Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Generally speaking, pulling permits after the fact is not the best way to go about this. The best way if there is a concern, hire professional, licensed tradesmen to do an inspection, plumb,elect, hvac and maybe a roofer. Most of Charlotte residential inspectors are decent guys but they are not construction professionals, they have general knowledge from attending seminars. On the commercial side things are different, you have a plumbing inspector, elect insp, hvac insp, etc who usually carry a masters license and are quite knowledgeable about their individual trade, not so for residential inspectors. For residential, you have 1 inspector who inspects EVERYTHING, plumb, elect, etc, there is no way 1 guy can be an expert in all those trades.
Doing it this way gives you a MUCH BETTER understanding of exactly where you stand in regard the condition of your house plus you avoid any issues with local govt.
This is the kind of information I am looking for. Do inspectors in Charlotte have a bad reputation for making homeowner's lives hell. Just out of curiosity, how about how old is your house?
Generally speaking, pulling permits after the fact is not the best way to go about this. The best way if there is a concern, hire professional, licensed tradesmen to do an inspection, plumb,elect, hvac and maybe a roofer. Most of Charlotte residential inspectors are decent guys but they are not construction professionals, they have general knowledge from attending seminars. On the commercial side things are different, you have a plumbing inspector, elect insp, hvac insp, etc who usually carry a masters license and are quite knowledgeable about their individual trade, not so for residential inspectors. For residential, you have 1 inspector who inspects EVERYTHING, plumb, elect, etc, there is no way 1 guy can be an expert in all those trades.
Doing it this way gives you a MUCH BETTER understanding of exactly where you stand in regard the condition of your house plus you avoid any issues with local govt.
Not in Charlotte. Per my call with the city I would need to pull 4 permits and have 4 separate inspections. If we do go this route, we fully intend to hire a contractor and work with him to pull the permits.
This is the kind of information I am looking for. Do inspectors in Charlotte have a bad reputation for making homeowner's lives hell. Just out of curiosity, how about how old is your house?
Depends on the inspector mine was very helpful, and did quick inspections. Only things he looked at were the items listed on the permits to ensure the house would not fall in, flood, or catch fire. Catch one on a bad day, well there are literally 1000's of pages of codes to make your life hell.
Call some professionals (electrician, plumber, contractor.)in have them take a look and they will be able to tell you if you are looking at below code mess, or a relatively easy process.
Not in Charlotte. Per my call with the city I would need to pull 4 permits and have 4 separate inspections. If we do go this route, we fully intend to hire a contractor and work with him to pull the permits.
Your information is not correct. If you call 3 different Charlotte city employees, you are going to get 3 different answers. The fact is, from what you describe, A building permit with 3 sub trades under the bldg permit is the only thing you have that is correct, if this is a residential job, you will have 1 inspector for everything, end of story.
I am beginning to understand why the seller wants to uninstall the non permitted work, you seem to have a process fetish which adds nothing of value to the work that has been done.
I am beginning to understand why the seller wants to uninstall the non permitted work, you seem to have a process fetish which adds nothing of value to the work that has been done.
I'm glad to hear my information is incorrect. One inspection sounds a lot better than 3 or 4. Buying a house with unpermitted work is a big risk. Anyone who would do so and not at least take the time to understand the risk is an idiot. And it's because of the value of the work that's been done that I am spending so much time trying to get as much information as possible. And if the seller was such an above board kind of guy, he would have pulled the permits when he did the work in the first place.
Generally speaking, pulling permits after the fact is not the best way to go about this. The best way if there is a concern, hire professional, licensed tradesmen to do an inspection, plumb,elect, hvac and maybe a roofer. Most of Charlotte residential inspectors are decent guys but they are not construction professionals, they have general knowledge from attending seminars. On the commercial side things are different, you have a plumbing inspector, elect insp, hvac insp, etc who usually carry a masters license and are quite knowledgeable about their individual trade, not so for residential inspectors. For residential, you have 1 inspector who inspects EVERYTHING, plumb, elect, etc, there is no way 1 guy can be an expert in all those trades.
Doing it this way gives you a MUCH BETTER understanding of exactly where you stand in regard the condition of your house plus you avoid any issues with local govt.
Just want to be clear, you're just suggesting OP have the work inspected by a tradesman BEFORE getting it inspected by the city, correct?
Just want to be clear, you're just suggesting OP have the work inspected by a tradesman BEFORE getting it inspected by the city, correct?
No, I am not suggesting that at all. It's really tough to get inspections after the fact, actually impossible unless you tear out the work that is already done.
What is the goal here? To make sure that the work generally complies with the code? If that is the case then you get professional tradesmen to inspect the work for a service call, i do it quite often for folks wanting to know before they buy if there are any serious issues.
The horse has already left the barn as far as permits/inspections on this job are concerned. At this point, inspections by professionals is the far better way to proceed if your goal is to determine the condition of various areas of recent work as well as overall condition of the house.
On a seperate note, I don't think the bank will approve the loan for the house if proper permits aren't pulled for the work that was done. I can just talk about NJ but we added a shower to a 1/2 bath that was in our basement and hubby didn't pull the permit when the work was done. We had to get the retro-active permit (and pay the higher fee) to get the inspector come by and take a look. So happened that the shower pan was too small by like 100 sq inches (code requires a specific size) so we had to tear it out and run to lowes to get a new one.
It was a royal PITA that would have been avoided had we gotten the permit ahead of time, the permit probably would have specified the codes and the sizes required.
With the additional shower, the new homeowners taxes surprisingly didn't go up.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
