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An average day

An inspector wrote a correction to replace the cord and plug the served a furnace with a disconnect switch. The contractor did this. Both the inspector and contractor are wrong. We have allowed a 20 amp rated cord and attachment plug to serve as the disconnect for a furnace.....for years.

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I was there for a follow-up inspection. I wrote a correction to restore the receptacle and cord....along with six other new corrections. The next day there was a note on my desk to call the contractor. The next day was too soon to call him. He might need a week to calm down.
 
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The job is replace the slider ... remove wood siding ... install lath and stucco. They called for a lath inspection. They haven't replaced the slider because.....well I'm not sure why. They expected me to access the balcony from the step ladder.

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There should be a farm system similar to baseball. That way I could send contractors back to the minors when they need more training.

This should generate a fine and suspension with a stint in training camp of at least six months.

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Too bad you could not give them a swift kick in the keester while wearing steel toed boots. :p But that would bring out comments about jack booted thugs....
 
Near Anaheim..hun
Why such a concentration of folks there? I noticed there's a lot of decent looking two story buildings behind the tents, are those owners putting any pressure on the City Government or Governor Jerry Brown?
 
Pcinspector1 said:
Near Anaheim..hun
Why such a concentration of folks there? I noticed there's a lot of decent looking two story buildings behind the tents, are those owners putting any pressure on the City Government or Governor Jerry Brown?
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PC:

For years cities tried clearing them out, even finding housing for them but they keep coming back, the poor come here for the welfare benefits, but the cost of housing is so high that at this point even Google engineers are living on the streets, $125,000 a year doesn't cut it if minimum apartment rents are $3,000 a month. With combined tax rates as high as 55% people don't end up with enough to live, let's say a $125,000 a year engineer nets probably about $90,000 after taxes, rent alone is only going to leave him about $50,000, start deducting the costs of transportation, food, etc., there is not much left. I read an article about affordable housing being finally approved in the "Iron Triangle" district of Richmond after years of applications, hearings etc., the net cost of construction looks to be about $1,000 a square foot, I was amazed myself since the last high-quality home I built came in at $1,000 a foot, how the Hell could affordable housing cost so much? I read that in the print edition of the paper and when I got home tried to find it in their online edition to post it here but still can't find it, BTW the Iron Triangle is a black ghetto with the constant sounds of gunshots.
 
Rick18071 said:
The only violation I see is an extension cord across the bike path.
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Rick:

I guess those tents would be considered single family so ADA wouldn't apply, unless the city has adopted "visitability" requirements. But they were obviously built without permits because they can't comply with zoning regulations, I'm sure Tiger could find a lot to write up.
 
Rick18071 said:
I only know you don't need any permit to put up a tent around here.
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Maybe we should permit tents then since that's where people are living, it's now too expensive to build houses except for the wealthy, and they have archtiects, engineers, special inspectors, and qualified bonded contractors so they don't neeed inspection anyway.

Mercury News said:
Back in September, a modest ranch house sold in Sunnyvale for $782,000 over its asking price, signaling that the Bay Area housing market was even crazier than it seemed.

That sale was extreme: The buyer paid $2,470,000 for a four-bedroom, two-bath house — less than 2,000 square feet — that had listed for $1,688,000. But the deal turns out to have been an over-the-top version of what has become the new normal in the Bay Area, where home buyers are more likely to pay over-asking prices than anywhere else in the nation, according to a report from Zillow.

The analysis shows that 68.5 percent of the homes sold last year in the San Jose metropolitan area went for over the asking price. The median amount paid over list price was $62,000, which translates as 6.8 percent above list. Those were the highest numbers in the country.¹
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I read an interview with a married couple living in a camper parked on a street, they were living on the streets in order to save up the $80,000 they needed to make a downpayment on a decent home.



¹ https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/11/bay-area-housing-over-asking-bids-are-the-new-normal/
 
conarb said:
... and they have architects, engineers, special inspectors, and qualified bonded contractors so they don't need inspection anyway.
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Yours must be better than ours. Most of ours are pretty good. Just the odd thing here and there. But some of them... I'm surprised they can figure out how to put pants on every day.
 
conarb said:
it's now too expensive to build houses except for the wealthy, and they have archtiects, engineers, special inspectors, and qualified bonded contractors so they don't need inspection anyway.
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Wealthy people are not immune to mistakes. Just yesterday I inspected the footing for a enough space to house a dozen stallions. The owner obviously has the wherewithal to maintain a herd of horses. Lit up he was when he found out about missing bonding jumpers for an equipotential plane.

He became angry and loud as he asked me why the people involved from the Planning Dept. to the contractors didn't tell him about that. "Are you sure about this?" "Why is an inspector telling me?"

Well then conarb, that project would have sailed on to completion without an inspector. The entire structure will be made from steel. There will be solar on the roof. Could of been a bunch of sick horses too. I guess he should have asked his veterinarian, trainer and jockey what they know about horse barns. I mean, what the heck is all that money for anyway?
 
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Here's another example from yesterday. The owner is wealthy in the high billions.

The first inspection resulted in no inspection for the obvious reason.

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The next time out, they have fixed the obvious.
Take a look at the work.

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This is from the approved set of plans.

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It is mislabeled as a tank anchorage. The footing shall be 12" into undisturbed soil. The re-bar shall be 3" away from soil. On this page the wall is maxed out at 9'6". Another page has 10"2". I doubt that 8" is a big deal....it's sloppy.

The footing is 12" deep from the middle of the slab on one side and 0" deep on the other side. The re-bar is supported on the wrong bar.
 
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But is it worth it if "the common people" are living on the streets? When we came here in the late 30s we had codes but nobody bothered with them, the "Oakies" showed up, homesteaded land and built tar paper shacks, everybody survived and had a roof over their heads, there was a time when codes were good, but now we have Green Codes, Energy Codes, and disability codes that do no good at all, all they do is prommote the New World Order agenda and make things too expensive for anyone but the wealthy. In San Francisco and even Oakland they are building high-rises, cranes all over the place, the higher up you go the more expensive the units are, meanwhile on the streets below you have to stumble over drunks and druggies.

Berkeley inspectors have to stumble through this to go to work in the monring.
 
The job is a large room addition. The hole in the floor is a sewer cleanout. It is inside the front entry.

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The contractor stated that an inspector required the cleanout when inspecting the under-slab plumbing. That seems like a lousy excuse.

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A licensed contractor did this el. service upgrade for a solar contractor. We won't let a solar contractor install a service upgrade because they are not qualified. So they hire the contractor with the lowest bid. I can't fault them for that.

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