IMHO:Codegeek said:
I cannot speak for the actions that took place prior to my involvement this week as this was the first I had heard of the problem, let alone the project. All I know is that when I was a building official, I would not let plans go out of our office for a building permit unless the permit applicant had been notified of the items needing to be corrected. It was up to the permit applicant as to how to proceed, either submit new plans with the corrections, have the RDP redline the plans with their initials, or let us redline the plans with their permission.jar546 said:
We do our due diligence by contacting each jurisdiction prior to permit submittal to determine local codes and ordinances. In this particular case, the jurisdiction did not say anything until after the fact about an interpretation by the state's insurance office with regards to fire barriers which are not required by the IBC.brudgers said:
I have to agree with SoftServe on this one too Coug. While agree it is an unfortunate requirement in some jurisdictions, it is extremely unprofessional and un-civil. The last thing a goverment entity should be. That type of behaviour needs to be challenged, and I could go off on several RDP lobbying groups that idly sit by and do little to nothing about it, but I have a que of plans with no expeditors to attend to. I made a point of politely informing one expeditor last week, that if he contacted me again, instead of the RDP, as I had requested, he would be effectively slowing the project down instead of expediting the process. Finally when the project was approved for issuance, I left messages and emails with the expeditor, informing them of the status and permit fee invoice due. I spent most of the next day responding to various emails from contractors and the RDP about the status because the expeditor did not contact them. In the end, the expeditor called our inspection line, late in the day to verify the status. GRRRRR!Coug Dad said:
It's not the AHJ's responsibility to inform a design professional of every applicable law because they are expected to be a bit more knowledgeable than a homeowner building a garage addition. Personal responsibility for compliance with all the state laws comes with the license to practice architecture in that state. [edit: the more you argue that this was anyone else's fault, the more obvious it is that your firm does not do proper due diligence]Codegeek said:
Surely you aren't suggesting that brudgers is dillusional. He's merely self-actualized to a level of code knowledge that every other (and I DO mean EVERY other) contributor here can only dream of achieving.
I agree with most of what you say. However, this is a case where an unlicensed person working for a design professional is blaming the building department for the failure of a design to comply with State Law. I'm sorry, but architects and engineers are licensed by the state and are responsible for knowing the unique requirements before submitting work for review. To claim that hiring a code expediter constitutes due diligence is horse****, and from the beginning the defense has been "We do work all over the country" - AKA "they don't make us do that in the other town." In my opinion, due diligence when working in a new state may require calling the state fire marshal's office...I've found that they are always happy to discuss projects and requirements with architects. I'll add that given the number of times I've heard architects and their unlicensed employee's go ballistic over Florida's requirements only to find that they don't own a copy of the Florida Building Codes leads me to give the benefit of the doubt quite sparingly in such cases.Mark K said:
No, it isn't. You must be tired - as much as I hate to complement you, your reading comprehension is usually better than this. This is a case where the state has an unpublished and unposted interpretation that is beyond the intent of the code as applied anywhere that anyone here has ever heard of, and no mention was made of said interpretation in pre-application correspondence. It's easy for you to pretend you would have caught this if you were in Codegeek's position; after all, how could we dispute that since hindsight is 20/20?
I don't think all code enforcement is idiotic...even though I think the way in which it is enforced often is. And given that Codegeek is complaining about the outcome of the exact philosophy of permitting which I advocate (e.g. strive to find a way to approve the plans even if it requires conditions) where I fall on the way in which the permit was issued is hardly surprising or inconsistent.permitguy said:
I do not care who the applicant is the AHJ should have never "red lined a fire barrier requirement" and then issue a permit. They should have had the DP supply a listed wall assembly first. JMHO
And in this case, it sounds as if due dilligence would have required the use of a fortune teller to sense the presence of an unpublished interpretation that wasn't mentioned in the pre-application correspondence. I wonder if ICC has considered developing a cert for that?
Actually, it probably just requires a call to the Fire Marshal's office...or a sit down between an actual architect and the building department in lieu of hiring an expediter. You know, the usual sort of things one must often do when working in an unfamiliar jurisdiction.permitguy said:
I'll come back to the important point, everything codegeek describes was the fault of the licensed professional. Blaming anyone else is absurd.jar546 said:
I agree, but,........ the issue's severity is based on its impact. In this case, the permit should not have been issued by the AHJ but there is a lot more work to do than check a State's website for information. Physically having a copy of State and Local codes in your possession would have been the professional, prudent thing to do which would, of course been due diligence.brudgers said:
