Renovation

“If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.”

Grace Hopper

Tempting as it often is to just go right ahead and do a thing (particularly if it is a stonkingly good idea) in this particular case no apology will after all be needed…

…because we have permission!

I refer – of course – to the outcome of our application for a building permit for our imminent sun room/deck project. Scarce had our structural engineer yesterday thrust into my eager hands three copies of the annotated drawings (along with a healthy bill for his services!) than I hot-foot round to the municipal offices to deliver same to the Senior Building Inspector.

The inspector’s feet clearly hardly touched the ground either, for today I had a call inviting me to return to the office to collect the permit (on payment, naturally, of a further eye-watering disbursement!).

The intention is to start the work in early April when (if!) the weather picks up a bit. This is pretty essential as for some of the time at least there will be one or more big holes in our external walls, following the removal of the old sun rooms and before the new sliders are installed.

We are, naturally, most excited finally to be getting things underway!

“One man’s magic is another man’s engineering.”

Robert A Heinlein

A couple of posts back I updated the gentle reader on the progress regarding our application for a building permit, with particular reference to the hazardous materials survey that we had been obliged to commission. Should you have missed that gripping missive it can be found here.

Within that screed I mentioned that we have now further been obliged to engage a structural engineer to provide detail of the construction of our new deck. I feel compelled to explain this sudden need for us now to spend more of our hard-earned monies on bureaucratic notions.

We have – as can be seen from the attached illustration – a rather dinky little two-person hot tub which came with the house. It currently resides in an enclosed unventilated space beneath one of the decaying sun-rooms. It has been little used and is in pretty spiffing condition, but we cannot run it up as the previous owners removed its power supply when they installed the heat pump. One aim of our deck redevelopment has always been to get the tub back into action.

When our designer drew up plans for our splendid new deck he decided – on a complete whim of the sort to which designers are prone – that the perfect position for the tub would be up on the deck level outside the master bedroom and overlooking the sea. Of course, as soon as we saw the plans we knew that he was right and signed up enthusiastically. Our contractor agreed that such a thing was entirely feasible, though the new deck would need to be strengthened at the appropriate point. So far so very good…

The problem arose when the plans were submitted to the municipality as part of our building permit application. The Senior Building Inspector informed me that had we just been building a simple deck we could have done so without further ado. However, as the plans show a hot-tub on the deck it is necessary to get a structural engineer to draw up plans for something that our contractor already knows how to build, and subsequently to inspect the results and report that all has been done correctly.

I am, naturally, fully aware as to why this has to be done, but it is extremely annoying to have to spend even more money on the procedural aspect of things when all those concerned are more than capable of doing the job without interference.

And as yet – of course – not a thing has been built!

A few weeks ago I uploaded to this blog a brief epistle on the subject of our recently submitted application for building permits for our sunroom removal and deck replacement project. Reference was made therein to the additional need to send to the planning department of our local municipality a copy of a ‘Hazardous Materials Assessment & Abatement Report‘. To this end we engaged the services of a local company of environmental hazard testing specialists and were duly visited for an inspection. The report has now been delivered and a copy will shortly be forwarded.

The prime concern in residential buildings of this age is the potential presence of asbestos in parts of the structure that are likely to be disturbed during renovations. Our house dates back to 1979 (no sniggering from those of you in the UK. Remember – I have owned or part-owned several Georgian residences!). For more modern properties than ours owners may be confident that they are free of this most unpleasant of substances but in a house of this age asbestos may be found in a number of places – in the stucco with which the external walls are rendered, in the ‘mud’ with which the drywall (UK readers – plasterboard!) is lined, in the blown insulation in lofts and cavities, in the textured ceiling coatings that were particularly popular at the time and in the backings of certain older floor coverings.

For our deck project the only area of concern is the external stucco rendering, but since we intend carrying out further renovations inside the property once we have replaced the sunrooms we decided to arrange for further testing be done throughout the house whilst the inspectors were on site. They duly took nineteen samples from different locations (which are now covered with attractive green sticky tape, presumably on the same principle as culinary Band-Aids!) which were sent away to the laboratory.

To our very great relief the report came back largely negative. We do have a couple of traces of asbestos – in the backing of some old vinyl flooring which was left underneath a couple of areas that were re-floored. This will have to be removed but should not – frankly – be a major issue. Everything else was mercifully clear.

I would by now have sent the report off to the powers that be were it not for the fact that the Senior Building Inspector for the municipality contacted me before I could so do, informing me that I would also need to obtain further detailed plans and reports from a structural engineer before they could consider our application.

I will explain this unwelcome development in the next gripping installment of what is perhaps inevitably starting to develop into something of a saga…