Pulaski

Every home I have owned came with stupid and/or dangerous modifications (though some may have been built that way), including in the UK where my immersion heater had been wired into the back of a 13A socket, .... which was on the lighting circuit. I still for life of me don't know why it hadn't blown the fuse, but it did make the surface-mount 13A box hot (you didn't even need to touch it to feel the heat!) when I ran the immersion heater! It was a very easy fix to run a new cable from the water heater to a new fuse, because the water heater was upstairs almost directly over (opposite sides of a wall) the fuse box under the stairs, which begs the question "Why had it been done the wrong way?"

ddsrph

Here in Moore county Tennessee I was going to build a house a few years ago and went to get building permit and it was 0ne dollar and they didn’t want to see any plans or drawings or require inspections. Twenty years later got another house permit and it was $50 but still no plans needed or inspections required except electrical and septic which have always been required.

caretaker

I think it's universal, and some of it's so old it dates from when there weren't any codes to enforce. I've seen some funny stuff. When Charlie popped the cork on the wine in the kitchen of the old United Church manse, it hit the ceiling and a huge piece of plaster 2' x 2' fell down, followed by rotten lath and a whole bunch of gravel. Why would anyone put gravel between the ceiling joists? The attic and the walls had zonolite, which was standard for the era of the build, but the kitchen had 2 to 3 inches of gravel up top.

Pulaski

My kitchen in London had a lath-and-plaster ceiling that had been "repaired" with a cement patch. Obviously that didn't work well, so they left the slab of cement up there (well, why wouldn't you? ) and concealed it with a lower ceiling (the original ceilings were 9ft), using ceiling "joists" spanning the 7ft wide kitchen that were 2x4's that had been ripped to make 2×2's. Needless to say the plasterboard hanging from 2x2's made the ceiling sag, but as the kitchen wall cabinets had been installed against the ceiling, the doors rubbed against the ceiling when they were fully open!

FWIW the stud wall down one side of the kitchen, that appears to have dated from a modernization c1980, had no discernible attachment to the ceiling joists other than the cove molding on the other side of the wall, and had been framed "4ft on centre"!

scrubbedexpat091

When I was growing up we lived in an unincorporated area of San Diego County, but it was an area surrounded by 2 incorporated city's, an island of unincorporated land so to speak. Prior to the mind 1990's the Sheriff department only assigned 1 deputy to the area, not really a big deal at first thought as the area was small land wise, and not much crime, but that deputy also had a much larger area to also cover, so depending on where the 1 deputy was could take anywhere from a few minutes to 45 minutes to respond, assuming your call was more serious than whatever call the deputy was on when your call came in.

As the population grew they realized this wasn't going to work, so they signed contracts with the neighboring city's to provide police coverage when needed, so if no Deputy was available, 9-11 would dispatch officers from one of the 2 surrounding city's which meant normal response time for serious calls, under 8 minutes.

Rural CHP officers can have hundred + miles of highway to cover alone in some more remote/low populated middle of nowhere areas.



Most building permits here in Vancouver tend to be fairly expensive, lots of red tape, time consuming, so really most seem to just do the work without a permit, especially when doing basement suites, majority of basement suites are illegal in nature as no permit was ever given to build, but the cost of those permits and red tape are the reason why, city is now at a point they can't enforce the rules anymore for some things like basement suites because if they did, there would be massive backlash from the public who now have nowhere to live, the amount of people in basement suites is far higher than available apartments in the region, and this happens in almost every city in the area.

I get regulations but if you make them too expensive, and too much red tape, people just wont follow them, and since its a complaint based system, as long as your neighbor never complains about your deck, or interior renovation, the city will never know.

They do make some permits easy to get, was crazy easy to get a permit to close off 40 foot section of an arterial road to park a moving truck for 5 hours.

markonline1

God and their guns will keep them safe from the virus!!!!

zzrmark

The best of luck to anyone who tries to dig out a basement in this neck of the woods, you've only got to kick the surface dirt with barefeet to find the watertable.

Pulaski

The reason that most housing developments in Florida have several ponds, or in many cases are completely surrounded by canal-like ponds, is that the ponds were dug as a source for the material to raise ground level by a foot or two, enough to build on without there being a flood every time it rained half an inch. .... Same for race tracks, whether for horses or cars - there is a pond in the centre, called a "borrow pit", which was used to source the earth to build up the track.

Giantaxe

I think it's actually "the blood of Jesus".

scrubbedexpat091

Yes Florida and that shallow water table...ha ha

We have some parts of Metro Vancouver that can't have basements due to the shallow water table, namely Richmond, BC the city across the river from Vancouver, its also high risk for liquefaction during a major earthquake.

But in a lot of houses the basement isn't a true basement as in its underground, the BC special as they call it, is really a 2 floor house, the main living area upstairs, the downstairs being called the basement even though its actually above ground.

Personally I think the style is ugly as can be, but during the big housing booms of the 60's to 80's it was from what I can tell the most popular design.

TexanScot

I'm supposed to apply for an "interior remodel permit" before replacing the interior doors in my bathrooms and bedrooms.

I can well understand the need to go through permitting for electrical work or for exterior doors and windows that might have fire egress implications, but having to get a permit and an inspection to replace the door on the bathroom seems like a bit much.

caretaker

Seems crazy, tbh.

zzrmark

Is that for a stand-alone house that you own or in a condo? I'm assuming it's a county permit that you're referring to and not an HOA permit.

Former Lancastrian

How would they know you have replaced them unless the place where you bought them from informs the authorities. Do you need one to change a lightbulb?

TexanScot

Correct, it's a municipal permit rather than from an HOA.