Repairing what isn’t broken: The City Council goes overboard in requiring plumbers for simple appliance installations

The cost of living is too high and the cost of housing is too high, so why do City Council members think it’s a good idea to make living in a home in New York City more expensive?

Exhibits A and B are two new Council bills that go too far. One, sponsored by Councilwoman Pierina Ana Sanchez of the Bronx, would expand the types of jobs for which a plumber is required to include installation of any “dishwasher, instant hot water dispenser, icemaker” or even “coffee machine.”

Countless New Yorkers go to P.C. Richard or Best Buy to get such appliances — or buy them online — then install them themselves or have the delivery person or a super do it. Requiring a licensed plumber will add costs, and this in a city that everyone already says is far too expensive to live in.

Some of the provisions in Sanchez’s bill make more sense, such as requiring strong oversight over any mucking around with natural gas piping. But appliance installation? Why not mandate a licensed electrician to plug in a hair dryer or turn on a light switch?

The second bill, proposed by Councilwoman Farah Louis of Brooklyn, requires “annual inspections of steam radiators located in apartments where a child under 6 resides and in the common areas of the buildings where such apartments are located.” Those inspections would have to be conducted by a master plumber or someone directly under their supervision.

To be sure, radiators in extremely rare cases can be dangerous. A Midwood, Brooklyn, infant died of steam inhalation and burns from a faulty radiator earlier this year. In 2016, two young children died in the Bronx after a radiator valve burned them with scalding steam. 

Still, this is a city where around four out of five buildings are heated with steam, with oversight already in place.

There’s nothing wrong with smartly calibrating additional checks, but why require the services of an expensive professional who can easily cost $100-$200 an hour? Building staff, who are already required to check for a host of problems, could also be required to look at radiators — and then bring in a plumber if they see something amiss.

Extend the logic of this legislation, and every single person who drives a car in the city should certainly be required to re-test for their license every year. After all, automobiles kill far more people, including children, than radiators.

A cautionary tale is a new Council law requiring annual inspection of building parapets, low walls that run along the edges of roofs. People have indeed been hurt by collapsing parapets and it’s better to prevent terrible things from happening when possible.

But in the wake of the law’s passage — and especially as the first deadline approaches on Jan. 1 — companies eager for business are scaring people with official-sounding proclamations that they may be violating the law and inviting fines. In fact, there’s no fine schedule yet, and sometimes the building owners being scared don’t even have parapets, they have decorative cornices. There’s been significant confusion.

Housing stock here is generally quite old. It’s right and proper for city government to require inspections for a whole range of hazards, which is precisely what the Department of Buildings already does. The list is worth adding to — but only when done right.