Do you know what a C.O. is? Well, C.O. stands for “Certificate of Occupancy” and is the basically The Goal on every project! After all, C.O. means that you can occupy the residence (yes, that you own). There are several series of inspections in a town and every town is different as to how they interpret code, enforce ordinances and apply rules to a site. Yes, it makes thing very complicated for those working in the industry.
Now, ideally these inspections are meant to protect the homeowner in order to make sure that your contractor and sub-contractors are doing the job up to current standards and code. As taxpayers, it is important that we participate in this process of town code enforcement. When a permit is pulled, it’s a sure fired way to guarantee that your taxes will go up because you have done improvements to your home. Then again, doing work without a permit a dangerous place to be. If caught, the fines are heavy and they can make you pull out work already done, if not to code.
It might sound fairly uninteresting but you should know about your inspections because they directly impact your life, your budget and the timeline of your project.
Here’s the deal with my house, this week we passed Preliminary Structural Inspection, Electrical Inspection and Plumbing Inspection. This means that we can close in the walls and insulate as well as drywall. They can’t take final measurements for cabinetry until drywall is in so you can see how important “close in” is for the timeline. (Plus, I’m really tired of seeing the old studs).
Note: In this photo, they had to cut open my finished bath wall so that the plumbing inspector could see how the new bathroom was vented. This is money, time and inconvenience!
Step by step – all are important to the process of achieving C.O. Fingers crossed that we move through this gracefully!
Here are a few more words on building permits.