absolutely, you nailed it! "collegy" engineers don't know a damn thing about safety in the home, and what causes electrical fires. They know kinda ("resistance results in heat") but they don't know specifically a zillion little gotchas that have killed thousands of people in electrical fires.
if you want to cut a hole in your wall to put in a window, it could be as easy as cutting a hole and putting in a window. Or, it could be that it's a "load bearing" wall, and you need to put a wide I-beam over the new window to safely redistribute/bear the load that the formerly intact wall was carrying. Or, you could have chosen a spot on the wall that has a column/pillar that's holding the roof up. Probably you'd choose a different spot, but if wanted that spot you could hire some engineers to figure out a new set of "cantilevers" or "flying buttresses" or (i'm not this type of engineer, I'm just throwing around words).
As the work you do becomes more and more dangerous to more and more people, you need somebody with higher levels of certification/licensure to approve the plan.
an electrician, who has a license, is not an engineer, but a good electrician could become one if she wanted, it would require study and exam passing. Some electrical work an electrician is allowed to do, they can "self certify", but the city might spot inspect it. The next level of complexity they perform the work, but a building inspector needs to inspect. The next level of complexity, the plans need to be certified and approved in advance.
I'm sort of making this up, piecing it together how steam fitting is done (that's mechanical engineering), how air handling is done (also mechanical engineering), plumbing, etc. But this is the general scheme.
some of this is legacy disputes left over from the 19th century. When they were inventing electrical circuits, everybody was an engineer and everybody could do everything, and people just invented stuff on the spot and tried it. After enough people died, it was decided we needed standards. And slowly a white collar/blue collar sort of distinction started to emerge, for work that required calculus vs work that requires knowledge of lots of specific requirements.
Calculus people design cars and planes with smooth sleek shapes, but those items can't be constructed without the other type of engineer saying "hey, that's not strong enough"
if you want to cut a hole in your wall to put in a window, it could be as easy as cutting a hole and putting in a window. Or, it could be that it's a "load bearing" wall, and you need to put a wide I-beam over the new window to safely redistribute/bear the load that the formerly intact wall was carrying. Or, you could have chosen a spot on the wall that has a column/pillar that's holding the roof up. Probably you'd choose a different spot, but if wanted that spot you could hire some engineers to figure out a new set of "cantilevers" or "flying buttresses" or (i'm not this type of engineer, I'm just throwing around words).
As the work you do becomes more and more dangerous to more and more people, you need somebody with higher levels of certification/licensure to approve the plan.
an electrician, who has a license, is not an engineer, but a good electrician could become one if she wanted, it would require study and exam passing. Some electrical work an electrician is allowed to do, they can "self certify", but the city might spot inspect it. The next level of complexity they perform the work, but a building inspector needs to inspect. The next level of complexity, the plans need to be certified and approved in advance.
I'm sort of making this up, piecing it together how steam fitting is done (that's mechanical engineering), how air handling is done (also mechanical engineering), plumbing, etc. But this is the general scheme.
some of this is legacy disputes left over from the 19th century. When they were inventing electrical circuits, everybody was an engineer and everybody could do everything, and people just invented stuff on the spot and tried it. After enough people died, it was decided we needed standards. And slowly a white collar/blue collar sort of distinction started to emerge, for work that required calculus vs work that requires knowledge of lots of specific requirements.
Calculus people design cars and planes with smooth sleek shapes, but those items can't be constructed without the other type of engineer saying "hey, that's not strong enough"