says in an average 200-thousand dollar house, it costs about eight-hundred dollars to install these measures that protect against electrical malfunctions. “It actually keeps the affordability better because the person isn’t going to be seriously injured or pass away, their house is not going to burn down,” Cooling said. “It’s then safe for the next family and the next family that moves in for generations.”
Senator Tom Townsend, a Democrat from Dubuque, has been a licensed electrician for over 30 years. He’s concerned the proposal says ground fault interrupters will not be required in electrical outlets in new homes with unfinished basements. “The water doesn’t care if your basement is finished or not,” Townsend said. “…A good friend of mine that I went to high school with…had water in his basement during a huge rainstorm, walks down the steps to see what’s going on with his sump pump, gets electrocuted and he gets killed, so this isn’t just something I’m making up. It happens. I know someone it happened to.”
Senator Scott Webster, a Republican from Bettendorf who is a home-builder, says four years ago none of these requirements were in Iowa’s building code, but interest groups pushed them back in. “I’m tired of people profiting off the name of safety and saying, ‘It’s safer! It’s safer! It’s safer!'” Webster said. “At some point we have to make it affordable to live in this state and build a house in this country.”
Webster says he’s not going to apologize for making a new home more affordable. “This particular bill was vetting by electricians. ABC of Iowa was in the room, all the time. We had home-builders who build houses in the room. We had the Realtors Association. None of these people want to build homes that are dangerous,” Webster said. “It’s insulting to me that somebody would think that or say that.”
The proposal is included in a huge catch-all bill that was the last piece of legislation that cleared the House and Senate this year. Governor Reynolds has until early June to sign or veto all the bills passed by the legislature.
