The Expert Podcast

Today we're going to get into what goes into filing for a building permit and what are the requirements for having a building permit completed approved executed and we'll look at permits everywhere from a full residential building permit all the way down to small examples like electrical upgrades or electrical repairs and we'll use some examples from various parts of the country but remember most of the building standards and building requirements are relatively consistent throughout the country.

There's different versions of it in certain states regarding environmental conditions for example in florida there's enhanced building codes for hurricane protection on homes roof masonry hurricane shutters there's requirements for even the way windows are installed on homes in florida in california you might have upgraded requirements for earthquake however the general building code in most areas has a lot of consistencies more importantly the permitting process the logic behind it is very much the same from jurisdiction to jurisdiction so a couple of these examples will give you a basic idea of how you might approach it and what you might be up against in terms of challenges for a building permit or if your contractor is doing it for you.

So first we'll take a look at an example this happens to be from oregon in benton county and they have a very good resource on their web page it talks about building permit process and application forms how to submit a permit and if you're a licensed contractor you can use the e-permitting process in oregon for mechanical electrical and plumbing if you are a homeowner that's doing the work yourself or applying for the permit yourself you can do it using paper forms and it'll tell you the permanent application types and this is pretty consistent throughout the country.

There's a demolition permit which you need to remove items or to take away from a building structure then you have a change of use where if you were modifying a building to have it be used in the different manner that it was intended if you're going from let's say a church to residential or from a shed to let's say a shop you may have to have a change of use manufactured home single family dwelling permit that's the most common and then structural permit that's when you're going to do basically an addition or remodel that might be a structural permit.

So what are the steps the first step is in a an initial screening of the site plan for compliance zoning and land use this is in most jurisdictions the first step that you have to take basically you're giving them a rough outline of this is what i'm intending to do this is where it's going to show up on the lot and they're going to give their stamp of approval to the basics of your project you will still need more detailed floor plans and structural design and building plans to show the structure of the of the building in the engineering and architecture but first they want to see a site plan.

We'll take a look at a cyclone here momentarily on the site plan you have to give them some basic information what's the location of this proposed work what's the description of the work are you building a shed are you building a deck are you adding a fence are you adding a new addition to the property and they want to know what the basics of the project is what's the category is it commercial residential or government and the construction proposal is it a new construction is it a remodel addition or is an alteration of the existing an alteration means that you're doing something substantial maybe you're taking out an interior wall maybe you're constructing a new fireplace within an existing structure so they're going to start with a site plan that's number one.

So let's look and see what a site plan looks like in this county they give you a checklist of what the cyclone has to be general information the owner's name map and lot number you notice it says north arrow on the site plan no matter how you orient the plan you should have an arrow pointing north so they know the orientation of the property compared to cardinal headings street and road intersection what's the scale of this document that you provided to them the lengths of property lines is there a drain field or septic on the property have to locate it in the distances from that to the property lines into the other structures on the property if there are structures you have to have the dimensions what they are labeled and if it's a new structure or existing you have to list that as well.

And then the distances and we'll see that on the site plan from the proposed and existing structures to property lines roads septic systems other structures they want to see the relationship between the important elements on this property and then if there's any external elements like water bodies of water flood plains cliffs swamps that kind of thing and if there's easements on the property for other access for adjacent property owners and there's two different kinds of easements there's an easement in gross and easement and pertinent and either one of those would be important to put on your site plan.

So here's an example of a site plan and as you notice it is kind of formal where it has it's not just drawn with a crayon but it's not the same as an architectural drawing or an engineering drawing you could make this yourself as long as use a ruler and have straight lines and reasonably accurate scale you can make your own site plan if you notice this is probably handmade and here's an example this is the existing dwelling you have your distances 80 feet to this property line 107 feet to this property line 30 feet to the replacement drain field here's where the driveway is 110 feet to the barn you have all the important dimensions and the drain field which would be part of the septic it shows the distance from that to the property line it shows the distance from each property boundary this is a seasonal creek so you're going to want to know where the distance to that creek is at the closest distance there's a well here you're going to run from the corner to the well and distance.

If you are an applicant for a permit and you create this outline or sketch of the site plan well it will set up the success of the permit if you do this with less precision or it's vague or it's not easy to read first of all the site plan itself might not get approved and even if it does it's going to be hard to go forward with your building project the site plan is the key again it does not have to be very formal by a surveyor or an architect or a land man it has to be done at least to give the review committee in your jurisdiction an idea of what you're trying to do and the important distances.

If you notice the the most common element on this page are distances it's not the buildings themselves the buildings themselves are shown once or twice the distances from every important corner is what they're looking at that's key and if you notice here remember they mentioned road it shows the distance from the building to the property line and right next to it the distance of the road they want to know both because they're going to be looking at a couple different things regarding your proposed construction.

So once that has been submitted and most counties have a requirement on the format of it here they're talking about 11 by 17 that's like double the size of a letter piece of paper then it's confirmed that they received it and if they need more information the technician will let you know i need to know what material this is or i need to get more details on this distance once this initial screening has been completed they will send you an electronic stamp of your site plan saying the initial zoning compliance is completed that's not an approval of your permit at this point you really haven't even applied for a permit you're just getting permission to apply for a permit because if the use of your property under this proposed development does not conform to zoning or land use or other basic requirements of the zoning of your jurisdiction they're not even going to prove your site plan.

For example if you build the house too close to the property line or septic system is too close to the house they're going to let you know that that's not don't even bother trying to apply for a permit once that's done and everything's approved then you would submit your application for a permit and we'll take a look at that next it it reminds you that you'll have to submit that site plan that you submitted above with your application if you submit a permit application without the site plan that was stamped okay by the technician they won't even accept your application so you have to make sure that you retain that site plan and don't deviate from the site plans intentions if you decide later well i want to move the house 10 feet over here you can't change that unless you get a new site plan review.

Next is actually the permit application and they have a page for that single family dwelling permit application and it tells you they have some phone customer service available you can make an appointment for in-person meetings look most counties they want to help you they want to make the project go well for you they can't do everything for you but if you have some questions or you're not sure about exactly how to proceed or what the requirements are you can usually make an appointment to have somebody come out and look at your property or meet you in the office discuss your proposal and they can point out things that are obviously not going to fly with them but they'll also give you some suggestions on what things might make the process easier for you.

To place a new veiling dwelling on a vacant parcel you need to obtain zoning approval and that's part of that site plan but you also need to make sure that the zoning approves the house in the first place and then you have to show that you have access to a water supply well what does that look like usually there's a worksheet for that to calculate how you're going to get water to that property is there city water is it a well and you have to include your plot plan which you've done show adjacent building show access for the project where is the access to this dwelling is there a driveway is there an easement and you might need a permit just for the driveway.

And then you're going to utilize contacts with the various water providers in the county to see which one covers that area and you have to use a worksheet how many square feet it is what how big is the deck is there any are there any sheds this is to determine the fire risk for that property because in addition to having potable water for use domestically on the property there has to be water supply available for fire fighting on the property for that particular use and once that's done they will tell you if it's approved and how many gallons they expect it's needed to fight a fire based on the construction type is it fire resistant is it non-combustible is it timber is it wood framed and the fire department will determine what is the gallon drain load that they need for preparing fire defense for that particular use.

So what else do you need well you may need on-site septic permit application this is important because if you're in an area that has municipal sewer and water then it's mostly a matter of getting approved for a hookup to those but if you're an area where you need to have an on-site septic system and we'll talk in other videos about how to design that you want to make sure that your proposed site plan includes the placement of those drain fields you have a drain field here you also have a replacement drain field most new developments require a re reservation of space on the property for the drain field but also what's called a repair area.

So if 5 or 10 or 15 years later this drain field fails for whatever reason you have another drain field that you can replace the first one with and that's because if you don't have a sewer system and your drain field fails now you have a property that has no way to dispose of waste and there's a lot of reasons why a drain field can fail that are irreparable if it's inundated with water if you have collapse if you have soil compaction that's unknown at the time of design so they want to have a repair area that's good practice for you as a homeowner in building a property to have that because if your primary drain field fails and you have to go to a backup you want to make sure that space is available and you haven't put your house in a place where you have no more usable space on your property.

So once those two details are covered now you have to get an address request form because if it's a new house on a vacant piece of land you may have to have a new physical legal address assigned to you by the authority that does that usually zoning and then you have all your applications single family dwelling application we'll look at that the site plan you've done building plans are going to be important your water availability the septic and the energy selection form where you're going to get your power from is it electric is it gas is there more than one electric available and you'll have to have that arranged with your permit too.

So let's take a look at some of these forms first is the permit application and this is kind of like a fill in the blanks form it's going to ask you is the zoning approval verified yes that will be done the jobsite address who's the applicant is it you is it the contractor is it a builder who's the property owner maybe different from the applicant but they want to know both parties who's the primary contact when there's a contractor that goes here you notice it has a place for the license number in oregon it's called ccb and then there'll be other subcontractors for very specific but important parts of the project mechanicals are like hvac heating air conditioning those type of important utilities for the property then you have electrical then you have plumbing.

And each one of those will need a licensed provider of that service to create the system for that structure so electrical it's a requirement that a licensed electrical firm does the work for installing the electrical components the conductors the devices the breaker boxes even connection to the main service entrance from the utility and we'll take a look at an electrical permit and what that electrical project process looks like plumbing is the same thing plumbing is something where all of the ingress for water domestic water and the egress of sewer or waste is connected to a monolithic system so all of the features of that the drains the vents the pressure systems are important to be done by a licensed contractor and those are all going to be inspected because there's best practices for each one of those installs and they're guided by very specific codes.

So you may have an electrical code national electrical code nec there's plumbing codes and each municipality can make some adjustments and modifications to them usually making them more stringent in your area but even little details like the angle of pipes on your drain system you can't go more than a 45 degree angle or maybe the vents for your sewer system have to be above the level of certain roof pitches there's many details about codes that have to be followed and even the general building code will have details and the contractors on each one of these trades will follow those codes and the building contractor will follow codes.

Even something as simple as building a deck has codes that have to be followed if a deck is above a certain height off the ground has to have a certain type of railing certain type of footings they're trying to prevent the types of injuries or damage or hazards that have been seen over the years a deck collapses and somebody gets hurt electrical components fail and causes electrocution or fire every year all of these codes are updated and there's a new version of them to talk about maybe using certain size wire or conductors to make sure the project is done safely.

So you'll have your subcontractors your trades contractors and then if any of these are done by owner installation it'll check yes or no and if you're doing any of these yourself in many cases it's allowed you still have to follow the code but you can't hire anybody else to do it other than yourself either you hire a licensed contractor or you do it with your own hands you can't pay some people to do something that aren't licensed in most cases.

And then what's the value you describe the job with a narrative then you talk about the building height in feet how many bedrooms how many bathrooms kitchen living area garage carport and what they're going to do is they're going to come up with a value and that value will help them determine what are the permit fees it also is going to go into your tax assessment for the property so that they can raise your va your assessed value to change your property tax what type of fuel is it is electric gas oil is it even solar they have a place for solar now is there a secondary power so you might have electric but you might have gas for your range or you might have solar.

And then the quantity of each item how many air handlers do you have how many furnaces how many heat pumps how many hot water heaters how many wood stoves are there are there vents is there a range should is a ventilation system each one of these is going to go to a calculation for them to figure out how much to charge you for the permit.

In addition you're going to need to submit formal building plans for this construction whether it's a new house on a vacant piece of land or a major addition to a house or even a remodel where you're adding a dormer or door or some other type of major structural item will need building plans in most cases it'll be need to be done by an architect or certified plans you notice in big letters minimum requirements are are designated plans should be drawn to scale and be of sufficient detail to show the work proposed you also have to have cross references to show what the size of the lumber is so they know how strong the house is going to be and there's rules and regulations of single-family drug dwellings the plans you submit are required to match or exceed the level of detail presented in these samples.

This is just an example to show you what they're looking for if you cannot produce drawings like these it may save you time to have your plans drawn by a professional drafts person or an architect and that's probably the best way to go anyways so first they're going to tell you what's on the checklist how many sets of plans do they need they might say two and you check off yes or no on this checklist before you send in the permit application.

Um do you have a site plan well we've already done that so that'll be a yes you need a foundation plan so in addition to the structure of the house you need to tell them what this house is resting on is it a concrete slab is it footer walls is it a foundation is it a basement is it pierce so you need to describe what the foundation is and show those footings dimensions anchor bolts hold downs everything that shows them how good this house is going to be supported but also what's keeping it from blowing away right what are the anchors for this residence.

You need to show floor plan with all the dimensions the different rooms where the doors are how big the doors are on windows because most residential properties require ingress and egress to every room secondary and primary so if you have a door in a bedroom you need a window in case that door is blocked in a case of a fire and the window has to be of a certain size can't be too high off the ground so somebody can't reach it there's a lot of dimensions they need to see to make sure that it matches code um and it needs to show contour lines at two full intervals if there's any slope or grade on the property are there easements of the driveway location of septic systems we've talked about that and the utility locations.

So where the utilities come from the providers where's the electrical service come into the property where does it transit the property to get to the house because they want to make sure there's nothing that's going to interfere with that later are you putting a well right where the electrical is that wouldn't be good um cross sections this is important all the framing member sizes and spacing so the beams the studs the floor joists the headers the roof trusses all have to show their dimensions but also the structure of each one and we'll see where that how that looks momentarily and what size lumber you're using and the fasteners for each one of these um important building components.

And then the elevation view so they want to show the different sides of the building to see how it lines up and what the appearance of the building is from an external perspective are there wall bracings what are the construction details for the lateral bracing so what's going to keep a wall from tipping over is it attached at the top at the bottom is there a knee wall are there buttresses what's holding up the wall and then roofing that's a whole nother point of review to make sure the roof not only can withstand the carrying load right some areas have to have certain carrying loads because of snow to make sure the roof can hold up x amount of pounds of snow and it's going to depend on the pitch if you have a 12-2 pitch different steep or shallow roof pitches have advantages a shallow roof pitch is easier to work on but a steeper roof pitch will shed things more quickly but it also needs more lateral protection or support.

Basements and retaining walls you have to show what's holding those up the beam calculations this is important if there's any beams that carry a load across an open space or across an opening in a wall like for a large door those beams have to show what the dimensions are and what their carrying loads are and it has to be done with calculation not just sizes but calculation usually by an architect then um if there's energy requirements for insulation for some counties have blow down tests where you basically seal up the house you put a blower on the front door and you see how much air is leaking out of the house because you have to have a certain amount of tight sealed house for energy efficiency for environmental questions.

If there's any of the parts of the house that are manufactured meaning that if there's floor trusses or roof trusses um or joists that are manufactured off-site they're not stick built which is very common especially for roof trusses the engineering details and approvals have to be included with this design and then engineers calculations for different carrying loads has to be stamped on the appropriate portion of the floor plan there may be additional specifics for local requirements and they give you some blank spaces here.

Here's what it looks like here's your basic floor plan and here we spun it around to look at it a little bit better so it's going to show you first a basic area of the house and it talks about some requirements all exterior windows doors shall be flashed meaning that there'll be a flashing component either plastic or metal that will shed water out and around openings to prevent the water from infiltrating doors and windows and that's dangerous because water getting into doors and windows inside the wall system first of all in the short run it can create mold which is a health hazard in the long run it can create rot and deterioration of the framing materials that can cause problems with the structural integrity of the building.

So for example if you had this window and it wasn't flashed properly and water somehow got in here was leaking in here for years and years and years this the studs on either side of this window could be deteriorated this window might have a header above it on two jack studs and king studs that might get deteriorated and there could be a collapse of the house there so they're going to tell you that they all have to be flashed what type of roof shingles are done how many roof vents do you need um you need downspouts.

And then once you start getting into the details here's your framing um this is the basics of the piers it'll give you an overview and then it'll get into the details and they'll have other pages for the details how do these roof trusses and rafters come together is there a bird's mouth is there a metal attachment are there fasteners are the fasteners rated how far apart are the piers it talks about here black polyethylene that's for moisture barrier underneath the house um what's the flooring particle board over tongue and groove decking the garage floor 3 500 psi concrete these are details that the building approval process is going to be looking for if these are engineered trusses those trusses will need to have stamps to make sure they are approved see attach manufacturers trust designs for these particular spans.

And then here's an example of your floor plan look at the dimensions each wall span is going to have the distance measured on here nine feet three inches six feet eight inches 23 feet 20 feet six inches and that way you can tell what the distances are in between what what each room is right this looks like it's the garage with a washer and dryer and a water heater then you have an open area here living room and kitchen what the design is now some of these things may be able to be changed once construction starts for example if the homeowner decided after the fact to move this kitchen on this corner rather than the other corner many of these will not affect the structural integrity but if the plumbing originally came up here for the sink and now you're moving the plumbing over here the building inspector is going to make sure that the plumbing access is not going to create structural problems by drilling through different studs.

Looks like you have a bath and two bedrooms this is what most people think of when they consider a floor plan but all these details of distances what's the interior wall r21 exterior wall gypsum board meaning that it's it's like drywall sheetrock next page is the foundation and supports you have these piers 18 inch diameter footing and this is what's going to hold up your floor trusses you'll have underfloor access basically a crawl space and around the edge there will likely be a concrete foundation wall that will surround the hold up the the walls of the property and then in your garage you may have a floating slab but still have that foundation wall around it and even a little detail like slope eighth inch per foot this way why do you want to slope on your concrete floor well if you drive in your garage with mud and snow on your car or you have water in your garage you want it to flow out of the garage not into a corner where it builds up and causes damage.

Here's where you get into details little details like how does the roof attach to the wall and attach to the ceiling and what is the insulation required the insulation requirements in most counties have to do with an r value what's your requirement for maintaining heat load inside the house what is the roofing material you know you have um composite roofing of a certain pound you have felt paper underneath you have half inch plywood underneath that and then you have to have an a baffle to allow airflow to make sure that you don't have condensation in the roof all these little details are going to be looked at and when you build the house the inspector is going to look at each one of these details to make sure it was constructed in the manner that the plans indicated.

And then all the way down to the floor here's your floor joists and what's on top of that tongue and groove decking particle board you have insulation there you have what's your rebar inside of your wall pierce right it tells you all rebar tied at joints and intersections number four rebar what's the the shape of the rebar you have a tie down block all of these things are what the designer or builder will know how to construct and at each level of construction the inspector will come out at intervals to look at each one of these details before they get covered up by the next step.

And then even details like on the on a window you're going to have to have beveled trim look at the top of this trim work it's on an angle because they don't want it to be flat where water will seat behind it they want water to shed off so it gets away from the house not towards the house the concrete will have certain requirements you know what's called a monolithic slab with footing you have your load bearing wall where it's going to be placed on the the footings in this case it'll be on the edge here it'll be in the middle on the interior piers it'll have the detail how it's attached with an l bolt or bracket what's the ground support underneath that how wide does it have to be the the requirements for size seven inches supporting two stories six inches supporting one story that's the minimum size for the masonry in both cases these details will be calculated by the architect or designer that's building the house but it will need to be approved by the planning department the permit department that's why these plans are submitted so you have approved plans that you can build off and you have something for the inspector to look at at each stage of the process.

So now let's take a quick look at some specific types of permits for smaller jobs here's an example from a county in texas where there's different types of residential permits backflow prevention driveway permit demolition permit electrical permit irrigation permit there's all kinds of permits for smaller jobs even residential generators temporary utilities swimming pool and we'll take a look here at a permit application for electrical this is sugarland texas and it has individual items for electrical is it a service loop is a reconnection is an electrical panel replacement is it a sub panel is it electric motor are there you're are you adding a clothes dryer circuit a disposal circuit that's very common some older homes never had a garbage disposer and you have to add that later.

I doubt you're adding an x-ray machine to your house that would be more commercial property ballpark and parking lot light poles that's a different permit but you can see that each type of permit has different fees associated with it now why is there not specific requirements for each one of these like there was on the building permit well here's why there is a national electric code the nec that has a book comes out every year current well every couple years current edition is 2020 there may be upgrades and updates in between that tell you how to do these electrical installs.

Everything from the size of the wire which are called conductors they don't call it wire in the electrical industry they call it conductors and the devices that go into the walls or ceilings or floors where you connect your components to your electrical system even something as simple as how big is the box that's inside your wall that holds the wires is important because depending on how many wires are coming in and going out they will calculate the volume of that box based on 12 gauge wire three circuits 10 gauge wire one circuit and each size wire and each device in that box will have a certain cubic inch size associated with it that you have to make sure fits in that box and if you have too many devices or too many wires you have to get a bigger box maybe separate some out into another box so the nec will dictate what you have to do for the electrical there'll be a similar requirement for plumbing in hvac how much capacity do you need how big of pipes do you need for hvec how big the um the ductwork needs to be how many units you need to have so all of this will be determined by the size of your project.

Most important is even prior to hiring contractor start to look at some of the requirements in your jurisdiction go to the planning division of your city or town or county and get the forms even if you're not going to fill them out knowing what your contractor has to do will give you some subjects of conversation that you can have with that contractor in advance to let them know that you're knowledgeable about the project that you're willing to contribute information as they need it a knowledgeable client for a general contractor is helpful as long as you're not trying to tell them how to do their job your knowledge and input can be helpful so that they can talk to you in their language and you understand what steps they have to take and that will make the relationship with the contractor flows smoothly and more than likely help you pick out a good contractor.

If you're talking to two or three prospective contractors and you have some knowledge of the permit process the design process and you can see that they know what they're talking about or they have the experience with this that can go a long way in helping you pick out somebody that maybe just doesn't have a shiny van they know more about the project in addition you when you're at the zoning office you can also look in their records to see which contractors are more active if you find that a contractor that you're considering hasn't pulled a permit in your county in five years they may not really be that current or active in the marketplace maybe they've been working the next county over who knows but having a contractor who's active in the marketplace active with construction will help you in many ways because they will have access to labor workforce they will have knowledge about how to get the permits put through they probably have more access to building materials which right now is a pretty significant thing to overcome especially labor so that's another benefit of you interacting with the permit and planning department in advance of starting a job.

Look the permit technician can't tell you who's you should hire they can't give you recommendations but what they can do is tell you what to look for they can tell you what things about your proposed project might be problematic that might be impossible they might tell you you can't build something that big on your property they might tell you that you can't put something this close to the road and that will help you narrow the focus of your design so before you even start talking to an architect an engineer or contractor you already know the basics of what's going to fly and what's not because you don't want to waste your time with professionals figuring out what you should do until you at least have a rough idea of what's going to be possible.

And last but not least don't be afraid to to look at some copies of permits that have already been processed that have nothing to do with your property pull a permit from a house that was built that you know of in your area that's maybe similar to what you're trying to do maybe find some jobs that were remodels to look at how the permits came together and also what the timeline is if you want to get your job done in three to six months look to see how long the permits took on other jobs that might give you a good idea of how fast the county or city is processing paperwork it's a good overview of the general building permit process keep an eye on the channel for additional videos for specific permits like septic or electrical or even remodels of existing property which might have a different permit process.