Gave up on the permit/inspection process today.

[kmacht]

However, I think that recent housing regulation changes require you to state 'under penalty of law' if you've had any uninspected work done when you try to sell your house.

On the other hand, what will they do? Condemn it? So you work out of a condemned garage. Whoop de doo!

Two things to remember. The buyer can come back after you even after the sale if they find un-permitted work had been done on the house. That bill could get very big if they demand you either pay restitution or pay to have the garage re-built by a contractor with a permit.

The city can condem your garage if they find you built it without a permit. If they do, there will be weekly if not daily fines levied against you until it is fixed. If you fail to pay the fines or fix the permitting issues they can place a lean against your property so that when and if you do ever sell the house the money owed will go directly to the town. If they wanted to be real jerks about it they could deny you occupancy on your property until it is fixed. If you are found living there without the problems being corrected you could face arrest an additional fines.

Keith

 

[GarageEnvy]

Again my experience is local to my county in California but as noted above I can say that I've been involved with some horror stories for unpermitted work. I am not trying to scare you but at least in our county they use aerial photography. Here's the worst case I've dealt with and this situation is rare. Professional flipper buys 2/1/1200 sf house and adds on living room, two bedrooms, deck, etc to get 2200 sf house. Unknowing buyer comes along and buys house through professional flipper's agent and gets financing through professional flipper's hand chosen mortgage broker (100% financing). City (through aerial photos) finds addition with no permits. City tells new owner to make compliant or remove. Owner forced to open walls. Owner finds MAJOR, MAJOR structural, electrical and plumbing problems. City gives 90 days to fix. Owner has no money and loses house to foreclosure. Bank insists on selling home "as is" with no repairs. Title will not transfer until City removes remediation order. It's stuck for nearly a year. There's a lot more to the story and a lot of this probably doesn't apply to your situation. Just look into a "worst case scenario" for your area and make sure you're OK with that if it comes down to it.

 

[StingRay]

He should have hired the pro that did the job in this thread http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63417. You know the pro's are the only way to go

 

[Phil S.]

Phil here again to say that you DIY'ers sould re-read replies numbered 2,3,4,36,37,38,39,41,42 and that sould give you some sort of a clue as to why a person should get a permit. I won't expand on the importance of doing things right/legal because all you guys want to do is RANT and carry on cause I touched a nerve.

 

[GarageEnvy]

The pro is right in that there is merit to doing things with a permit. Although it proves the job was done in compliance with code it certainly doesn't guarantee the job was done right. There are plenty of examples of jobs that are done to code and inspected that could have been done much better. Just to use the foundation as an example. The inspection for the foundation is done prior to the pour. Yes it insures your anchor bolts and rebar/mesh are done correct but it sure doesn't guarantee you that forms are level, the concrete is poured correctly or finished properly. Yeah, I'm pretty much a DIY guy but in many areas, the quality of my work runs circles around that of the pros. In other instances it is the other way around. The trick is being able to honestly assess your abilities and gauge the actual capabilities of the pro.

 

[Shadowdog500]

It is not like he built without a permit, because he did get a permit. It is that he did not continue with the inspections because his schedule was not meshing with the building inspectors schedule, partially because the inspector is out of town two weeks at a time and the origional poster is out of town 16 consecutive days out of every 22 days.

So I think is it not a matter of "if they find out". Instead it is a matter of "what is the inspector going to require when he stops by to see where things stand". Since he don't have x-Ray vision I suspect that he may require you to take things back apart.

Just my 2cents. Take lots of pictures!!!


Chris

 

[tonydanzah]

If you can do it on your own, more power to you Nova!

 

[logical]

Phil here again to say that you DIY'ers sould re-read replies numbered 2,3,4,36,37,38,39,41,42 and that sould give you some sort of a clue as to why a person should get a permit. I won't expand on the importance of doing things right/legal because all you guys want to do is RANT and carry on cause I touched a nerve.

I think he had a permit...that's not his problem. The comment about not getting a permit was not from the person building a garage, but form some other person building a fence. It's getting the inspections in a timely manner that gave the original poster a problem. BTW, I was owner builder for my house a few years back. It is by no means an easy job but it ain't rocket surgery. If you had posted some specific thing the original poster had done incorrectly or offered what you specifically would have done differently to somehow get an inspector who was out of town for 2 weeks onsite within a day...instead of just issuing the blanket statement of "should have hired a pro"....maybe people would have found your contribution of some value.

You should have hired a licenesed reader before you posted.

 

[Nova]

As the last few have mentioned, I did start this whole process with a permit and the full intentions of seeing it through. My permit was due for renewal as it has been over a year since the first was issued. Had these delays not existed I could have had all the work done under the initial permit. I tried to have inspections done when I wasn't around. I would see him in person before I went back to work to let him know where we were at....and apparently that wasn't enough seeing as he isn't sure if he ever inspected the framing. Obviously he doesn't take his job very seriously.

The concerns have been voiced to a councillor now. He even agreed that going forward with the work is what he would have done in this situation. Apparently in the city inspector's absense there is supposed to be an inspector called in at the city's expense to prevent these issues. It sounds like the number of times this was "necessary" last year became a bit of an issue (inspector took off a lot of time with no justification if I am reading between the lines correctly) and the inspector and city manager took some heat for this due to the large expense incurred. The councillor suspects that they may be trying to fly under the radar this time and just telling people he isn't availible in hopes that nobody catches on. He also stated that this is far from the first issue people have approached him about regarding the inspector lately.

 

[Vinko]

Maybe he's out drunk?

 

[FANTASY FACTORY]

Permits are for old men and lil girls

 

[Shadowdog500]

Sounds like they need to fire the inspector and get a new one.

Fortunately the permit and inspection process are pretty straight foward in my town. The inspector is really great and shows up around 9am the next morning every time I called.

Chris

 

[e-tek]

I'm in a contrary mood today....

Holy Cow!!! I really stepped into a hornets nest. I respect all your replies to my comments. You'll have to excuse me because I'm having surgery this afternoon and I'm going to do it myself. No need for a surgeon I like doing things myself.

Gotta admit - that's pretty good....

Thanks for the input regarding the drywall. I think we've got most of it covered. When we did the framing we put up an extra 2x4 on the inside of the first trusses to make sure we would have no issues at all finding a stud when the time came. Plus with the framing being about 10'1/2" (maybe a touch over, the majority of the sheets are sitting above the wall sheets tightly and we are being very generous with the screws. I saw crown molding mentioned, I am planning on that or a cheap quarter round trim or something along those lines along the top painted a similar shade to the work bench countertop. Should look pretty good and make the mud work a tad easier in the corner.

And Phil, hopefully it isn't something a little duct tape can't fix.

Although there does seem to be a "right" way to install drywall, I'm not sure it REALLY matters. I've seen guys do the walls first and haven't seen any sagging or falling ceilings.....

Phil, I'm a novice DIY surgeon so I thought I'd give you a few pointers. You're going to want to take a muscle relaxer first and you might want to have a plunger on hand as well. This will make pulling your head out of your *** much easier. If you feel awkward after the surgery I'm sure the original poster would be happy to fill the vacancy with one of his "footers"

Well boys, as much as Phil made the mistake of starting off on the wrong foot, I'm not sure EVERY single person has to pile on. Reminds me of grade 4 a bit. Let's move on.

 

[tdkkart]

Although there does seem to be a "right" way to install drywall, I'm not sure it REALLY matters. I've seen guys do the walls first and haven't seen any sagging or falling ceilings.....

I've been pondering this for a couple days also. While I'm sure there is some merit to having the wall sheets supporting the edges of the ceiling sheets, what about the other 2 or 3 sides of each sheet.What happens when you get out in the middle of a room that is more than 2 sheets wide or long?? At some point you end up with a sheet that is fully self-supporting with no edges supported from below.

I sheet rocked a 15x15 room on the back of my last garage. Knowing that when it came time to do the ceiling I would have little or no help, so I did the walls first and left them down far enough that I could hook the ceiling sheets on top of them when I hung the ceiling. Worked fine for me.

Some people get extremely hung on on their way being the only way, and then start shooting off their mouth without thinking that their way may not be the ONLY way.


BTW, Phil strikes me as being one of those "professionals" that got there before Mike Holmes.

 

[rodnok1]

The only reason I can think of to do the ceiling first is so it gets as much support at the edges where bowing will be more noticeable, also you don't have to be as acurate with cutting around the perimeter, you can adjust the wall boards easier. I've done it both ways waiting on a ceiling lift, it ***** the same either way...