A Few Deep Breaths Later

Eight months ago James went to the permitting office to file a repair permit with the city of Houston. The house was going to need a lot of repairs, but we were told by one of the people that we are working with that we wouldn't need a remodel permit because all of the external walls are remaining in place. James had a fantastic experience at the permitting office. He never had to wait more than five minutes to meet with an employee, and was out of the building after fifty minutes. We posted the permit on the window and could finally get started on building rather than destroying.

The renovation order goes something like this: framing gets put in place, all of the other rough-ins (plumbing, HVAC, electrical) are installed, all of the rough-ins get inspected by the city, the framing gets inspected by the city. The city used to inspect structure first because it is installed first and then everything else as it happened, but realized that tradesmen tended to chip away at the structure to make room for their pipes and wires. Structure is inspected last to keep tradesmen honest.

We watched with joy as HVAC, plumbing, and electricity rough-ins passed, and were excited to finally get our structure passed since it had all been put in place months ago. When the inspector walked in he took one look at the beam installed between the breakfast nook and kitchen and said, "you aren't permitted for this. you need a remodel permit if walls are going to move." If the walls. Are going. To move. Not just the outside walls. So James went to the permitting office again and this time did not have as agreeable an experience. He was gone for hours talking to person after person, and finally was told that he needed plans signed off by a structural engineer. Once he had those, he could get the proper permit. Once he had the proper permit, he would need to transfer all of the inspections from our first permit to the second one so that there would be no confusion. It has been a very confusing week.

​I went to Southmore on Friday to meet with a security company to talk about getting a system installed, and James pulled up with a yellow paper in his hand and a smile on his face. We have the proper permit now, and only need to tweak a few aspects of the framing to pass our structural inspection. My anxiety about this project has been exacerbated due to this hiccup, but I feel like I can take some tentative breaths again. Not having the proper permit was a disappointing setback, and it was scary to think of the hoops we needed to jump through, but work can now continue again and that is something that makes me happy.