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A general contractor license is state wide and does cover every county. BUT it involves a lot of hours studying, a large amount spent on bonds ,insurances etc and is beyond some peoples resources...Im sure Coastal Chic will back this up but it costs around $8-10000 in various 'costs' just to open the doors every year.
What about RCs? Do they have less requirements than full blown GCs, or not so much anymore?
I wont even begin to address a lot of issues I .....take with your post..
I will however briefly touch on Expansion tanks.. Its a combination of multiple issues exasperated by BFP backflow preventers.. High pressure relief valve doesnt help with any of the issues involved.. What you had in Kansas and not everyone is familiar with them , is a Whole House Back Flow Preventer. If you dont test it you dont know if its working.. $100 seems rather steep but if they have to make an appointment and send out someone certified to perform the test it cost money.. If they left it up to homeowners to do it, too many would try and screw the system....
Quote:
Originally Posted by ritametermaid
This is Fla, if your going to live here suck it up and deal with it. Its not going away, we can not even get the fools here to vote down the penny never ending sales tax in CC. They will make you pull a permit for a water heater. I did my own and then sold my old one. Screw the system when I can. Then the idiots wanted me to put an expansion tank on my heater. LOL Many years ago they made it so all WHs came with a pop off valve. Now they want an expansion tank? Just more wasted money in SWF. It may be required in places that have city water and you have a BFP on your system. Again this is over kill. When I lived in Kansas they would make us pay 100 bucks a year to get our BFP checked and get a cert. or they cut our water. It was a scam on a scam.
Hi Lassie : ) I am playing Devils advocate to some degree. I worked in the Industry most of my 40 year career, though it very seldom ever envolved homes, in fact most of the jobs I ran, were $500K - $20M , Electrical alone. That said, I have had to deal with a lot of inspectors and permits and Fire Marshal's All Over America .. As I see it hear it and read it, most dont really have a clue to how all this works.. YOU Do and a Few Others Do, but IMHO most dont.. For the cost of permits and impact fees , I honestly feel a form letter to property owners is not asking too much..
As for the No water supply , yet occupied residences.. that wasnt involving new homes, but its been twice that I know of.... and C.C. and CCSO knew about the one and the Water district knew about both .. either its sloppy paper work or a IDGAS attitude on someones behalf ..
I guess I can see that, and I can agree that especially since the customer ultimately end$$ up holding the bag for expired permits, uncompleted projects, lousy work, liens and everything associated with construction, it might be a decent thing for the county to do to keep him/her in the construction loop through notifications and all.
It's just a pet peeve of mine, I guess, when someone won't take any initiative to avail themselves of available help, or information, about projects or anything else in which he/she is involved and stands to lose if something goes wrong, then whines that "I didn't know about this, someone should have told me ( taken me by the hand, spoon fed me)" when it does go wrong. Especially when knowing about something might have enabled him to prevent the loss, if he'd just looked up the information and acted on it.
I've also known a number of people who decided that they couldn't be bothered to learn about the process and look things up themselves- but unfortunately, the way the system works they end up holding the bag too when something happens- you'd think they'd learn!
I don't know about the water supply either, but I might speculate, based on Miami-Dade's actions involving the rebuilding process of damaged properties after Hurricane Andrew- actions that Charlotte County might have also taken after Hurricane Charley. Our house in Palmetto Bay ( in the northern eyewall of Andrew) was severely damaged when our neighbor's 40 foot long lanai roof (from the other side of the street!) hit the side of the house, cracking the CBS, and a 20 foot long 4x12 beam from that roof was blown through the metal shutter and window in the living room. The wind that got in from those breaches ( it took out three shutter-covered windows altogether) lifted the roof, broke many of the trusses, from about half the house, so we ended up with ceiling joists and daylight in that half the house, debris from all over, and about a foot of water in that part of the house. We had no water, or electric, of course, but there was some shelter in the back part of the house, yet the county never condemned our house, or any of the neighbor's houses although the damage in those was severe too. The contractor who rebuilt the house, and subcontractors pulled the appropriate permits, and eventually the house was rebuilt, inspections completed, permits closed ( at least we had signed paper permits indicating final inspections- later we found there had been some duplicates and one permit where the final had never been filed with the county). But we were told that unless the county had condemned the property, a CO was not needed for occupancy of the house. Don't know if that's true, but the county was dealing with massive numbers of rebuilds, repairs, new construction, fraud, you name it and it made sense to me.
So you'd wonder that if older properties damaged in Charley might have permits pulled for the work needed to repair obvious damage, (or not- happened a lot in Andrew- we saw it in our neighborhood too), and inspections made for just those permits, be they electric, plumbing, whatever, but no overall inspection because the properties were never condemned by the county, no CO needed. If the county was dealing with too much work for too few inspectors ( just guessing), maybe things were overlooked? Or perhaps the county wasn't aware that the owners had moved back in, or there were people living in the house even if there was no water- I know our next door neighbors here in PG told us they weren't waiting for the county to tell them they could move back in. I'm just speculating, that maybe in the confusion following Charley, things were overlooked that might not generally be when you're looking at new construction?
Go look at pics of Hurricane Charley's damage, then rethink your position.
Porches are correctly treated as being subject to wind code and wind loading design requirements. If you don't like it, try one of the flyover states.
Specifically, how many of those porches were ripped off or broken off the edge of the houses, leaving the roofs open at the edge where the porch was, and allowing water damage to get into the houses?. These porches also became flying missiles which caused even more damage. We saw the aftermath in Miami ( our own property included) following Hurricane Andrew, and also with some of our neighbors' houses here following Charlie.
Made me a believer in strengthening porches, including the roofs, and the pillars to withstand hurricane force winds.
Fine. Strengthen the porches. Just set the standards. But you don't need an engineer to draw a set of plans for a porch addition, or a lanai, or a storage building, or, or, or. Just give a set of standards, and let the contractor go.
How To Fix It ALL! BUT YOU AINT GUNNA LIKE ...THE SOLUTION!!
I dont live in the Beverly Hills of SWF: ) So as you might imagine our little home on the Island of Cozumel was Never Owned By Donald Trump.. : ) But over the years that little house a 2-2-1 along with a couple thousand others of all shapes and size have withstood no less than 6 Hurricanes with Wilma being the Biggest most Powerful Hurricane The Atlantic has ever seen and it sat on Cozumel going 150-200 MPH for 48 hours.. Our little house had zero damage, well outside of flooding and theres nothing to harm there either , because our inside walls are cement block as well .. let the water subside and let it dry and wash it down and your done.. we didnt even have to repaint the inside.. That said 90+ % have flat cement roofs everything is made out of cement block and then cement coated. Palapas didnt hold up well , though some of the frames withstood the storm. Trees were down power was out some property walls went down .. Damage from the Ocean .... Right on the Ocean was severe!!... But Homes by and large had very little damage. No Gable Roofs No Screened Lanai's ... We had a covered Veranda and I designed the overhang and my guys built it out of CEMENT and Block and Round Cement Columns.. Its pretty difficult to build a wooden structure that will actually withstand a Hurricane.. Well I think you get the idea and see my point .. Cozumel weather history ? Any of these storms ring a bell ,Dolly,Ida,Rina,Charlie,Hazel,Hilda,Carla,Debbie,B eulah,Brenda,Eloise,Gilbert
Keith,Arlene,Roxanne,Claudette,Emily,Stan,Wilma
How To Fix It ALL! BUT YOU AINT GUNNA LIKE ...THE SOLUTION!!
I dont live in the Beverly Hills of SWF: ) So as you might imagine our little home on the Island of Cozumel was Never Owned By Donald Trump.. : ) But over the years that little house a 2-2-1 along with a couple thousand others of all shapes and size have withstood no less than 6 Hurricanes with Wilma being the Biggest most Powerful Hurricane The Atlantic has ever seen and it sat on Cozumel going 150-200 MPH for 48 hours.. Our little house had zero damage, well outside of flooding and theres nothing to harm there either , because our inside walls are cement block as well .. let the water subside and let it dry and wash it down and your done.. we didnt even have to repaint the inside.. That said 90+ % have flat cement roofs everything is made out of cement block and then cement coated. Palapas didnt hold up well , though some of the frames withstood the storm. Trees were down power was out some property walls went down .. Damage from the Ocean .... Right on the Ocean was severe!!... But Homes by and large had very little damage. No Gable Roofs No Screened Lanai's ... We had a covered Veranda and I designed the overhang and my guys built it out of CEMENT and Block and Round Cement Columns.. Its pretty difficult to build a wooden structure that will actually withstand a Hurricane.. Well I think you get the idea and see my point .. Cozumel weather history ? Any of these storms ring a bell ,Dolly,Ida,Rina,Charlie,Hazel,Hilda,Carla,Debbie,B eulah,Brenda,Eloise,Gilbert
Keith,Arlene,Roxanne,Claudette,Emily,Stan,Wilma
Our daughter spent a summer at the U of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, and we visited her for a couple of weeks. We went to a friend's house in an upper middle class neighborhood. The houses were painted pretty colors with nice landscaping, but were basically bomb shelters - concrete block boxes with flat roofs. Windows were screened and had shutters, but no glass...like you said, hose it down, let it dry, back in business.
Ours was "cute" because it was Tiny.. Others were smaller same size a little bigger some HUGE! Yet most had a lot of similarities.. Cement and Block and cement and block.. 1 story 2 story 3 story cement and block 700sqft to well over 5000 sqft on the water for $1,000,000 and up or in a neighborhood for $20K and home values are mixed except for the beach and no one gives much of a rats patootee LOTS of Millionaires and Multi-millionaires on Cozumel..... get my point folks? Anyway.. 90+% have Flat roofs, but hey!! Flat Roofs = 1 Free Sky deck/ huge patio with every house : ) Most homes have Decorative 1/2"x1/2" cold rolled Steel Bars on every window and swinging Gates for doors etc etc .. Yes its the Spanish Heritage.. Yes its for burglars and YES They stop Flying debris .. No Damage to my home..
Quote:
Originally Posted by wpc691
Our daughter spent a summer at the U of Puerto Rico Mayaguez, and we visited her for a couple of weeks. We went to a friend's house in an upper middle class neighborhood. The houses were painted pretty colors with nice landscaping, but were basically bomb shelters - concrete block boxes with flat roofs. Windows were screened and had shutters, but no glass...like you said, hose it down, let it dry, back in business.
Specifically, how many of those porches were ripped off or broken off the edge of the houses, leaving the roofs open at the edge where the porch was, and allowing water damage to get into the houses?. These porches also became flying missiles which caused even more damage. We saw the aftermath in Miami ( our own property included) following Hurricane Andrew, and also with some of our neighbors' houses here following Charlie.
Made me a believer in strengthening porches, including the roofs, and the pillars to withstand hurricane force winds.
The porch/lanai directly caused the near total destruction of both my dad's house and my uncle's out in Harbor Heights. The porch getting sucked off took part of the roof with it, which let the wind get into the house cavity and blow out windows and more of the roof (and the garage door on my dad's). And it's a fact that the porch and screened in cage that was ripped off my dad's house would have killed the neighbors across the street if they were home, because it destroyed their house to the point that it was razed. (On Trevino) It was crazy, the cage and lanai rubbed up the backside of my dad's roof, taking nearly all of the shingles and tar paper with it and some of the sheathing at the SE corner. Then that material buzz sawed its way through a gorgeous Live Oak that my dad's house was built around in an L shape. It was the biggest tree in the entire neighborhood (it's how I always knew where my dad's house was), and the top half of the tree was lopped off almost clean at an angle, and then all of that debris and tree limbs were deposited into the house across the street, whose front wall and entire roof had collapsed into the house cavity, or been blown away.
Part of one of my uncle's roof trusses wound up speared into the side of a minivan parked in the neighbor's yard. Someone's reasonably sized flat bottom fishing boat wound up flipped up onto his own roof/collapsed carport. The boat was still on its trailer, which was still sort of attached to his truck. I remember one of the bigger/nicer/newer houses on the river that looked virtually mint from the street, but when you went around to the river side of the house, the entire back was gone or destroyed. Looked like the glass got blown in, and then the wind unleashed its anger on the innards of their formerly lovely home.
But I tell you what, as stunning as the destruction was, what I saw after Charlie was tiny in scale to what I saw when I did disaster recovery after Ivan up in the Pensacola area. Whoah... it was like Charlie, but over an area 10x bigger.
Fine. Strengthen the porches. Just set the standards. But you don't need an engineer to draw a set of plans for a porch addition, or a lanai, or a storage building, or, or, or. Just give a set of standards, and let the contractor go.
The heck you don't.
No offense, but I've specifically done structural wind load calcs for commercial structures. (like most of the Kohl's dept stores and LA Fitnesses in the TB area, and a bunch of schools, warehouses and shopping centers all over the state, etc. Used to work in the engineering studio for a company called Universal Building Products that's now defunct).
Every structure is different and the calcs are also site specific (affected by nearby structures, proximity to water, etc). You can't just use a handbook, the safety factor would have to be sky high and would raise everyone's material and erection costs even more.
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All Over America .. As I see it hear it and read it, most dont really have a clue to how all this works.. YOU Do and a Few Others Do, but IMHO most dont.. For the cost of permits and impact fees , I honestly feel a form letter to property owners is not asking too much..
