Code enforcement officer (building inspector)

[Kevin G]

One of our code enforcement officers is a real class act. Dave retired as a police detective from an adjacent town, where he had an excellent reputation. Friends of mine in the building trades speak highly of his present work. He has a reputational for being fair, reasonable, and approachable.
I don’t know Dave real well, if I’m in the town hall, I will often stop by his office to say hello and sometimes swap Coast Guard stories where we both served.
I was overseas and called home. My wife told me how she was having trouble with a difficult neighbor, Tony. He’s always been a source of drama. This particular problem was that Tony was piling garbage right on the property line and claiming he was composting. The land slopes on to our property, plus this mess was sometimes attractive to our dogs. I told my wife to call the code enforcement office and tell Dave what was going on which she did.
A few days later, the wife was down looking at the “compost”, which was right by the road. Tony came out of house and while a discussion was evolving a car pulled up and a gentleman got out and walked over. Tony brought the stranger into the conversation explaining how ridiculous this woman was giving him a hard time about his composting. The man heard Tony out, then took a pencil out of his pocket, reached into the compost and lifted a piece of trash. He told Tony that the lady was absolutely right, much of the material was inappropriate for composting, and furthermore, this was not the proper location for it. My wife had no idea who this man was until he identified himself, Dave, the code enforcement officer. He went on to tell Tony that his composting operation needed to be moved to a more appropriate location with proper material, if he heard any more complaints he would be issuing a citation.
Needless to say, Dave is my wife’s hero.
Thanks, Kevin G

 

[444 Magnum]

We live in a subdivision as well. My neighbor got engaged and her fiance started parking his manure spreading truck in the street overnight. It stunk up the entire neighborhhod.

He was a pill about everything so I didn't bother to address it with him. Code enforcement came right out, issued him a written warning and told him how much the incremental fines would be if he was ever called out again.

No more manure truck.

I'm a residential contractor and I have to say, however, that I've been on both sides of code enforcement and building inspectors. Some good, some reasonable, and some overbearing and waiving their authority around like a flag.

 

[444 Magnum]

When I was in my 20's and living with my family in Montana, I bought a fixer upper and started learning about remodeling. We were a young family of four on one income so I did the majority of work myself.

The house had an electric furnace and water heater which I wanted to change out. I bought a used natural gas furnace from an elderly lady who was changing hers out for a bigger unit. It was still installed and running so I was able to check it out before it was removed. Her house was about 100 degrees and she was cold. I knew the furnace was in working condition and agreed to purchase it.

So I got the furnace, a new gas water heater and all the materials that I needed to do the conversion. It was summer, so my plan was to work on the furnace conversion and vent piping first and then do the water heater last in coordination with an inspection and gas hookup (city natural gas). I had young children and I didn't want to be without hot water.

I got everything hooked up and was waiting on the inspector. I was in the process of re-siding my house so I had run the vent pipe up the exterior wall and through the roof but had not boxed it in yet.

The young inspector got there and knocked on the door. As I opened the door he said, "Well, I see you haven't boxed in the exhaust pipe...let's step inside and see what else you did wrong." He stepped forward and started to barge right past me.

I didn't budge and he drew back and looked up at me somewhat surprised. I said to him, "No, you're not going to look at anything. You're going to go back and send out an inspector who doesn't have an attitude."

"What did you say?!?" he asked. I repeated myself verbatim.

He was shocked but walked to his car and drove off.

About an hour later, an older inspector came out. I told him what I had been doing including the fact that I was siding the house and would get the exhaust piping boxed in that week. All we would be using was the water heater and I needed it for my small children.

He came in, looked around, and hung the approval tag on the gas line.

I was in my twenties then, in finance, and much more brash. Now that I'm in the construction business, I wouldn't recommend my approach (even though it worked out).

Sorry this one got a little long.

 

[CalifEd]

I don't have a lot of experience with contractors but Inspectors are another story.
I have had some that think I am the next thing next to 10yo kid with an erector set that should be taught a lesson, and they are the guy to do it.
I listen and let them 'struct me in the proper way of the world. I fix whatever but they leave and someone else comes by, problem solved.

One came and told me I was totally wrong and all of the work would have to be re-done. I showed him the engineering specs from the manufacturer, he told me to stop work and wait till he returned.
Next day he was back, said I was right and that he learned something new.
Spent an hour picking his brain about some other things I was going to be doing. Probably PO'd some others since he was late to their jobs.
Maybe I'm lucky but most of the Inspectors seem almost human when dealing with a homeowner. However, some contractors seem to have a reputation that follows them around - at least with the Inspectors in the area. They don't get the gentle 'oh poor homeowner' treatment.

 

[delcrossv]

My best inspector story was when I put an addition and new bathroom on the house.

Being trained in the Old School in Chicago, the drains I installed were all cast iron with poured lead seals. SOP in the City.

Inspector tool one look and asked "Did you do this?"
Me: Yep, it's Code, right?

Inspector: I'm done here. and signed off on the whole thing.

 

[Golddollar]

I worked fairly closely with the last 2 code enforcement officers for our town. Maybe from dealing with them, I got the impression that they were not out to bust anybody, but wanted people to get on the road to correction and redemption. And they did not think that they knew everything and didn't need help with some things. I routinely talked with them about deeds, maps and surveys because that was what I worked with for 38 years.

 

[Rodan]

I recently had an inspector out to sign off on an RV carport we had put up. None of the "installation" crew spoke English, so I was looking forward to having the inspector check their work.

When he arrived, he got out of his car, looked at the structure from 30 feet away for about 15 seconds, and then started tapping on his iPad to sign the approval.... never looked at anything closely, and never got closer to it than 20 feet (after signing the approval).

If you're going to charge me several hundred dollars for a permit, I expect that the inspection process will be something a little more than a perfunctory paper signing....

 

[Kinman]

Code or Building Inspector, Code guys pretty much are as individual as people can be. Building Inspectors are a bunch of crooks, just from my limited experience. My brother had just started building houses and ran afoul of his first inspector because everything he did was over code, the guy said "What are you trying to do make everyone else look bad?" My brother told him "Code is a set of minimums, no house I ever build will be built to a set of minimums". The war was on...My brother finally joined a homebuilder's association that helped but he had an inspector ask him once about how much a particular chandelier cost, my brother told him, the guy said "If you just happen to have one of those in the garage with the door unlocked I can make your heating installation a lot easier."

 

[SMSgt]

Code enforcement here won't leave their air-conditioned office for anything. Neither does building inspectors. The AC installers will email pics of their installation; the inspector will email a signed permit back.

 

[mtgianni]

Missoula in the late 90's had a mechanical/plumbing inspector, a framing/building inspector and an electrical inspector. They would meet for coffee in the morning and divide all their work out by area. Neither the plumbing inspector nor the electrical inspector held a license to work in those trades.

The county in which I now live requires an electrical permit from the State for new service and a septic permit. Nothing else is needed from building a new house, 10 unit apt complex or a garage. It seems to work just fine.