So when does it become overkill?

[chasfm11]

Originally Posted by hamguy

Moral of story- Never do that which you know to be wrong, and never PO a neighbor!

I'll add a couple of points. A few years ago, I replaced both of the water heaters in our stick house (large floorplan needed 'em). I applied to the city for permits ($40 each) and had them inspected. I asked the inspector how many of the water heaters that were replaced in that city that he inspected. He said "less than 30%" I asked if the ratio was the same for professionals doing the installations. He figured it was less - somewhere around 15%. Since I was the only owner of that house and they were gas water heaters, I figured that I had not choice.

P.S. I had a copy of my neighbor's foundation diagram that had absolutely zero about soil in it and it was just approved this year. The only thing that kept me from taking it and my own diagram to the inspector and asking how his passed and mine flunked was that I didn't want to PO my neighbor. On an other point, the Town is requiring me to tear down my existing barn before the construction on the new one starts, leaving me no place to put the contents. They claim it is to prevent me from having more than the limit of outbuilding square feet (1,500). I'm going to get a dispensation because I have to have the electric meter removed off the existing barn and the electric company cannot meet the demolition schedule. I'm still going to have to have the old one down completely before the Town will give me the final for the new one. Every neighbor has more than the alloted square feet and the Town has done nothing about it. Most of them never got final approval for their buildings and moved in anyway. I could make that a point with the Town, too, but I don't want to PO my neighbors. One guy build his building over 3 years ago. And, BTW, the thing that gets you on the upgraded tax role is getting a final inspection on your building. So I'm going to be punished yet again (taxes will go up) because I'm going to do things correctly and get my final inspect before moving in.

I've talked with all of the neighbors. Many of build buildings in the past couple of years and NOT ONE of them has had to have a soil sample. My sample was taken today and I should have the report early next week.

I'm sorry but 1,500 sq feet is a small structure (32' by 47') I don't mind paying for the slab and building to be engineering certified. It is all of the other BS that goes with it that I'm objecting to. I suspect that the engineering firm is not going to change a single thing about their design as a result of the soil sample report.

To the comments about buildings being used differently than designed, I'd say that is my exactly my point. I'm supposed to pay for someone else's potential stupidity? Buildings are inspected for a purpose. If someone else uses them for a different purpose, that is their error. I cannot tell you the number of things that I've had to correct on our current house because the former owners (5 different ones) did or had done. Building inspections will never keep people from doing stupid things. The more onerous that inspection process is, the more likely people are to bypass it if they can. How does that protect anyone from anything?

[Lindsay Richards]

About 13 years ago in Florida, I was asked for a $2,000 cash bribe by a fire official on a remodel. I told him no and ended up spending about $10,000 extra on all sorts of other stuff insisted unpon by the building inspectors. The whole city government was corrupt. I somehow think this is common in small towns. I am planning on building another 10' by 16' workshop and am not even considering gettting permission. My neighbor just put in an unpermitted dock and boat house, so he won't be complaining.

[rops]

A permit is nothing but a legal bride. More to the point a shakedown. If it is illegal then no permit of any kind should be issued. If it is legal there should be no permit required.
My ancestors left all that kind of garbage and it followed them here! I thought that was why we fought the revolution in the first place!!!!

rops

[Jim Stewart]

Colorado is bad for bribes as well. We were building a house and I needed a variance for line of site for my driveway on a mountain road. The builder told my wife to meet the Guy with $500.00 in an envelope, or we would never get the permit. My Wife made the trip and delivery; problem solved. Then after failing the electrical inspection 3 times and my anger at the Electrician, the Electrician said his work was per code and he just refused to bribe the Guy. A phone call and another $500.00 in an envelope and we passed.

I guess $500.00 was the going rate for sleaze back then. Wonder what the rates are nowadays?

[Ken-55]

Sounds like an excellent argument for full-timing!

[read & learn]

As for corrupt Building Officials if enough homeowners would call the State AG or Federal AG something will happen. Case in point look what has happen in New Jersey. In the past 10 years at least 100 inspectors have gone to jail for asking for cash, golf clubs, Booze, cars etc.
As a former License Construction Official and Fire Official in New Jersey I am very happy to see this happen.
I can assure you that unless the public makes complains to the proper state and
federal AG's this practice will not stop in your State.

[Lindsay Richards]

We went to the mayor and the city manager and they both ignored it. We found out later that they were both on the take also.

[VI Roamers]

I only wish the rules were a lot stricter that when I poured concrete My house forms were laid on unstable ground and have cracked and settled, my driveway looks more like a crossword puzzle than a driveway.

If I was to do it again I would get an excavator in and have them dig down three feet under the concrete level and put in crush and pack. Then I would insist on double or triple the normal reinforcement bars and meshes, and build it to hold up double what I might expect for a maximum load at least.

There is nothing worse than a cracking foundation. Rules are for your protection. Later you will thank those that insist on having those rules with years of solid use without the problems that I am having.

[chasfm11]

Originally Posted by Lindsay Richards

We went to the mayor and the city manager and they both ignored it. We found out later that they were both on the take also.

I seem to remember a saying that went like "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" I'm fairly certain that there is at least a "good ol' boys" network involved in my permit problems. I made the mistake of hiring an out of State fabrication firm for the building itself. They then compounded my problems by hiring an out of State foundation engineering firm. That firm is licensed in the State of Texas but they claim not to know anything about Texas soils. How can that be? I'll pay to have the soil test done any day before I consider paying bribes to public officials.

Like one of the other examples, if I had gone ahead without a permit for this building, the Town would have come after me and made me tear it down and remove the foundation. They've done it before. The electric company won't put a meter in the electric meter base without a final approval from the Town so they pretty much have me over a barrel. I have to do what they say and spend whatever that costs. The part that has me the most frustrated is that I went to them before I hired the first company and ask for the specific requirements that I needed to follow, so that I could write them into the contract. I'm now dealing with a list that is more than twice as long as I was initially given. Every time I turn around, there are previously undisclosed requirements...AND THAT'S JUST WRONG.

When I look around at most governmental regulations at any level, it is also just typical. Being the cynic that I am, it sure seems more about making you grovel and subjugate to them than it is about providing you with a set of rules and letting you follow them on your own.

I've decided it projects like mine are why they sell adult beverages.

[chasfm11]

Originally Posted by VI Roamers

There is nothing worse than a cracking foundation. Rules are for your protection. Later you will thank those that insist on having those rules with years of solid use without the problems that I am having.

But the sad part of this is that I have no protection whatever against a cracking foundation. They went through all of this when they build my previous house and the foundation still cracked and I ended up paying $3,000 to have additional piers poured under it. There was a warranty but it expired in two years and the cracks appeared at 5 years. The Town doesn't guarantee it, the engineering firm doesn't guarantee it and the contractor pouring it doesn't guarantee it. More than half of the houses in my current neighborhood have foundation problems. At the end of the day, rules or no rules, the foundation can still crack and I'm the one who gets to pick up the tab for it. Most of the soil in North Texas is "active" (shrinks and expands significant with moisture or the lack of it.) Nobody guarantees protects you from the results of the expansion and contraction.

Let me cite as specific RV example. I'm required to get my RV inspected every year. I pay money for it. There are almost no inspection stations in my area that will do it. Many of those that will have long histories of finding all kinds of problems that you have to pay for above the inspection fee - because in the State's infinite wisdom, the fee is kept low and none of the shops doing the inspection work alone can make any money at it. Because this is a public forum, I'm not going to provide any specifics about my inspection situation but will say that it is different than what the rules call for. In fact, I'd bet that there aren't more than 10% of the MHs that get inspection stickers in Texas where the required inspection list is followed to even 80%. The purpose of the inspection "rule" is to protect my fellow drivers from my potentially poor vehicle maintenance. If I didn't diligently maintain my vehicle for my family's safety, the inspect rule would never serve its purpose to catch me.

IMHO, it is an illusion that the "rules" as currently administered serve the purposes for which they were intended. It is about corruption and revenue, not about protecting me from a cracked foundation.

[chasfm11]

Update: I received the soil engineer's report from the soil sample that I paid for. I sent the report to the foundation engineer who changed his design and sent me new diagrams - but no certification that the foundation was engineered to local soil conditions. When I presented the new diagrams to the City, they rejected them again. They provided me a copy of an approved certification letter and I forward it to the foundation engineer. He contacted the City and he is now claiming that City does not require a soil condition certification. I was physically in the City office on Friday and the same person that the foundation engineer talked to told me that a certification letter was required. I've given the building company who hired the foundation engineer until next Tuesday morning to have the certification letter in my hands or I'm going to hire a local foundation engineer and have the work re-done. The current foundation engineer is obviously the North end of a South bound horse but it is the certification requirement that the City is using that is a the root of the issue. I had a completely different building company and their engineer couldn't get past this hurdle either.

This is going to get ugly and even more expensive. I'm probably going to have to eat the costs of the new foundation engineer's design but the alternative is that the project is stopped and I loose my building deposit.

I'm not really sure why it has to be this hard.

[Lindsay Richards]

Sounds to me like the local guy has some type of payback arrangement with the local building official. This is exactly what happened to me on my fire sprinkler system. They want you to use the local guy who over charges you and then gives a portion back to the city ofcial who probably spreads it around. They like to make an example out of people who buck the sytem by hiring outside people who don't know the system. Good Luck

[chasfm11]

Originally Posted by Lindsay Richards

Sounds to me like the local guy has some type of payback arrangement with the local building official. This is exactly what happened to me on my fire sprinkler system. They want you to use the local guy who over charges you and then gives a portion back to the city ofcial who probably spreads it around. They like to make an example out of people who buck the sytem by hiring outside people who don't know the system. Good Luck

The interesting part of this is that the local guy is actually cheaper than the one that have already paid. The local engineer wanted $400 to do the work and I paid the remote guy $700. The building firm twisted my arm to use their foundation engineer rather than agreeing to use my local foundation engineer. Both of them need the loading data from the building structure itself and the building company said it was "easier and faster" from them to work with an engineer who was already familiar with the their product. I agreed to pay the premium because I felt that I was getting "one throat to choke" as we say in the project management business if things went badly. Obviously, that was a bad decision on my part.

I fully agree that this could be part of the Town's unhanded effort to not approve projects which involve outsiders. You would have thought, however, when I went to them originially and asked them if they had success in working with any particular building vendors that they would have ponied up that information then. I even pressed the question but could not get a list of suggestions from them. The fact that I've had two different building firms who have built hundreds of projects in this area (no necessarily in my Town's limits) tells me that my Town's requirements are highly unusual. The combination of the arrogance of the building firms and the stubbornness of the Town is what is making me crazy.

New Jersey is one of two States that won't let you pump your own gas into a car for "safety reasons." When I drove through there, I found out that it was perfectly fine for me to pump my own diesel fuel into my RV. I equate the NJ restriction on people pumping their own gas to these stupid certification requirements for the foundation.
1. The certification does nothing for me (or any future person that I sell my property to) in protection for problems with the foundation.
2. There is no supporting data for doing it and the surrounding Towns and Cities in this area don't do it. If it were that good of an idea or it really accomplished something, all of them would be on the same bandwagon. I've verified directly with the adjacent communities that they have no similar ordnance or requirement. That is what is catching the building companies off guard. They just dont' want to deal with it or accept any of the implied liability (whatever that might be) for it. The local engineers have apparently figured out that it is no big deal and simply go along with it.

While I was in the Town office on Friday, there was a small business man who had just started his business in our community. When he applied for his permit to open, he wasn't told that he only had 30 days in which to have a "grand opening" with outside signs, baloons, etc. He had delays in getting some product and didn't open when he originally planned. The Town wouldn't issue him another permit and would fine him if he went ahead with any grand opening display. He would have had to tear down his existing building or sell his business to someone else in order to apply for another grand opening permit. After listening to his situation, it was clear that our Town has a systemic group of stupid ordnances. I'm not the only victim. Misery does indeed love company.

[Noelj]

Apparently you are not padding the right pockets. In most areas, enough money in the right pockets will get anything passed.