By Mark Waite

Valley Electric Association customers, roughly 17,000 of them, received letters this week assuring them the VEA solar hot water heater program was safe and built to code.

The letters appear to put the Pahrump Valley Times in hot water for printing comments by a former county official objecting to Nye County passing a resolution waiving the usual inspection and permits required to install each unit.

Valley Electric has installed more than 650 of the solar hot water heaters. The VEA program saves members from having to buy the solar hot water heater systems outright themselves, customers then pay off the monthly installments over 15 years with savings on their electric bill.

VEA states it has complied with all applicable laws, code provisions and ordinances on the solar hot water heater program. It states the co-op met or exceeded all local, state and federal safety guidelines.

The letter goes on to state all installations are inspected by the State of Nevada Manufactured Housing Division, the Nye County Building and Safety Department or the general contractor. It adds the general contractor and plumbing subcontractor are both licensed and certified. VEA partnered with Great Basin College and Rheem Manufacturing to develop a training program for installers.

Pahrump Senior Building Inspector Brent Steed said the Manufactured Housing Division would inspect solar hot water heaters in mobile homes. But when asked how many he personally inspected, Steed said, “we have inspected very few. They do their own.”

General contractor Tom Laskowski provides information to the county building and safety department on the inspections, Steed said.

“The ones that we’ve looked at in this program have all met code,” Steed said.

Houses built before a certain date do not require Pahrump Building and Safety to inspect the installations, he said.

“In October of ’98, we took out permits for buildings at that time. Anything before then is not required to have a permit and most of these structures are going into buildings that were built before then,” Steed said.

VEA officials and Nye County Planning locked horns in a confrontational meeting in October 2009 over a notification each unit would have to be inspected and a permit fee paid. Steed said his company, Charles Abbott and Associates, reduced the price for each permit and inspection from $650 to $425, although if only a hot water heater was replaced the fee would be only $75.

Dick Johnson, former Nye County director of building safety and code compliance, said the county commission passed a resolution allowing a streamlined inspection, reporting and a self-certification process, however an ordinance was needed to change the building code. While the county commission could pass an ordinance to make the change, Johnson said that would put Pahrump out of a standardized building code used in Las Vegas, Boulder City, Henderson and Mesquite.

“It’s like allowing the builder that built your home to inspect it,” Johnson said.

The streamlined program also discriminates in favor of one contractor, he said. Anyone wanting to install a solar hot water system outside of the VEA program would have to pay for an inspection and a permit.

“The building code says everybody has to be offered the same opportunity,” Johnson said.

Nye County planners, in conjunction with a grant writing consultant, obtained a $185,700 Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant in December 2009 that was supposed to be used to pay for inspections of the solar hot water heaters, Johnson said. That would’ve paid for 437 inspections and permits at $425 apiece. Instead, the money was used by Nye County to retrofit the Marilyn Gallivan building, which houses the planning department and to seek bids for installing a solar, photovoltaic system at the new county administration building on the Calvada Eye.

The VEA letter to its members, signed by Chief Executive Officer Tom Husted, lists Nevada Revised Statue 244.3675 which gives the Board of County Commissioners power to regulate all matters relating to the construction, maintenance and safety of buildings, structures and property within the county.

VEA also cites NRS 278.580, which supports county initiatives to amend code provisions to allow for the installation of systems that promote renewable energy.

NRS 278.580 allows a governing body to amend its building codes to permit “systems which use solar or wind energy to reduce the costs of energy for a structure if such systems and structures are otherwise in compliance with applicable building codes and zoning ordinances.” It allows amendments to the building code for the “recognition of any impediments to the development of systems using solar and wind energy.”

Husted’s letter concludes: “Simply put, VEA is confident that the appropriate measures are in place to protect the safety of all participants in this program.”

When contacted Wednesday, Husted referred to the letter and didn’t want to engage in a discussion in the newspaper.

The hot water heater program drew widespread praise when it was launched in 2009. Actor Ed Begley Jr., star of the Planet Green show “Living With Ed,” praised “this wonderful solar thermal system” during a visit to the VEA Renewable Energy Symposium that year. Begley promoted the low $50 down payment and predicted customers would save more than the $21 monthly installment on their electric bill.