NYC Council Passes Bill Raising Cost of Gas Appliances

12 minutes read

It’s not actually called the Plumber Employment Act. But it should be.

What other rationale could the City Council have for passing a bill on Thursday requiring a master plumber for basic installations of gas stoves and dryers?

The legislation could also be called the Keep Your Old Appliances Act.

A basic rule of economics is that if you make something more expensive, you get less of it. Requiring a master plumber or specially qualified installers to put in a gas stove or dryer will add hundreds of dollars to the cost. As a result, landlords and homeowners will hold on to their old appliances longer.

If anything, Intro 429-A will make New York more dangerous. Old gas stoves pollute indoor air and make people sick. Lint can build up in old dryers and vents, creating a fire hazard. The Council should be incentivizing replacement of old appliances, not discouraging them by dramatically raising installation costs.

The sponsor of the bill, Bronx Council member Pierina Ana Sanchez, justified it by pointing to an illegal gas hookup that led to an East Village explosion in 2015.

But that tragedy was caused by amateurs running pipes from one building to another, not a standard stove or dryer installation that requires no piping to be moved. The city has already responded to the 2015 explosion by passing Local Law 152 of 2016, which mandates that multifamily buildings’ gas pipes be checked by a master plumber every four years.

Sanchez’s bill appears to drastically raise the usual $600 cost of those inspections by expanding them to include the “point of connection” to every gas appliance. It seems to me that instead of just popping in and out of the cellar, the master plumber would have to go into apartments and pull out every gas stove and dryer to check the connection.

However, a spokesperson for Sanchez said an exception was added to the bill to ensure it would not require inspection of appliances and piping within dwelling units.

To my knowledge, no tragedies have ever happened in New York City as a result of a standard stove or dryer replacement. These have generally been handled by a two-person crew that delivers appliances ordered from retailers such as PC Richard or AJ Madison.

Now, crews will deliver, but not install, gas appliances; customers will have to find a master plumber on their own.

I don’t see how delivery crews will be able to haul off old appliances without disconnecting them from the gas valve, which would appear to violate this new law. So even replacing a gas unit with an electric one would require a master plumber.

Think of how many thousands of basic appliance replacements have been made without a single one causing an explosion. What problem is Sanchez trying to solve, other than the potential lack of an endorsement by Plumbers Local No. 1 for her future political campaigns? The union pushed relentlessly for the bill, as did the Plumbing Foundation of New York City and Master Plumbers Council.

Sanchez knows that Mayor Eric Adams, who is making a desperate bid for re-election and welcomes union endorsements, is unlikely to veto the bill. But he should, because it increases costs. Also, his own Department of Buildings testified against provisions of the bill and has pointed out that only 1,100 master plumbers exist in a city of 8.6 million people. Why divert them to simple tasks?

Incredibly, Sanchez claims her bill is merely a “clarification” that “makes explicit what has long been practice.” What city has she been living in? In the Real World, gas appliances have routinely been replaced by people who are not licensed master plumbers.

It could have been worse. Sanchez’s original Intro 429 called for a licensed plumber to install dishwashers, garbage disposers and refrigerators with icemakers. These are also routinely installed without issue by appliance delivery people. The Real Estate Board of New York, as well as condominium and co-op interests, lobbied to narrow the bill’s scope.

Meanwhile, a similar battle lies ahead for the industry.

Council member Farah Louis has a bill requiring owners of multiple dwellings to have a licensed master plumber annually inspect all steam radiators in units with children under 6.

Louis is responding to the death of an 11-month-old in her Brooklyn district. But her bill would impose a great cost on multifamily buildings, raising rents. And it likely would not prevent any deaths, as steam radiators are already inspected regularly and tragedies like the one in Midwood are exceedingly rare.

This article was updated to include a response from Council member Sanchez about how her bill would affect Local Law 152 inspections.