Here in my small coastal city, the one trade you can not do as owner builder, is Electrical. Reason being, 93% of the FIRE calls responded to by the city Fire Department, are found to be started by some sort of faulty electrical installation work- so its a local ordinance.
Me? I do lots of building trade work myself, and pull permits for certain things as Owner Builder, becasue I can and will be doing the work myself, and I know some things aren't going to to get done in the dark of night or behind closed doors. I permitted my Re-roof. 22 sqaure, Remove concrete tile, bolt down rafter plate, add hurricane strapping to the rafters, changed a flat roof Florida room into a hip and blend it back to a hip in the west side, and add a valley of course, THEN, spend another 6 months setting the new concrete tile. I didn't mind paying the permit fee. It was 9 months well spent- its a 100 year roof and reflects sunlight and heat away from my roof and doesn;t conduct heat into my attic space. As well, I needed to tie down my roof to get a windstorm mitigation credit, which was substantial. When I replaced all the windows, 19 in total, I did not get a permit. I did one to two a weekend, and I saved my radiused plaster finish in my home, which qualifies as an architectural feature for these homes like mine.
Beyond that? I've gutted and remodeled two homes very much like this one, and wound up doubling my money and paid myself and my wife, and various itinerant helpers i had as I did them, before the doubling. I had no intention of flipping them at the time i bought them- One, I just had to buy becasue of the price i could get it for, and knowing it wouldn't qualify for a mortgage for anyone else, I snapped it up and the seller didn't even have to look for a realtor..... My oldest was given an opportunity to buy it once I got it mortgagable, (putting a new roof on it and making a couple of doord an windows actually close and lock,) and we would work on the rest with his cash as we went, but he didn't want to work that hard at it then. He could have gotten a nice house on the beach for a very affordable price even for a single income, basically cost, say $80k to get it mortgaged. (and I was paying cash to get him to that point and giving him the deed- so a cash out refinance). But he just didn;t want it then. Now, he wishes he had, its over $400k now.
The other, kinda the same thing. Actually in the same sons, backyard neighbor died, and it needed alot. I bought it for cash while it was still furnished with some grandmothers stuff still in it, closed in a week. My two youngest were college aged and they roomed totgher for almost three years when the daughter bought a house, the youger son moved with a girlfriend. COMPLETE gut, minus the plaster finish in the main body of the house. Elctrical i got permit for to upgarde to 200 amps and have the weatherhead and panel done. Everything else was nights and weeknds for six month, no permits. WIndows doors appliances cabinets, septic replacement, HVAC.
Similair to the OP's post here. If you SHOULD hire a pro, then its nice the city makes them be licensed and insured, and inspect their work, since the HO doesn;t know how to do the work themselves. If its crappy, you have some recourse against the contractor if it fails. If it passed inspection and it falls apart, you have recourse against the contractor, moresoe the City who inspected it.
(our city took it on the chin for ten three story apartments (out of 14 built eventually) that their inspector inspected formed and rodded slabs, that had NO plastic wrap below the rods and mesh. Got poured and framed on, stucco exterior, and the concrete slabs just sucked up the moisture through the slab on a sandy island and rotted out the framing in just three years, while they were still building the total number of 14 buildings....)
This thread is worthless without pics. I've been saying this for years maybe almost 50? My youngest boy had a part time screenprinting thing he was doing and made made me a dozen shirt to give to friends.
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). Our county has some flubbered up rule about how large a garage can be without a 48" foundation. The garage had to be built to a certain dimension to avoid being required to put a foundation in. If we would have built it as a pole structure it would have been fine but the man was a doctor and had a beautiful house that he wanted a garage to match. Over on the county line a seed dealer put up a large pole building. It is probably 80 x 200. The county made him put a flipping fireproof wall across it because it was too long. How can a pole building be too long. It is all about money
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