Permits, schmermits

OR, How I Learned to Loathe City Hall...

You know, I have to admit that I entered this situation with a fair amount of naivete. I honestly thought that we were doing the right thing by going by the book: get the permit, build everything to code, get the inspectors to sign off on our work, the whole nine yards.

Oh, stupid, stupid me.

The first inkling that we might not have taken the correct approach was when we got an email with six comments about things we needed to address on our permit before they could issue it. Now, when we applied for the permit we were told, reminded, warned, and reminded again that the plumbing and electrical work we planned would require separate permits. We were also forewarned, before even going in to apply, that we would require a "dye test", a procedure designed to figure out where our drainage connects to the City's storm sewer. So imagine our surprise when the first three of the comments concerned plumbing issues...

The first question concerned the water service to our house: the inspector wanted to know what size the pipe was leading off the city's main water supply. Okay, you'd think, that's a fair question; we ARE putting in a second bathroom, and we might need to upgrade the water service. I thought so too: that is, until I went in to talk to them today and when the inspector didn't believe me when I told him it was a 3/4" pipe. So he looked it up on the computer and confirmed it.

What?

Why the ever-loving-Jesus didn't he just look it up in the first place?

But it gets better. The second comment he had was reminding us that the plumbing was going to require a separate permit. No shit, Sherlock. Thanks.

The third comment was even more helpful. The inspector wanted us to verify that we had a perimeter drain system that was connected to the City's storm sewer, which would require a dye test. Did I mention that we already knew that? Did I mention that I had actually applied for a goddamn dye test THE SAME DAY I applied for the building permit?

Much like the case of the size of the water service, this was probably too much work for him to check. Of course, we already knew the drains were connected, but we didn't know on what side of the house. And when they conducted the dye test on Monday, we found out that our drains are so badly clogged, we have to have them cleaned before they'll be able to conduct the test properly.

The last three comments... well, those are the ones that burst my bubble of innocence, if you will. Not so much for what they said, as what the end result of addressing them has cost us.

The first of the relevant comments was to provide something called a "mechanical ventilation checklist 'A' for the principal exhaust fan". When we asked our HVAC guy about this, he just shook his head and said, "I was afraid of that. You guys got yourself a real bastard of an inspector."

The mechanical ventilation checklist is a document that outlines the area, ventilation, and airflow through every room in our house. It's essentially just a giant pain in the ass, and another excuse for the guys down at City Hall to make our lives difficult. Our HVAC contractor needs to fill it out, but he can't fill it out until we've done the framing, and we can't do the framing until we get the permit. Got it?

"Paging Joseph Heller, paging Mr. Heller. Would Joseph Heller please report to the Engineering counter."

Oh, and the best part? When I went in to get a copy of the mechanical ventilation checklist 'A' for primary exhaust fan, they didn't have any copies of the updated one for 2004, so they gave me one for 1998 with the assurance that "it's the same one. It should be fine."

The second relevant comment was simple enough: they wanted us to indicate on the plans the location of the interconnected smoke alarm.

"Sure, no problem: where would you like me to put a little circle with an arrow and "Smoke alarm" written next to it? Anywhere in particular? No? Great. By the way, wouldn't an interconnected smoke alarm be something that gets covered on the SEPARATE electrical permit? Oh, there, too? Great. That's just f-ing great..."

The last of the comments, well, that's the one that broke us.

The comment itself seems innocuous enough: "Indicate height of basement area, including height under beams."

The conversation went something like this:

Stupid Don: "It's an even seven feet to the bottom of the floor joists, and the support beams are 8" thick, so it would be 6'4" to the bottom of the beams."

Jackass Inspector Type: "Oh."

SD: "Oh? Oh, what? That didn't sound like a good 'oh' to me. What's the minimum height requirement?"

JIT: "Well, it's actually 7'6", but we admit that's a little ridiculous, so we'll accept 7'... but your beams are well under that."

SD: "Yeah, but they're not that bad, right?"

JIT: "Well, what you could do is cut out the beams, and raise them flush with the floor joists."

SD: "Cut out the beams."

JIT: "Yes."

SD: "The beams that hold up our house?"

JIT: "Yes."

SD: "The 60-year-old beams that are an integral part of the structure of our house, and support the floor joists above? You want us to cut them out?"

JIT: "And raise them flush with the joists, yes."

SD: "Are you barking mad?"

The City actually expects us to remove part of the structure of our house to satisfy a totally arbitrary minimum height requirement. The only other option we have would be to frame in underneath the beams (adding extra support at the necessary places - which would entail opening the concrete floor to install pads) and then cutting into the beams in order to install doors.

Needless to say, we didn't budget an extra $10,000 for either of those options. Nor do we happen to have an extra $25,000 kicking around, which is what it would cost to raise the house by a couple of feet and pour a new foundation.

I didn't bother to tell him that the 7' was unfinished height, and putting in a floor and ceiling were going to drop that by at least a couple of inches.

But this, this right here, this is why people don't get permits. It's not because they don't want to pay the fee, and it's not because they don't want to build it properly, and it's not because they have an irrational fear of authority (although I'm beginning to think I'd sympathize if they did). It's because City Hall makes it so damn HARD to do the right thing. There's so much bureaucracy, so much red tape, so much petty politicking that people like us, who are just trying to make our own house a little more comfortable, get ground up and spit out, and told we aren't allowed to do it.

Despite the fact that every other house in our neighbourhood has a finished basement.

Oh, and the best part? The War Department got another email yesterday, this one from somebody in the Land Development office. He had three comments that he wanted us to address. The first was, and I will quote it in its entirety, "New services are charged as per the City's standard fee schedule."

I'm not exactly sure what kind of response he was expecting to that. Maybe, "Uh, ok?"

The second comment was asking us to submit a site service plan detailing compliance with City standards. Even the jackass inspector type this morning thought this was weird and asked me no less than three times whether we were doing any renovations to the exterior of the house that might possibly require a full site service plan. He was that confused by this guy's involvement in the process.

The last comment?

"Our records indicate that the present structure is not conected to the City storm system. The structure's drainage system must be dye-tested to confirm its status."

I give up. I am City Hall's bitch. If this were prison, I'd have to give them all my cigarettes.