It's been over 9 months since I last wrote in this blog - not because I haven't been doing anything on the house, but just the opposite. I've just been too busy to write.
I'm now starting a month of "vacation" from my regular day job in order to focus on finishing the house and I'm determined to track my progress here. But first, I need to catch everyone up on what's happened so far. So much has progressed since last year that I thought I'd better do several postings.
I wrote in my last post that I'd just received my building permit. To get the development and building permits, all of my dealings were with the Development Office. They demanded numerous drawings to illustrate the work I was going to do. They didn't much care how I was going to do the work (but did demand that a structural engineer sign off on the "how" part). They really only cared what work would get done. If you're just applying for a building permit, the scope is limited to the area being worked on - they can't demand changes to other parts of the house. But if you make any change to the perimeter of the house, you need a development permit. And once you open the door for them by applying for a development permit, they'll walk right in and demand the world of you. Got a kitchen in the basement that's not part of the reno? Doesn't matter, they'll demand it be removed or that a full suite be put in. Maybe you've got one too many bathrooms in the basement? Whoops, sorry, that looks too much like a suite - you'll have to rip that out too. Or maybe they don't like how much concrete you've got in your backyard - better break it up and put in sod. Don't want to? No Permit For You!
But the inspections dept is different. They don't care what you're building, as long as it's done to code. And they're not ones for bureaucratic red tape - while the city's fee schedule demands extra money for multiple trips on-site by inspectors, the inspectors don't enforce that. They just want to make sure the work's done right, and if that means doing it a room at a time and getting each room inspected as you go, that seems to be fine with them. Inspectors spend just 45 minutes a day at their desks at City Hall. The rest of the time, they're in the field. I don't know how they manage to answer their email and phone messages in 45 minutes!
I've now had visits by all three of the inspectors who're dealing with my project - building, electrical, and plumbing inspections. The inspections are always extremely fast. It takes them all of about 2 minutes to inspect a room
The most recent inspection was yesterday by the plumbing inspector. It was actually a "field review" - the inspector comes out and gives you advice on how to deal with a situation that could be a 'grey area' of the code. In my case, it was a sewer line that I discovered runs right through where my new foundation needs to go - and had been badly damaged by the previous idio^h^h^h^hOwner. The inspector gave me suggestions for how to fix it and will even let me do the repair work under the existing permit (which will save me at least $200 in extra permit fees).
I've got a whole blog post to write about the sewage adventure, but I'm confident the inspector will be working with me, not against me. I definitely got the impression that the development office was working against me. If I hadn't already been halfway through this project and forced by law to take out permits, my experience in the development office would probably have been enough to make me walk away from the whole thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment