Building a Deck - Inspections in Fairfax County (house, contractor)

[scottfs]

I'm building a deck on the back of my house and wanted to know if anybody else has had any experiences with the Fairfax County inspectors. I got my permit and am ready for my footing inspection. I'm sure everything is fine - I went with the Fairfax County Typical Deck details so there isn't really that much I can do wrong if I just go by the specs, but I was wondering if anybody had any experiences with them on a deck or in general. Wanted to see if they're more or less nit-picky. (not that I'm trying to do shoddy work, just want to get a feel for what they county is like)

I've had experience with Montgomery County, and, for example, the inspector decided my footing holes were just an inch and a half or so too shallow (depends on where you measure from, no hole is exactly even!) but just passed us and said please dig it out a couple more inches before pouring your concrete. Wondering if ffx county are the type to say FAIL in that situation or something like that and make me reschedule them.

THanks!

[michgc]

I didn't do a deck, but we turned a porch into a bedroom. I didn't find the inspectors who came out to be overly strict, and there was definitely variance among the inspectors - some pickier than others. I think 3 came out over time. The first one that came out said our contractor needed to add some more framing - they were spaced too far apart. He checked the distance between outlets. The second guy came back and gave the okay on the frame spacing (after it was fixed) but then found something else that needed to be done. Then the third guy came out and started commenting on some changes to the roof that needed to be done until I reminded him that we weren't changing the roof as it was already there from the 1950's, so he let that go.

I was concerned that they would fixate on the door width because it wasn't standard width, but not one of them looked at it. They were all pretty nice. It's probably good to have them come out before you get too far along with something so that if your are questioning whether it will pass code, they can let you know before you do too much of it.

None of the inspectors was very familiar with our project until they came here, and I explained what we were doing.

That's the only experience I have with them; I'm sure others can tell you more.

[NOVAmosquito]

We just got the footing inspection for our deck. We had 14 holes dug. One hole was near a pipe and was a few inches too narrow (by necessity), so we were worried about that. The inspector did not check each hole individually - he measured a few, mostly focusing on depth. He was friendly and suggested posting our plans on our sliding glass door to assist future inspectors. We got approval and we are on to the next stage.

[scottfs]

Well, I passed the footing stage as well today. I wasn't there but got the automatic email at work this afternoon saying so. I have 8 footings. Funny thing - I had covered the holes using plastic sheeting and bricks in anticipation of the rainy Monday we had. When I got home from work today 7 of the footings still had the plastic over them with rain water pooled in it. Plastic was peeled back on one hole, so he obviously looked at the one, saw my ledger was attached properly and got on his way.