We redid the entire floor in a house and emptied the entire house into an oversized garage and then lived in the garage for the three weeks it took, I was ready to be done, mainly due to the weather 
Once long ago we did a huge remodel of an entire house, gutted the entire first floor, so we lived up stairs with a microwave and kept a garage frig, it took months and the kids were little, it was actually more fun than I expected. No expectations for any cooking at all
It will be interesting to follow the problems and decisions from two points of view. :-? :-/
I have created a new photo group on Flickr. Here is the link to the new group for the CC Remodel
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■/groups/4226119@N22/
Dfin was kind enough to take some before photos. Obviously before the pod has arrived and the rooms are cleared out. Later today I will try to take some pictures of the new plans, being careful to remove any reference to location
CITY PERMIT UPDATE
Aggressive perseverence paid off!!
We had an appointment for Project Submittal at 10am. We made it to the desk and the lady started to bundle things up to be ‘submitted for review’. This means a plan is routed to each department for review in the black hole and it doesn’t come back out for weeks. Because we had ‘structural calculations’ for a couple of beams and new roofline, the structural review is required to go into the black hole. But, I insisted that the other disciplines could be reviewed over the counter because this is just a single story addition and that is allowed at Over the Counter Review.
One of the sticky areas of this project is that the prior owner (over 26 years ago), built an office and a full bathroom into the attic space, connected to the original permitted Bonus Room at the top of the stairs. The contractor who did the work added structural support in the garage underneath this attic conversion. We were very worried about the validity of the structural support but the Structural Engineer did a site visit and said that is was built well and was OK.
However, nothing is straight forward. Could someone just please give me a project that is just a simple family room addition that will fly through the permit process??? Much discussion about how to submit the upstairs area on the plans. Do we go with ‘As Built Unpermitted Area’ or put it in the plans as new construction? How do we show on the plans all of the posts and beams added to garage that were not part of the original build??? Uggh…
So, we are routed to another counter and the submittal lady decides we should call it ‘As Built’ for inspection review. I get out the pen and update all the plans on the fly with this notation. She puts that into the project description. We head off to the first review at Combined, which checks all the health and safety stuff. This lady proceeds to check every single window in the house against the Title 24 calculations (noone has ever wasted time doing that before). The Title 24 calculations are a bunch of gobbly goop sheets for energy efficiency calculations. Ooops… the Title 24 guy has made mistakes on his sheets. He’s got some windows with slightly wrong dimensions, he has 2 extra windows on the sheet that do not exist and we have a problem because we simply labeled the existing windows as ‘existing’, but we are really going to retrofit all windows with new dual pane windows by Milgard. He has the word ‘altered’ on all the windows on the calculations. So, we get a sheet of corrections to come back in the future for sign off.
Then, there is massive confusion because some disciplines have instituted a new ‘lunch’ policy where counters are closed and others have not. So, we grab a quick lunch and come back for Planning.
Oh boy, this guy is a piece of work… he starts to tell us that he cannot review the plans because the property is in a Planned Development and we need to bring in documents. He thinks he has gotten rid of us. I insist that we will run downstairs and get the documents out of the Records department and come back. He says “You will need to wait 2-3 days for them to copy the documents for you”. We reply “No, we know how to work those microfilm machines, we will get them ourselves”.
He suddenly finds the Document Nbr and goes to a file cabinet and magically comes back with a couple of yellowed documents. Evidently, if you are in a planned development (tract development), they are governed by their own set of Planning rules and Zoning rules that are in these documents. This means we can go through Zoning review and Planning review at the same desk. Hooray!! But, it slowly descends into a quagmire of strange issues he is making up.
He starts demanding to know where our Code Compliance citation is for the As Built unpermitted attic area. He just couldn’t understand that we had not been cited by the City, but were voluntarily coming in to get it permitted into livable space. Then he started going down some rat hole that there cannot be a door on the ‘Storage’ because someone might turn it into a sleeping area and there is no egress window. I was just about to yank the plans back from him and label the area ‘Storage’ in the project scope of work and erase the door off the plans with white out.
And then… the entire City Building Department computer system goes down. The guy just falls apart and starts telling us we have to go get a review from Brush Management/Landscape. OK, how do we do that? He just starts pointing at some poor guy named Glen who was wandering around in the back with a customer. Can you please route us to Glen?? No, because the computer is down.
So, what do dfin and I do??? We just leap up, gather all the papers and start following this poor guy around. He agrees to review the plans on the fly and we follow him upstairs. He takes us into the back and we stand at a file cabinet and he does a quick review and gets out his stamp and stamps the plans!!! Our first stamp… we are both so excited. He then starts mumbling that the Planning Guy needs to sit next to the window for natural light because he is a ‘vegetable’ and needs photosynthesis (spelling)
OK, now we go back downstairs and the whole place is a ghost town. All the employees are using Computer Down as an excuse to abandon their posts at the review desks. We are not giving up!!! Mostly, because I felt bad that we had these important PRD documents from their file cabinet in our possession and they need to be returned (or at least that was our story and we were sticking to it!). Wait 30 minutes and then we try to find out what the guy’s name was. We find out the name and I look up directory on my phone and we try to call this guy’s desk. Phone system down (I guess it is all on the same network). Now we are frustrated because we were in the middle of a Planning Review and you cannot just blow us off, Gosh Darn It!
Dfin goes to the front desk and tells them our dilemna… We have Important Documents that need to be returned!!! Bless her heart… the receptionist gets up and starts walking around and there is one Planning guy sitting at another review desk and she turns us over to him. He is very nice. He is so grateful that we returned the documents that need to go back into the file cabinet. He does a review, uses Google Earth to look at the property and answer some of his questions, and the magic stamp comes out!!!
Thank Goodness the computer went down and we got the nice guy!!! However, all of these stamps and approvals cannot get updated into the computer system, so we have to trust that their little sticky notes remind these guys to go in and update with their approvals. We spent 5 1/2 hours to get two 3 reviews complete.
We just have to wait for Structural Review now and we will finally have a permit. However, I’m not betting on the fact that they will get done in their promised time… 2 weeks.
Oy. And hugs.
I’d highly recommend installing a “magic” cabinet in the master bathroom. I don’t really understand how they work, but we have one and I love it! It’s situated directly over our laundry room. All I need to do is drop my dirty laundry into the bottom of the cabinet and within a few days the clothes reappear in my dresser, cleaned and folded, as if by magic. We got ours at IKEA, but I think there’s something about the way DW put it together that makes it work so well. She is very, very special.
Love the magic cabinet. Mine only works on the days the house cleaner comes in
That story is enough to make me want to head for the hills, far from any municipal jurisdiction, should the urge to officially remodel ever strike.
And then they wonder why folks do unpermitted stuff… because getting that stamp is not only expensive, it is a PITA!!!
They watch projects in my town like a hawk. I know people who have put up fences or decks without getting a permit and have had to tear them down. I’m sure they look for the permit in windows anyplace it looks like any kind of work is being done.
My project manager goes and gets everything needed well before my project is scheduled to begin.
First set of permit fees was just over $1500. And did CB and I step over the line expecting service for that amount?!? 
That’s interesting that you post permits in window. We are not allowed to put permits in windows but they have to be ‘onsite’. Sometimes it’s hard to find a safe, dry, clean place to store them
Fee mentioned above is solely for Plan Submittal and review. Even more fees due after approval
@dfin2013 - that is a bargain. JK. We had to pay $120 (plus tax!!!) to get our replacement water heater “inspected.” And we had to have permit application “on site.” But not taped near the water heater.
CB, here permits have to be visible from the outside.
If I had to have a permit visible from outside, I would probably take a copy because the original permit (which is actually the yellow inspection card signed at each inspection along the way) is too valuable to tape up on a window in the middle of a big construction mess.
The permit in the window doesn’t get signed at all. I have no idea what happens when the inspector comes (what they sign) but it’s not the permit that is in the window.
The house 4 doors down from me has been completely gutted inside as the new owner is in a wheelchair, plus an addition on the back and an enlarged garage for owners wheelchair to fit (is a one car garage.) All new windows so I assume when new window went in they took permit down and once window was in, tapped it back up. Permit is still in the window and it’s been over six months of construction.
Everything outside house has been reno’d too. New roof, new siding, added a large front porch. They also put in a whole house generator and an elevator.
In my neck of the woods, a lot of stuff can be done without a permit if one is not touching electrical or plumbing and does not add space/move structural walls. Reroof with a “like” material can be done without a permit. We can rip out the cedar shake and put a metal roof or composite shake on without one, but a heavier material will require a structural assessment. Ditto siding. I confirmed that with the city - no need for a permit if you are replacing cedar with Hardi. The fake stucco material is a PITA to replace because it requires environmental damage mitigation so salmon will not choke on styrofoam crumbs that get into the drainage. Basically the entire house needs to be wrapped in plastic… eek. Redoing the deck in Trex - no permit as long as it is a “repair.” Folks around here repair a lot of stuff.
Yep, on Flip #1 in La Mesa the house was in a historical district (which was not disclosed at all by the slumlord owner even though I know for a fact that he had been into the Building Department just weeks before selling the house). I wanted to ‘enlarge’ the front porch to give the house more curb appeal. I was not allowed to touch it except for ‘repairs’. Believe me, it was not historical in any way. A couple of aluminum tubes holding up a rotted overhang. That front porch had a total makeover due to ‘necessary repairs’
PERMIT SAGA CONTINUES
Well, in all the confusion during the Computer Down visit to the City, it turns out we were supposed to go get another review for Landscape Engineering. I have no idea what that is, but it is still ‘pending’ on the permit. I find out this is a review where they go over Storm Water runoff requirements during the construction. We have the 5 page checklist on the plans and it should be a no brainer because we are not disturbing any grade and the construction is in the backyard and dirt or debris would have to make a big leap over fences to get out into the street.
It is very serious in this area if anything runs off into the storm drains in the streets because they dump straight into the ocean. However, I doubt if anything runs straight into the ocean from this location. Not sure where the street storm drain drains to from this property.
Our corrections are complete for the window issue and we are ready to go back into the City again for another fun day. But, we need to decide if we should wait until the black hole Structural Review is complete, or just slog in there to get two more stamps on the plans.