Early E
Registered User
No heat or ac to these 2 rooms
I think you got it just fine to come up with your opinion on this...if you don't have anything to contribute. Take a hike, I asked for help, not criticism. Thanks.
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Help with building code requirement on covering kraft faced insulation please
- Thread starter Early E
- Start date
Early E
Registered User
No heat or AC to room.
Early E
Registered User
My agenda? My agenda was to build the house a 1 bedroom home with potential to expand it should I ever sell it so it's more marketable. My duct runs in between the chords of the truss behind sheetrock covered insulation so should I want to bring AC/Heat into these spaces I would have to open the wall, do a take off and install a grill. Electric is thru the space in covered boxes...just because it's storage doesn't mean I don't need to have a place to plug up a vaccuum or have power for an additonal light to see better in there. A single porcelain light socket doesn't make much light. My real estate agent proposed I build 1600 sqf target size for marketability and so I did by making room in truss. I have plywood floor, single tape covered joints, no finish, no heat, no AC...it's just like you would find in a garage attached to a house...a place to plug up something. It would be the same as calling your attached car garage living space and it's not.
TheCommish
Registered User
So is the duct work is over sized for the future rooms? Is the HVAC also sized for the future rooms? If the HVAC is oversized, that would be a violation of the energy codes.
ICE
Oh Well
What I am reading is that there is a two story dwelling with a less than attractive floor and wall finish on the top floor. I am not aware of a building code that would not allow a plywood floor and bare sheet rock. Trying to slide this past the County Assessor by labeling it a future expansion or storage is worthy of ridicule.
The building department appears to have dropped the ball by approving the erroneous plans and resulting construction. Now I will make an assumption...correct me if I am wrong, there is a staircase leading to the second floor. The future is now.
The building department appears to have dropped the ball by approving the erroneous plans and resulting construction. Now I will make an assumption...correct me if I am wrong, there is a staircase leading to the second floor. The future is now.
Genduct
Registered User
I am confused by your response
The Kraft Paper is the vapor retarder in the Insulation Product. It is not a finish or something added to the Assembly. So what Code reference is your Municipal Official referring to that requires you to complete your unfinished/uninhabitable space so they may increase your taxes, Before you decide to complete your improvements?
So they are going to put the Christmas decorations up there until they need the extra space and have the money to complete the work? Interesting Over Reach, me thinks!
Early E
Registered User
The plans were approved and I am unaware of duct sizing being dictated in any coding. Ducting is often oversized...is mine? I have no idea. Seems as though you are like the assessor grasping as straws to project something that is not so.
Genduct
Registered User
"local tax assessor in that my covering my "unfinished walls" with sheetrock was a necessary task because leaving kraft faced insulation exposed is not allowed. "
Where is the Accessor getting this REQUIREMENT? is the Real Question
What does the BLDG Inspector Say?
Did you have a Plan for this OR was space always there?
Early E
Registered User
Tell me how you would access a room in truss space with 10 foot ceiling height below? Yes I have a set of stairs and they are necessary to store antique furniture or whatever else I put up there. Climbing up a pull down 10 feet at my age is not viable option and future expansion into future rooms for next owner would require a stair well integrated into the plans. This is not unreasonable to have stairs to a space above a garage either is it or down into a cellar/basement? Sliding it past the assessor, the plans were drawn up by myself and noted to be for future expansion...there was no sliding anything past anyone. It was designed to be expanded if someone should decide to do so. Why is this becoming a pissing match on what I have? Because I thought far enough ahead to have my cake and eat it too for down the road one day? I designed this home to hold it value and potentially increase it substantially when and if I ever sold it without having a huge tax liability in the interim for rooms I do not need, but can use for storage and not fill my garage 18 x 30 I built smaller because I did this and thus keeping mice out of it more effectively for storage purposes/rural NY has mice.
Early E
Registered User
The tax assessor has been on my case for the past 4 years while I have been struggling to finish up the home. He sees a cape cod with room in truss and assumes they are bedrooms and I clarified A. It's not a bedroom until I get a certificate of occupancy and it's clarified by building inspector...and 2. I have it on my plans for future expansion they are not. I designed the home and built it this way for profitiability sake keeping a lower than average tax base for overall floor space as do people with basements that can finish them off, but do not..it doesn't make it finished because it has potential.
It may add to the value of the home because of this, but not until it is done. The building inspector gave me my certificate of occupancy just a couple months ago as a 1 bed 2 bad home with storage above. This should have sufficed to conclude I have been correct these past 3 years at grievance, but he is not budging and I could not take this to small claims assessment review until now because it's only an option if it's your primary residence of which it could no be until I got the certificate of occupancy which I just have gotten recently and have now made my home. I can now legally address his refusal to update his data which formulates my taxes in a venue where he has no last word/SCARS. There is another person that has had this problem online and he has done the same thing refuse to acknowledge fact..raise his taxes yearly as a way to get even or something for taking this to grieveance. I will be bringing this other case to light when I go.
Early E
Registered User
It's part of the thermal envelope because it is a room in truss and to attain the required over R-50 value....it was not achieveable in the lower chords of the truss without compromising my higher 10 foot ceiling below. I have the spaces of the trusses filled with 4 and 5 blankets of R-19 and 3 above in the piggy back truss sections to not incorporate this space with a barrier of insulation in this zone would not meet code...finished or not. I had to have plywood down to store furniture and boxes on. I can't risk falling thru my ceiling below to a hardwood floor.
Early E
Registered User
me thinks? How about getting a door test and see if you can pass that with poly on the walls. The rock is to cover the vapor barrier...me thinks per the warning label on the insulation. Me thinks this is done within the home of all places so there is no risk of fire internally or spread quicker with storage making it even more of a fueling source....me thinks.
Early E
Registered User
Here's my bottom line, I feel I am correct for what I have and have been overtaxed the past 3+ years because of my inability to readdress this with someone other than the assessor in the end game. Will I win this, I do not know. According to what is written in the assessor's manual on how to calculate a room(s)/space that is to be considered living area...I was never there and it was more than documented on my plans and with my pictures I showed and for the reasons I stated in my arguments. I only got on here to find out about the requirement for covering the faced insulation which should even further expound on why I did what I did from the very beginning. That is all and thanks for the help on this to those that chose to contribute and not play assessor.
ICE
Oh Well
LOL
ICE
Oh Well
Your initial question about a code for covering insulation was answered. But hey now...this forum is populated with thinkers and they get to chime in unabated.
Given that the issue at hand is property taxes I would rather hope that you prevail than not. It's just that I see this from an inspectors' vantage point and well...relying on semantics to evade reality is not a qualified argument. What you have built is habitable space, albeit complete with code violations, habitable non-the-less. The only thing missing is furniture.
You can put stripes on a cow, call it a zebra and reasonable people can disagree.
Given that the issue at hand is property taxes I would rather hope that you prevail than not. It's just that I see this from an inspectors' vantage point and well...relying on semantics to evade reality is not a qualified argument. What you have built is habitable space, albeit complete with code violations, habitable non-the-less. The only thing missing is furniture.
You can put stripes on a cow, call it a zebra and reasonable people can disagree.
Early E
Registered User
I don't know, it keeps going up...I don't have anything to compare it to with regards to my getting a stable or consistent assessment because it started out at 40K and started to skyrocket when he wanted to walk in and look around and I declined. I know my parents have a house right next to it that was built in 1995 is 2400+ sqf 4 car garage full cellar 4 bed and it's coming in less than me by 15K and same with my sister...2200+ sqf with a full cellar and coming in less built in 2005 or there about. He's comped my home to larger custom homes with massive square footages, cellars and such, big ammenties and I'm on a monolithic slab room in truss in your budget with a nice porch facade...that is all I have going for it really. Still have to tile my master shower yet...only one functional bathroom. These homes are all on same side of road within 1000 feet of another. A comp is just that...something comparable, he failed to do that or get the facts correct for his assessment. Here is the other person that has been subjected to the same game this assessor is playing I found in doing my research and I looked his property up which is at 48K. I believe he must have broken ground somehow because it remains that number today if you look it up on the current tentative tax rolls online: https://www.nny360.com/opinion/roun...cle_8fa1d223-4589-538b-8071-8aec807369cd.html
bill1952
SAWHORSE
I thought assessments for property taxes were supposed to relate to market value. They do where I live, with assesed value being close to market value. (Which if Early R's profile location is correct, I'm in same county and 25 miles or so from him.) I don't know anything about GLAs and SCARs. It seems these unfinished rooms add to the market value - since they admittedly were built for profit. Yes, worth a little less than if finished, but 10 or 20% maybe? Look at real estate for comps, and around here most places are going over asking price by a lot.
I can only assume fighting with an assessor is like fighting with a building official - like wrestling with a pig in mud - the pig likes it and the pig usually wins. (Stolen from a building officials signature, a fellow who I worked with on code development years ago.)
I can only assume fighting with an assessor is like fighting with a building official - like wrestling with a pig in mud - the pig likes it and the pig usually wins. (Stolen from a building officials signature, a fellow who I worked with on code development years ago.)
Early E
Registered User
Yeah, I have a pig I am wrestling and the mud is the town boards grievance day where at the end of the day it's Jim Rounds the assessor that has the final word on the matter and you wait another year for another waste of your time. I've wasted 3 years with him still not getting simple data facts corrected. He must find entertainment like an officer knocking heads of someone resisting arrest. He's got the wrong guy here
ICE
Oh Well
Did you miss a zero?
Genduct
Registered User
Early E
Me thinks, you misunderstood that my reply originally Supported your Point of View.
Now your response about Roughing in all the HVAC AND Electrical minus final connection and devices, leads me to conclude that using your small, non Code Compliant window is the only thing that keeps this space from being a HABITUAL SPACE Therefore, with SUBSTANTIAL COMPLETION of the Space, You should be accessed for the Reality of what you built. You had the right idea, it was you who OVER Reached, not the Accessor
Your comment about NEEDING the drywall for the Vapor Barrier was the "smoking gun" IMHO
Had you NOT installed all the electrical and Duct and left the space Truly UNFINISHED, that would have been a different Story, That is what I initially thought had happened. I was clearly wrong and you are clearly, "Gaming" the system.
Nice Try,
bill1952
SAWHORSE
spell checker gets me on this one too.
Early E
Registered User
How is running ductwork thru the unusable portion of the truss and having electric in the space made it a different story? Cellars and garages are not living space and have electrical. There is NO duct into these space..it is unheated space per the definition of non living space. Window egress only affects it's ability to be utilized as a "bedroom" it can still be living space like a study, living room whatever you want to call it......however, the big key here is it is unheated and unfinished, no trim, no finish floor and the building inspector would have not made it clear it is storage otherwise. In addition to this....here is a cut right from the assessor's handbook regarding "finish" : The finished area must be similar in quality to that found in the main living area, but does not have to be finished with the same materials. This will not be added into the square footage of living area and it will not be costed.
Again, you are playing the same game the assessor did here. How is this space any different than the cellars/basements in almost all the homes that have them...It is not! It has the potential to be, but until it is......It is not. No different than the kraft faced insulation below a subfloor not being covered with the recommended sheetrock which is often done.......is a hazard to the home period. Plastic sheeting does not provide adequate barrier for a barrier on something flammable and which is required for this type of home/cape cod.
Even if...................the room got finished, it cannot be classified as bedroom space and hence, it's still a 1 bed 2 bath home and you won't find a market value on a 1 bedroom home that is where I have on this. It is not and the homes nearby far exceed it's worth, yet I am being toyed with by inspector because I refused his entry 3 years ago, just like the other guy I linked the story about he ran into.