In our town, that's illegal. In this way, the inspectors are like vampires:
they can't cross the threshold without invitation.

Our local inspector, an extremely reasonable man we'll call "Pete," once
told me that he views permits as being more for safety reasons than for
anything else. According to the letter of the law here, just about anything
you do electrically or structurally has to have a permit. According to
"Pete" he'd rather I not pull a permit for installing a new outlet (which
The Law says I must) because it's not worth a $40 permit for a $5.00 job,
but when we upgraded from 60 amp service to 200 amp a permit was ABSOLUTELY
necessary. Why?

Because if the house burned down and it was caused by a problem with the new
wiring the insurance company would look for a permit and approval first
thing!

- Wm


--
William Morris, o.k.a. Solace the Shire Gravemaker, KCRF
o.k.a. Nicholas Thatch, No One In Particular
o.k.a. Tavish McTavish o' Loch Tavish, Privy Accountant to his Majesty King
James I
o.k.a. Quinn Harlech, Earl of Caerphilly
and always Semster, Seamlyne reProductions
Visit our website, http://www.seamlyne.com, for the most comfortable
historically inspired clothing you can buy!



wrote in message
...
On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 03:31:30 GMT, "George E. Cawthon"
wrote:


And I want to ensure that the improvement is noted because......? so
my taxes will go up. Do you suppose that it is really the tax
assessor that wants to ensure that the improvements are noted.


When we lived in NJ the code official in the town our town
'surrounded' (like in the hole of a doughnut) spent most of his time
hanging out in local hardware, lumber, and DIY business looking for
residents buying materials they would probably use to make home
improvements - the rest of the time he spent walking through the town
"eye balling" homes for any visible signs of improvements. We had
friends who moved into a colonial style house with an unfinished
attic, but it had dormers in the roof - they put curtains on the
windows and a table with a lamp on it in front of each window. Within
a week there was a knock on the door and the code official was there
asking about their failure to obtain a permit to finish the unfinished
attic!