Mind-boggling stupidity of building departments

ckissick · 03-09-2021, 10:16 PM

The thread on the deck that's 2 inches too high demonstrated a bit of experience among Pelicans with building permit headaches. As a civil engineer who prepares civil plans daily, I have thousands of examples. I could go on and on.

But today I got a plan review comment from a licensed civil engineer with a local building department that set a new record for ridiculousness. Drum roll, please:

On a grading and drainage plan, for a project on a totally flat lot, the reviewer asked for an engineering detail of a vegetable garden.

That's right. I thought maybe I could draw a cross section showing relative depths of radishes and carrots?

I'll throw in a couple more I got just today on another job in a different town. The reviewer asked me to include in my civil plans the largest size of trucks and other equipment that will be used on the job (building a house). He also asked to create a separate plan showing travel routes that supply trucks will take to the job site. How would anyone know these things? I deal with this crap every day. As I said, it's mind-boggling.

What stories do you have?

look 171 · 03-10-2021, 12:59 AM

Rain collection and other green related BS. It never rains here. We had our or forth or fifth rain of the season so far. After April its clear sailing. Those dumb rain collection drums or cysteines will be dry for 10 months and they aren't cheap.

drcoastline · 03-10-2021, 01:27 AM

They are justifying their position and employment. It's as simple as that.

ckelly78z · 03-10-2021, 01:38 AM

My wife is a project manager/site engineer for a large home building company so she sees it all on a daily basis. Her nemesis seems to be county/township zoning inspectors (no experience required to hold the job) who are on power trips, and demand the contractors jump through hoops to get that illusive occupancy permit. Often, these are the guys who end up breaking budgets, and timelines, and sometimes only work every other Tuesday.

gregpark · 01:58 AM

^ most building inspectors are ex contractors who couldn't make it

fastfredracing · 03-10-2021, 03:54 AM

How about Zoning? I had 2 different municipalities, try to make me provide them with a traffic impact study ,for my one man auto repair business . When I inquired about getting one done, they quoted me 25K. Was probably the brother in law of the zoning officer

dad911 · 03-10-2021, 03:57 AM

Been building/developing 35 years, could write a book. The most memorable was about 20 years ago, we were building a new subdivision, houses under construction, none occupied yet. Fire inspector pulls up, writes a ticket for a backhoe in front of a hydrant.

Most annoying is putting in 20,000 gallon underground fire tanks, and a cost of 30k+ each, and a firechief old me they will never get used. It's too slow to draw the water, faster to drive to the nearest hydrant a mile away.

masraum · 03-10-2021, 04:12 AM

So what do you do with the stupid requests?

Clearly you must get around it some how. Some sort of verbal hand job to the numbnuts asking for them. "Yes, that's a wonderful idea, genius really, but these are the reasons why the rest of the world is too dimwitted to be able to give you the answer you want."

dad911 · 03-10-2021, 04:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masraum

So what do you do with the stupid requests?

.....

Depends on cost/aggravation. Its usually easier to just do it.

unclebilly · unclebilly's Garage

We are modernizing my kids school. It is a $9.5M project and includes adding a community commercial kitchen. I am involved in this part.

The architect gave a layout, I got a quote on costs and equipment specs. The first go-round was in the faucets to make sure they were Leed compliant - we had to change them

A friend was in my position 4 years ago and after the construction was complete at her school, the health inspector came up with a laundry list of issues, they had no budget to fix. It was 2 years and several thousand dollars before they could access their kitchen. She recommended that I get the health inspector involved now before we cut a check for the kitchen equipment.

The health inspector wanted to know what types of foods would be cooked in the kitchen, if we would be reusing utensils, and if we would rent it to the community...

I told her that I have no way to predict what types of foods various groups who use the kitchen might use but we didn’t want any restrictions. She came back with making sure our sinks were deep enough to fully immerse any pans we might use and had some questions about bathroom proximity and a demising wall between the food prep area and the sinks...

In the end, we got an email from her that said, all good. This was yesterday...

Full speed ahead!

wdfifteen · wdfifteen's Garage

I bought about 1000 square feet from my neighbor. The health department's regulations said they had to do a soil percolation test and water run off study if you change your property lines. The inspector came out, we chatted about how stupid some regulations are. He said he would copy the data from my neighbor's record since the soil in question came from his property.
The thing is they had just adopted the new regulation and it was screwed up. They were in the middle of amending it when I happened to buy the land. They meant to
require soil percolation test if you subdivide your rural property for the purpose of selling a building lot. No reason to do it for 1000 square feet, but they hadn't anticipated anything like that.

masraum · 03-10-2021, 05:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unclebilly

We are modernizing my kids school. It is a $9.5M project and includes adding a community commercial kitchen. I am involved in this part.

The architect gave a layout, I got a quote on costs and equipment specs. The first go-round was in the faucets to make sure they were Leed compliant - we had to change them

A friend was in my position 4 years ago and after the construction was complete at her school, the health inspector came up with a laundry list of issues, they had no budget to fix. It was 2 years and several thousand dollars before they could access their kitchen. She recommended that I get the health inspector involved now before we cut a check for the kitchen equipment.

The health inspector wanted to know what types of foods would be cooked in the kitchen, if we would be reusing utensils, and if we would rent it to the community...

I told her that I have no way to predict what types of foods various groups who use the kitchen might use but we didn’t want any restrictions. She came back with making sure our sinks were deep enough to fully immerse any pans we might use and had some questions about bathroom proximity and a demising wall between the food prep area and the sinks...

In the end, we got an email from her that said, all good. This was yesterday...

Full speed ahead!

Keep a copy of that email in a file somewhere!

David · David's Garage

I just happily play along but I have had some ridiculous requests that I took to their supervisor to straighten out.

The permit office is one place that getting mad can make your life much more difficult.

It's also a place where having PE at the end of your name actually means something (maybe the only place in life)

Joe Bob · Joe Bob's Garage

I was doing a remodel and addition to my home in Santa Barbara and the original plans did not show a detail as to where the water heater was.

Even though there is precedence on getting a permit to replace a WH, no one ever does.

My regular inspector was on vacation so I get this hemmroid that I had done car business with. For some reason he was irked at me. I mean all I did was take some parts of his old 914, now mine, put them on my /6 nd then sell his for a pretty good profit......what's the BFD?

Anyways, he comes up my drive and spots the new WH, and says you need to redraw and resubmit plans for this change. I threw him off my property and immediately called his boss, took a week to get the stop work order rescinded. I mean, the original plans showed NO WH anywhere in the house. So, yeah right...20 year old house without a water heater. Fargin' idjut.....

VINMAN · 07:46 AM

My biggest complaint dealing with inspectors here in NJ, is the fact that you can't get two inspectors from the same office to interpret building codes the same way. One guy will co.e out on an initial inspection, ok everything. Other guy comes out for a final and says everything is wrong and wants it corrected.

I had a framing inspection fail for a cantilever being a 1/4 inch over.

.

dad911 · 03-10-2021, 06:15 AM

Speaking of water heaters, reminds me local (NJ) wants a flue (B-vent or masonry) inspection performed by a licensed contractor before issuing a permit to change a water heater.

Even if there is no flue and never had a flue/chimney. (PVC high efficiency)

We had quite the discussion over that one.

ckissick · 03-10-2021, 07:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by masraum

So what do you do with the stupid requests?

I have to be nice, or they'll make my life hell. I try to answer them if possible, but I try to insert sarcasm in my response letters. I can't help it.

But what is a vegetable garden detail supposed to look like? And what do I say about a contractor's largest truck when a contractor hasn't even been hired yet?

I'm supposed to put porta-potties on my plans. One of my jobs got red-tagged because the contractor put the porta-potty in a place that did not match my plan.

BTW, most municipalities around here hire private companies to review plans, and they get paid by the comment. That answers a lot. There can be five rounds of comments over a two-year period. They usually make far more money reviewing my plans than I do preparing and revising them. It's racket.

I have a friend who built two houses in our town. Both permits took 8 years to obtain. He's a documentarian and is starting on a new project. Can you guess the topic?

URY914 · 03-10-2021, 07:32 AM

On my workshop addition I had the inspector give me conflicting info on two separate inspections. I carefully reminded him but I still had to change something. Not a big deal but you do need to be careful and do as told.

VINMAN · 03-10-2021, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dad911

Speaking of water heaters, reminds me local (NJ) wants a flue (B-vent or masonry) inspection performed by a licensed contractor before issuing a permit to change a water heater.

Even if there is no flue and never had a flue/chimney. (PVC high efficiency)

We had quite the discussion over that one.

I see that all the time. Makes zero sense.

.

Icemaster · Icemaster's Garage

Quote:

Originally Posted by ckissick

On a grading and drainage plan, for a project on a totally flat lot, the reviewer asked for an engineering detail of a vegetable garden.

That's right. I thought maybe I could draw a cross section showing relative depths of radishes and carrots?

Do you think they knowingly do this just to screw with people? I mean, cue the image of them sitting in the breakroom over coffee twisting mustaches "What can we throw at them today just for laughs...?"

Or are they really that obtuse?