With the loan in-hand, for construction to begin the next hurdle is permits. In my case, I received a combined shop/home permit, rather than separate permits for our house and then our shop. Even the building commissioner said I had put the cart before the horse, but we needed to build the shop first, so we could protect the RV (and us) over the long Indiana winter that came between us “moving here” from Florida and then having a place to “move into” once a house had been built.
After our shop/home permit was obtained, the next step was getting permits for water, septic, and electrical work. Something people may not realize is they can be separate permits and come from separate agencies. Permit offices can be backed up, and ours was. It took weeks to get the water and septic permits, but the electrical permit was a snap. Some of the permits required site inspections before they would be issued, and each jurisdiction had a specific inspection protocol.
Our excavator was building the driveway, installing the septic system, helping me run the electric from the meter to the shop and home, and running water from the road. He made sure that we got the inspections needed, and he knew each inspector and what they wanted before giving approval. Still, we had delays there too. Our septic inspector was the only one in the county, so when he got COVID, we almost had to stop everything and just wait. What saved us was the relationship our excavator had with him, so they could work things out to keep the construction on track sooner than later.
Each jurisdiction has inspection points that we have to follow, be it not covering utilities until the inspector confirmed depth, separation, and any needed sleeves at driveway crossings, or making sure that the Presby system was correctly laid out, connected, and had the correct media under it before covering. In spite of what I feared, inspections went relatively well on the shop and utilities, and now we’re ready to break ground on the home. I know that we need a footer inspection for the foundation, before concrete. The building inspector wants to see the framed home after rough plumbing, rough electrical, and fire blocking, but before insulation and drywall, and then have a final occupancy inspection when everything is done. We will revisit the utilities inspections, like when we built the shop, but this time for running them to the house. As long as I can give inspectors enough notice, and as long as subcontractors meet their dates, the project “should” flow nicely. It’s not IF but WHEN unscheduled delays will cause a general contractor to move subcontractors around on a calendar like chess pieces, or maybe more like checkers in my case.
Next Month:
Project Management, Construction, Utilities, and “Dirt Work”