3R Home and Barn Project

[3RRL]

Rob, good luck with your final inspection. I can't remember anybody ever getting signed off on the first call. ( down here anyway) The inspector always finds something wrong, even if it is some little piddly thing. I think that they do that just to let everybody know who's boss.

Thanks Brian, we are keeping our fingers crossed but suspect you will be right.
Otherwise those worthless POS wouldn't have a job, right?
You can get different answers from different inspectors, I found out. I remember clearly how many time we had to remind one inspector doing the solar project that nothing was connected to the grid. He must have made comments about being connected fifty times before it finally sunk in.
It was funny when he said "You can't do this or you need that for ... Oh yeah, not connected to Edison".
My solar contractor is helping the county with writing up and understanding off grid installations like ours.

 

[3RRL]

Ok Rob, I'll start packing too.You two have picked out MY room correct?. Just kidding...... maybe, but I am curious to see if the solar system will handle the power requirements for the machine shop.Are your machines single or three phase?. I suppose you could always install a separate system just for the shop$$$$.

Hi Steve, lol ... I forgot to build your room.
I too am looking forward to using the machine shop up there. You may not remember, but in fact there is a separate system for the shop. The Outback inverters are divided so I'll get 7kW tot he shop. They can be connected to the home inverters which provide 14kW for a total of 21kW if we ever need that much. There was an option for the ones going to shop to generate 3 phase 240v, but I already have a rotary phase converter, so I didn't choose that option. I believe it can still be added if needed. Also there is the 20kW Cummins back up generator which I may need to use occasionally, but I doubt I'll ever tax the system that hard ... that remains to be seen though.

The two Outbacks on the right are for the machine shop.
The bank on the left is for the log home.

 

[Inspector507]

Otherwise those worthless POS wouldn't have a job, right?

Now Now

 

[3RRL]

OOOPs...
No offense inspector, hope you saw the smiley face.
You know who I'm talking about, right?

 

[MtnViewRanch]

Rob, that 4+ year job that got finished last year, the inspector wrote up some stupid little thing in the master bath. When he came back to inspect his little, (I'm the boss item wright up) asked the general if he had fixed the problem, yes was the answer and proceeded to sign off on the final inspection without even going upstairs to verify that it had been taken care of. It was just his way of letting everybody know who the boss really was.

Again, good luck.

 

[3RRL]

Well, I won't go into detail but I know exactly what you mean, having had very similar experiences. So when a guy does something like you've described, it's just not right in my book.
However, I'm guilty of a bad generalization (stereotyping) and I apologize for that ...
... except to those who deserve it of course.

 

[EddieWalker]

Rob,

Good luck on your inspection. I'm sure your contractor will handle anything that comes up. The final is the easy one anyway, and is usually just a punch list of things that the inspector wants done or changed. I look at them as a new experience every time and part of the process. The same is true with home inspectors when selling a house. They have to find something, so they will keep looking until they do. I tend to leave them a few tidbits to justify their fees that are easy fixes for me to take care. I've done things like leave a section of conduit unfastened and leave an electrical junction box with a lid off. On one house, I had pretty much had it all covered, so they decided that my air ducts under the house were touching the dirt in places. That was all he could find, so I had to push the dirt away from under the ducts and take digital pictures that I emailed to the buyers. It took five minutes to do with my bare hands. It's just part of the game of real estate.

Eddie

 

[Inspector507]

OOOPs...
No offense inspector, hope you saw the smiley face.
You know who I'm talking about, right?

Yes Rob, I saw the smiley face and was laughing as I posted my reply.

Now on final inspections, here's what we see most often.

Handrails on stairs of 3 risers or more.
Negative drainage around the house.
Downspout leaders not far enough away from the house.
GFCI's not working.
Reverse polarity on receptacles.
Closet light clearance from shelves.
Hot water temp too high.
AC condensor not level or not on a pad.

Most of these items are simply punch out items the contractors/subs should know about and checked themselves. But in our area they've taken the attitude that we were the cheapest punch out guy they could ever find. Then we changed our whole fee schedule and started charging per trip. If you want me out for an inspection, you pay for it. If you want me out for 10 inspections, you pay for it. They are more careful now to punch out their own work instead of my crew.
My staff has also been educated in customer service and a liberal interpretation of the code. A plate/cover missing on a box? A phone call can remedy that. We have a good relationship with most of the contractors in our city. And maybe I'll check it out next time I'm in the area to make sure you fixed it. Now if I find that you didn't.........

 

[3RRL]

Inspector, thanks for that list and the tips. It's funny you have the handrails on that list. Since a lot of my stairs have small logs for handrails, they are not to code. So they added 3" wide handrails to pass inspection. I wish I had a photo of that. The rest of the list is very much what the contractor has on his own punch list.

Eddie, you are one smart guy leaving a red herring for them to find. I used to do the same thing on my detailed mold designs by leaving a super obvious goof up for my customers (engineers) to catch. Otherwise they would screw up my whole concept!

 

[3RRL]

The final inspection has been postponed until later this week.
The foreman, Steve, was on a planned vacation and they wanted him to be there for it. There are still little things for them to wrap up, including the final electrical in the barn.

In the mean time we are still packing things up to store up there.
Loretta is busy with the house stuff and I'm still dragging up some equipment out of the garage.



They've got the breezeway done now. It came out pretty good except the slope is a little steeper than we wanted.