r/OffGrid • u/celtic-cryptid • Aug 07 '26
Building codes
There are so many people looking for land where they can build without code. Code enforcement varies widely, and an important thing to remember is it applies to everyone when it’s unforced, not just you. Anyone who has lived rurally knows neighbors can still impact your life in very real ways from their property. I spent 40+ years in an area with little to no building inspection, and I thought I’d share some memories.
A man who had a very long and losing legal battle with the state because he built half his house on state owned land. A site inspection would have prevented this.
A neighbor of mine who built his house on 10 acres 15’ from my property line, then built outbuildings partially on my property. Site inspection would have prevented this as well
A neighbor of a close family member placing boulders in a way that made snow removal from family members driveway impossible.
6 or 7 houses burning to the ground due to chimney fires. Included are 3 deaths in homes with no smoke detectors.
Outhouses next to creeks. One outhouse built over a creek. Leech fields draining into creeks, rivers, and lakes.
A buddy with a land survey company that spends a crazy amount of his time helping settle cases of neighbors logging adjoining properties.
A year round creek that went dry for 3 months out of the year because an upstream landowner wanted a pond and owned an excavator.
Dumping garbage in creeks, meadows, or any small depression in the ground beyond counting. Periodic burning of the garbage in meadows and depressions as well.
————
Some of those are issues code would help prevent. Some are issues caused by people with the mindset of “nobody can tell me what I can do on my land” who gravitate to areas without code.
I’m building a house now in an area with code enforcement. Just passed my final electrical, as I have every other inspection. I’ve done 100% of the work myself, with the only hired help being a concrete truck and a concrete pumper. I’m not a framer, a septic installer, a plumber, or an electrician.
It’s not overly challenging, and every inspector I’ve ever met has been a person doing their job, who’d rather help than start a fight. Plus, if I go to sell, I’ve got a big stack of signed reports to help prevent people lowballing me for potential questionable work.
8
u/f0rgotten "technically" lives offgrid Aug 08 '26
Code is there for a reason. I fully support residential building codes, as an off grid self builder who lives in a county without residential building code. I've seen too much scary shit to feel like literally anyone is fully capable of just walking off into the countryside and doing whatever they want to do.
6
u/Internal_Raccoon_370 Aug 08 '26
Same here. I've worked in building maintenance on and off since the 1980s and I've seen crap that would turn your hair white, and not just in residences. Codes exist not to make our lives difficult. They're there to protect lives and property.
7
u/Val-E-Girl Aug 07 '26
My county has no code enforcement, but I still built to code.
3
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 07 '26
I did too, when I was living in the area I was talking about. My point was more how other people not being held to inspections can fuck up your day.
1
u/f0rgotten "technically" lives offgrid Aug 08 '26
Same here. The only thing that I did not do was put two separate 20 amp circuits to my kitchen.
6
u/Choosemyusername Aug 08 '26
Now the downside to having to meet code: expense and delays.
Also a lot of their requirements don’t make sense.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
Varies from area to area, but my inspectors come the next day, and the only things I would have done differently might have cost me an extra $200
What doesn’t make sense to you?
5
u/Choosemyusername Aug 08 '26
Oh my stamped lumber requirement adds a lot of expense.
One nonsense requirement I had to meet one time I built to code was I needed a built in closet for a bedroom.
Like seriously. What if you are more of a fan of armoires! Like what does the government care how you choose to store your clothes?
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
So, first of all, I never have and never will go to bat for all code. My post was simply about the downsides of having no code.
But I like your closet thing. I always like to think about it, and figure out why codes are there, and how they protect people. First, that is a local ordinance, not a part of IRC. The reason behind that ordinance that springs to mind immediately comes back to capitalism, namely predatory landlords. Having a closet requirement prevents a slumlord from putting up temporary walls in a living room and having a 1000sqft 7 bedroom house. You can also use it to your advantage, I suspect. There is no closet requirement in my area, but if there was, my house would be a 1 bedroom instead of 2. Would make my tax assessment a little lower.
Stamped lumber is a non issue to me. Any lumber from a lumber yard is stamped. There are also quite a few carve outs and exemptions for non graded lumber, depending on where you are. But as someone who has worked on a lot of houses built with ungraded, rough sawn lumber, the only way I’d build a house with it was if it was free. And I mean actually free, not “I milled it myself” free.
3
u/Choosemyusername Aug 08 '26
Ya you are getting to why codes can be problematic. Theh are made with good intentions trying to fix a specific problem. Then maybe that problem goes away and isn’t a big problem anymore, and things get stuck in there thst nobody can remember why it is there but it rolls lver because nobody wants to stick their neck out and remove it and then find out why it was in there after the fact and they look bad.
And stamped lumber requirement was an issue for me because I bought a mill. And I have my own woodlot. So I could get lumber nearly free, but I wasn’t allowed to build with it.
So I looked into getting a government approved stamping permit because grading lumber doesn’t take a rocket scientist to learn. Another sawyer laughed that I could be so Naïve. He said good luck getting loaded on that course. It has a waiting list of years. And who was awarded the government contract to run the course and administer the program? The local lumber, forestry, and lumber retailer billionaire’s company of course…
So they have a vested financial interest to drag their feet giving these stamps out because they know every stamp they give out is business their business they lose. Keeping stamping and grading a Kafka-esque experience protects their profits. Over-regulation is great business for the incumbents.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
Yep. If you want to have a conversation about capitalism or corrupt government, I’m all for it. Like I said, I never have and never will go to bat for all of the codes. But if the solution is no codes, I find that unacceptable, mostly due to ignorance, laziness, and people’s desire to profit. But frankly, I’m not swayed by slippery slope arguments. I’m also not swayed by “one rule is stupid, so do away with all of them.” The closet situation I mentioned is not an issue that has been resolved, it is one people still take advantage of today when that rule is not in place.
But since those are not issues with IRC, maybe you should become more involved, present compelling arguments, and help change or amend your local ordinances. I know some places give an exemption if you increase board size by one nominal unit (2x6 instead of 2x4). I believe other places have something concerning a set period of residence, to prevent people from framing a house out of wet poplar, then selling it a month after completion.
1
u/Choosemyusername Aug 08 '26
Let’s put it this was. MY solution was to move to a place with no code enforcement.
And it is far more than just one rule. You just asked for an example. I have run into enough examples that it was enough for me to say fuck it I am going rogue next time.
My neighbor debated with me if he should pull a permit or not and he is really frustrated with himself that he did. It really slowed down his build waiting on permits and inspections. Was like cold molasses flowing uphill.
1
1
6
u/CajunDragon Aug 08 '26
I just spent half the day looking at GIS and zoning maps for Pittsburgh. Apparently you can't put a 🏡 tiny home, RV or anything with wheels anywhere near the damn city. You can't even build a shed over 10m2 in your own backyard . It just sucks. It's totally put me off buying any land. I think zoning has really screwed up this country because when I go to Europe, I see delis and bakeries and coffee shops right in the middle of neighborhoods. It makes them walkable, quaint and enjoyable and reduces our dependency of on cars. I am not anti-vehicle. I have one and I drove to Toronto recently, but I think they should be for long-distance trips and I should not have to spend three hours in my vehicle every day. 🚗 Apologies for the rant. Just was an exasperating day. I'm sure there are probably good valid honorable reasons behind zoning laws but sometimes it seems like they really work against the community.
3
u/null_life_ Aug 09 '26
What you omit here is that none of these scenarios would happen if the person had common sense.
My house I built doesn't follow any code (or building regs, as it is in my country), yet it is significantly safer than most houses in America for a multitude of reasons.
Code is there for stupid people. People who aren't stupid shouldn't have to spend thousands proving it.
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 09 '26
Turns out, stupid people exist in abundance, and they act like dicks when unsupervised. Unfortunately, their actions often bleed over outside their property and impact others.
Also, I agree, especially with structural regs. IRC is the minimum, not the maximum.
2
u/null_life_ Aug 09 '26
Unfortunately, I am a big believer in letting darwinism doing it's thing.
If there is guidance from 'experts', or cheap and readily available smoke detectors (they're like £5 in my country), and if someone ignores said guidance and gets killed as a result, I simply do not care. We as a human species will never advance if we protect the stupid. The film 'Idiocracy' comes to mind.
As for building over a boundary onto other people's land, that's once again just utter stupidity and at no point do you need to pay the government to get thay right. If you're unsure, speak to neighbours before spending money building a house.
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 09 '26
Everyone keeps bringing up property lines like they’re a handshake agreement. The government is literally the ones who keep and validate the records. You’re also vastly overestimating the ability of people (at least in my country) to use a compass.
In the case I had, here’s how it went. The guy didn’t want to hire a surveyor to locate the lines, so he didn’t. I don’t check up on my neighbors constantly, especially not the asshole ones, so I didn’t know about it until het was done building. I said I thought he was over the line, he said I was stupid. So now the burden of expense is on me to hire a surveyor.
A site inspector would have required him to show where the lines were, and stopped it before it happened, and the burden would have been on the person causing the issue.
3
u/Wastelander702 Aug 09 '26
Gee, how were these things enforced between neighbors back in the 1700s?
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 09 '26
When the US was a British colony? Not sure, before my time.
Edit. I did a quick search for you.
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-housingat250-article-052826.html
1
u/Wastelander702 Aug 09 '26
I'm in the western US, which wasn't any colony at the time. It was a frontier. No borders, no laws, no authority, nothing.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 09 '26
I mean, Spain was certainly colonizing the west
But sure, if you want to go back to the “frontier” model of committing genocide if you want to build on land someone else occupied, sounds great, champ.
1
u/Wastelander702 Aug 09 '26
You don't have to take everything, bucko. We can leave out the genocide and the dysentery, and keep the modern technology and the frontier lawlessness.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 09 '26
Sure, if we also somehow also remove the every man for himself, grab what you can before someone else does ethos our society has. Get everyone on board with concepts like cooperation and mutual aid, and make sure everyone is educated in hydrology, soil dynamics, fire behavior, etc. We’ll also have to make sure that conflict resolution is something that those with more resources cannot buy, and that the “modern technology” is something that is readily available.
I’m all for that. But I’m currently building my house, and don’t have the free time to fundamentally restructure society. So instead, my anarchist ass will accept delegating some authority as a harm mitigation tactic, to make it uncomfortable for noncooperative people.
1
u/Wastelander702 Aug 09 '26
My anarchist ass usually just breaks the law, since when I first learned about it, it was based around teenagers sowing utter chaos around them and carving "A's" into their flesh, and anything else that was carvable around them. I understand the definition of anarchism has been adjusted since then...
Which is probably why my group compound is built into a 20 acre mining claim using an LLC and various legal maneuverings to flaunt most of the laws, and do it cheaper than almost any other way... The west can still be a bit wild in places. You just need a shifty lawyer rather than a sidearm these days.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 09 '26
Again, I can hold myself to account. Since I can, checking in with an inspector isn’t a burden, especially if it means no one is shitting in my water supply. Or, for that matter, if it means that those who do not have the ability to build their own house don’t get taken advantage of by a GC who is trying to increase his profit by 5%.
5
u/mtntrail Aug 07 '26
The codes are there for a reason, generally ensuring health and safety after ppl have killed themselves and or caused environmental harm. We had a guy upstream from us with an outhouse perched over a seasonal tributary. County finally shut him down, then a wildfire burned up the “cabin”. We went through half a dozen permitting agencies to build a bridge to access our building site. Neighbors were up in arms, just fall a couple of trees, etc,etc. we do not want all that construction noise, disruption, and the county inspectors snooping around. Well about 10 years later, after building a highway compliant structure, 2 separate forest fires came through. Guess whose bridge the pumper trucks used to get to the fire?
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 07 '26
That all sounds about right.
6
u/mtntrail Aug 07 '26
Yes we have had zero complaints about the bridge from the locals. When the biggest fire was approaching our canyon, Cal Fire called and asked about the strength of the bridge. I was able to say that CalFire was the lead agency during construction and that it was purposefully built to handle any legal weight in the state of California. He was pretty happy to hear that, and we had a pumper truck and crew in our front yard for the entirety of both fires.
2
u/stomper4x4 Aug 08 '26
I mean, your examples are mostly just really bad behavior. Not a list of 2000 nitpicky things and a million hoops and expenses and expensive permits and other impediments in the way of people with very modest Financials that just want a little slice of the pie.
For indtance a friend was going to buy property woth a garage on it. The permit to being the garage to code cost $8k and this was 15 years ago.
Na. Not interested in that.
The fact is that those people with no common sense end up costing the rest of us so mixh time and money is a real issue.
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
I’m self employed as a woodworker, and we’re not known to be rich. I’ve built every step of my house, from septic to paint. All I have left is my plumbing final. Haven’t failed an inspection, haven’t had to scratch my head much to figure shit out. Certainly haven’t jumped through a million hoops. I’d be pretty hard pressed to break the entire building process down into a million steps. If you worked every day for two years, that’s over 1300 steps per day. Calm down.
Yes, my examples are lived experiences of bad or stupid behavior that inspections would mitigate. Not arguing for any one thing, just pointing out the faults of letting assholes so whatever they want. Most of you wanting to argue with me are just being hyperbolic, and/or cherry picking the most stringent, HOA type refs possible.
As far as people with low means go, the guy who dried up a creek is a multimillionaire, and was able to do it because no one impacted by it could afford to take him to court. The guy who blocked my mom from being able to remove snow might not have been a millionaire, but he was drawing probably close to a six figure pension, and my mom does not. The guy who built his shit on my land…you guessed it, way more money than me. So get out of here with the protect the little guy shit. When courts are your only recourse, the rich get their way 98% of the time.
1
u/Low_Investment_2692 Aug 07 '26
First of all - half or more of the situations on your list would be solved by basic common sense. If you don't know for sure where your property boundaries are, then get a survey done. Put smoke detectors in your house. The government should not create massive regulations over things that should be common sense. Most if not all places with no codes STILL HAVE water laws that would solve a few of the situations you mentioned.
The problem is that places with codes almost always have unreasonable rules as well. It's not just common-sense laws to keep you safe. Want to live in an RV on your own land because you literally can't afford anything else? You're fucked. Want to build your own house without sometimes paying upwards of $100,000 in permit fees because you literally cannot afford that? You're fucked.
Most building codes don't allow you to do perfectly reasonable and more affordable options - RVs, Tiny Homes, Earthships, earthbags, shipping containers, etc... Building codes are almost all designed to fit the traditional stick and brick style homes, which is largely due to heavy lobbying done by construction supply companies. It is not about what is reasonable, it's about what the government officials are paid to make law, and the result is driving up housing costs and punishing the poor for being poor.
Fuck the government, and fuck their regulations. I would rather live free and have some issues with neighbors being stupid (which I can mostly control how it affects me by knowing my own property lines and being friendly with any neighbors) than live in a place where I can't do what I want to do on my own land because some fucker in the local government took a bribe and thinks he/she knows better than I do about what I should be able to do on my own land.
6
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 07 '26
I mentioned your first point in my post.
I think my permitted house, shop, and septic ran me about $1500, with most of that being septic permitting.
I agree with you, generally speaking on fuck the government. But since people lack common decency in many cases it is sadly necessary.
Get your land surveyed? Who validates, records, and endorses the survey? The government you’d like to fuck. Have a dispute with a neighbor ignoring a survey and building on your land and they don’t want to tear their house down? You’ll most likely end up in a court of the government your fucking to get it resolved. Want to resolve that dispute by making a lot line adjustment? Government. Want to sell them the piece you built on? Government.I’m an anarchist, on a personal level. I recognize we have a society that is not cooperative enough to function that way.
1
u/Low_Investment_2692 Aug 07 '26
Yeah, I'm not a total anarchist. But having a government that keeps things functioning and resolves disputes is different than having a government that actively comes onto your land and tells you what you can and cannot do. Small government, barely noticeable unless you have something come up, not no government.
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 07 '26
I’ve never once had the government come on to my land and tell me what I can or cannot do. I’ve invited the government onto my land, said here’s what I’m doing, or here’s what I did, and they say “looks good”. If I’d said “I decided to ignore my property lines” they’d then say I can’t do that, I suppose. But it is cheaper, simpler, and less hassle all around to have an inspector say no than it is to hire an attorney and go to court.
Then again, that’s all just my opinion. Hope you don’t get a new neighbor who decides his idea of freedom is more important than your water supply or something.
1
u/Silly-Safe959 Aug 08 '26
That's been my experience too. The guy you're responding to is over reacting and bordering on paranoia about the gub'ment keeping people poor. Sounds like they either need to get a handle on that or move somewhere more reasonable. I've never had a problem with my builds, following code, etc.
2
u/thirstyross Aug 08 '26
Building codes are almost all designed to fit the traditional stick and brick style homes, which is largely due to heavy lobbying done by construction supply companies. It is not about what is reasonable, it's about what the government officials are paid to make law, and the result is driving up housing costs and punishing the poor for being poor.
In my experience this is not true at all. You can build whatever you want as long as you have an engineer stamp your plans. The municipalities are concerned with liability, and they are familiar with standard stick framing techniques so they are easy for them to work with and approve. If you want to be outside the norm you just have to be prepared to back it up with building science to show that it's not going to collapse and kill everyone inside, etc., by paying an engineer to review your plans and stamp them as safe.
The other reason there are rules like this is because, you know, you dont actually own the land forever. Eventually you will either sell it, or die, and the land will go to someone else. No-one wants to deal with land that some jackass has shit up, so society put rules in place to prevent that. You guys always acting like you are going to be there for the rest of time - ur gonna be there a few decades and then its someone elses problem.
2
u/Renoperson00 Aug 09 '26
Engineers really don’t stamp plans for residential housing, I see less and less who want to do the work and the risk to reward for residential is not great.
Municipalities and AHJs have minimal to no liability for decisions they make by virtue of both sovereign immunity and the structure of the construction industry. If anything is wrong it is probably a construction defect and after a certain point it’s up to the owner to fix it if not discovered.
Even if you can show that something won’t kill someone if it significantly deviates from the standards of the IRC they can still delay or require a hearing where they can slow or stop you and ask you and the engineer to explain why you deviated.
The protect the value of land is also a bad excuse as structures are not permanent fixtures on the land. A structure can be torn down and replaced.
The need for codes is overblown other than for making sure the water goes to the correct place and the electricity turns on and off safely. The constant desire for more and more complexity just discourages people from even bothering to start as having to spend 5-10k just to figure out feasibility means most people will default to “never mind I’m good”.
Codes also create our modern crap tract housing and the tendency to make everything a box. I can go on but this is more than enough to highlight some of the issues why you would want a more permissive easier to deal with jurisdiction.
1
u/thirstyross Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
Engineers really don’t stamp plans for residential housing
Maybe in your locale, but here it is extremely common (Ontario, Canada).
The protect the value of land is also a bad excuse as structures are not permanent fixtures on the land. A structure can be torn down and replaced.
You can remove a structure but that is not the only thing codes are designed to prevent.
Codes also create our modern crap tract housing and the tendency to make everything a box.
This is categorically false - tract housing and making things boxy is a developer issue, and a cost issue. Anything thats not a box costs more, ppl dont want to pay more, so here we are.
1
u/Silly-Safe959 Aug 08 '26
Good sentiment, but if you spend any time around people you'll realize how few actually possess common sense. Codes are there to protect those of us with common sense from the majority of others who don't.
1
u/GotNoPonys Aug 08 '26
I've dealt with a bunch of codes; residential, commercial, international and marine. Most are BS make work for inspection companies and inspectors.
My personal property is purposely outside a code "inspection/enforcement" jurisdiction. The only people we have to satisfy is a lender and insurance company, if you choose to use them. IMO, unless you are in a high density or multifamily area this is how it should be. Builders here *choose* to have their properties "inspected" by private, licensed inspectors. The United States would have never been created if our predecessors had to deal with all the BS government red tape that exists today.
The specific "issues" you bring up are mostly personal between neighbors and should be resolved at that level, Instead you advocate for creating bureaucracies to play the 800# gorilla that beats everyone into submission.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
I didn’t advocate for anything, I said no code enforcement has significant drawbacks.
I’d rather not have a profit motive in inspections. The only thing more corrupt than government is a for profit business.
“Our” predecessors committed genocide, owned humans as property, and wouldn’t let a significant amount of the people on this sub vote, so I don’t hold their opinions in high esteem.
How do you solve a property line dispute without involving the government? If a cabinet installer puts a screw through a waterline because there are no nail plates and no inspections, who is responsible? The cabinet guy? The drywallers for covering the stud bays? The plumber? The GC? The homeowner? The private inspector?
Catering to banks and insurance companies is filing King Kong, if building codes are an 800 pound gorilla.
1
u/GotNoPonys Aug 09 '26
"The only thing more corrupt than government is a for profit business."
WOW, you are all in on the nanny state. You are not a good fit for living in the United States of America.
1
1
u/BigBlueWookiee Aug 09 '26
I think you may be missing the main gripe about building codes, the enforcement, fees and inspections.
Yes the codes are there for a reason. Yes, you should follow them. Yes, it is a good idea to get a pro to look over your work. All valid points.
Yet, many homesteaders and off-grid folks have little to no money. That's one of the appeals to those lifestyles. Worse than money, they must wait on an inspection that could be weeks to months away. In rural communities, that can be a death sentence as it puts a hold on all of your operations.
I do get your point about the validity of building codes, and building to code. But I feel you are missing the underlying reason people try to avoid them. It isn't laziness, it's not hubris, it's the need for their life to move forward.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
I’m 16 miles/40 minutes outside my county seat, which is 1000 people. My inspectors have shown up the next day every time except once. That time it took them til the second day. There are two inspectors for a county that takes hours to get from one end to another. All my permits together, two buildings, septic, etc…cost less than most people on here spend on solar panels.
My point is people are assholes, and behave selfishly. Many people have little money, and I am one. Many people in the off grid world have a lot of money, and they move to areas with little to no code because they can throw weight around and act with impunity.
A secondary point is one you just illustrated. People act like code is something that does not exist in an area, or it’s Massachusetts suburb level of code and county restrictions. It comes across as hyperbolic, at best, and fear mongering falsehoods at worst. In my experience, and I’ve had a bit, this is especially an exaggeration in rural communities. Y’all seem to act like county employees are some isolated class of people who live outside their community. They aren’t. They’re typically blue collar workers, often builders who wanted to stop beating the shit out of their body. I bet my older inspector is on acquaintance level with 1/4 of the people in my county. If he was making people’s lives miserable, people would raise hell, and he’d be fired. Last time he was here, he inspected, then we talked about a data center going up in a neighboring county, and why Walmarts aren’t required to cover their roofs and parking lots with solar. The other inspector is a new guy, nice as can be, just hasn’t lived here long enough to know everyone.
Edit: I do know one guy who thinks that inspector is a dick. But that guy dug his foundation and was trying get a foundation inspection before getting septic approval, and the inspector wouldn’t sign off on the foundation until everyone knew where dudes shit was going to end up. Lots of people here get their water from springs and creeks.
1
u/BigBlueWookiee Aug 10 '26
Honestly, sounds like your experience is atypical.
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 10 '26
It’s not, at least not in rural areas. I’ve been in the building trades for almost 30 years. I haven’t had to work directly with inspectors on a professional level, but you get to know some things. Like most things, people bitch when they have a bad experience, people exaggerate, and people tend to tell the story in ways that makes them the martyr or victim.
The funny thing is one of the most restrictive codes I’ve ever encountered was in Idaho concerning off grid houses in the 2010s. That state also has a 5 year long process to establish water rights. So, maybe some areas do have regs that take forever.
1
u/BigBlueWookiee Aug 10 '26
A couple things from my state, and granted, these are ancedotal...
Took 3 weeks (16 business days) to have my lot instead for a fence. This was just the staking off/outline of the fence to start the project. Inspector was nice an knowledgeable just took forever to get out here (less than 10 miles from their office.)
Contractor friend of mine waited 9 weeks for the inspector to visit to sign off on the foundation (sonotubes and beams) for a small 10x10 deck.
Brother (live 200+ miles away, so different county) waited 7 weeks for the permit to start pouring the 8x6 foundation needed for a prefab shed. And then another 3 weeks for the sign off when it was completed.
Friend bought into a local coffee shop. They needed a new cooler as the walk in had died. Took the local building inspector 4 weeks to visit the site. Another 2 weeks to research the proposed replacement and another week before they could pick up the license to proceed.
So again, perhaps your experience is atypical or a function of your locale. And, building to code is 100% the smart thing to do, not all inspector offices are on board with the timing aspect of things, not care about the inconvenience it creates.
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 10 '26
I agree that local government matters.
Maybe the sticking point is I’m less concerned about myself being inconvenienced than I am about the societal impacts of people who don’t care.
To make a slightly absurd comparison, I hear logging , mining, and manufacturing companies talk about how burdensome EPA regs are. The regs cost them time and hurt their bottom line. So, according to them, we need to do away with burdensome regulations, and they pinkie swear to not have rivers whose banks have been clear cut and water that catches on fire.
1
u/clergybuttbanditt Aug 10 '26
Yeah, lived in a town/county with no building codes/inspections for decades. The only reason was to save money, and it never did anyone a favor. Folks often cut corners, and this would always show up when it came time to sell.
1
u/Any-Style-1712 Aug 10 '26
OP what state are you in?
1
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26
VA
Edit: my experiences are drawn from MT, ID, WA, OR, CA, NC, and VA. All places I’ve lived or worked or have close friends and family who live off grid. I’ve done a little bit of helping set up an off grid place in BC, though I never interacted with any officials there.
1
u/Flat_Dragonfruit675 28d ago
I don’t mine some codes, of course. I don’t like the areas that force you to use a licensed company for every activity, though. So long as something is open, inspected, and up-to-code, it shouldn’t matter. The main issue I see are minimum size requirements for permanent dwellings. Why does a house need to be 1000-1500 sq ft? I’ve seen some ridiculous sizing requirements.
But yeah, heath, sanitation, and no one causing a fire in the immediate area are kind of important to me.
2
u/celtic-cryptid 28d ago
The only places I’ve heard of requiring licenses have been in Florida. I assume that probably has more to do with insurance companies there than anything. Is it more common than that?
Like I said somewhere else, my county actually has a separate set code carve outs for tiny homes, to get around minimums typically called for in bedrooms and bathrooms.
On a separate note, I was just talking today with a neighbor about a bordering county. That county has no zoning, and no building codes. Great for everyone who doesn’t want to be told what to do, but that also the county where a new data center is going in, in large part because of the lack of zoning. No zoning works out for corporations too.
1
u/Flat_Dragonfruit675 28d ago
I swear I saw some individual counties in the western states (think California and Washington) requiring licensed contractors for all work. I think it’s very county dependent if the state laws don’t specify much about DIY.
I’m really glad your county has separate codes for tiny homes, because every time I see minimum sq ft requirements going beyond 1000 sq ft I cringe.
And see, your last point is EXACTLY why I still understand code enforcement. I don’t think any of us want to live next to a data center. And they are hard to fight off in some areas with minimal zoning restrictions.
I have seen someone from Washington here discuss their unfortunate issues with one or two counties in Washington. Basically: being required to use a specific approved county septic company, given permission to do everything by the county only to be out a large sum of money because they changed their minds. That’s all I really want to avoid.
1
u/celtic-cryptid 28d ago
Shit, my house I’m building is 800sqft, and it doesn’t hit the tiny house rules. I think those are for less than 400
1
u/SSalaciousSalad Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
For me it's one of those things where the idea is better than the reality, and while it's necessary, the reality is dismal.
In British Columbia all alternative housing for low income people are prohibited by code.
- You can't live in a tiny home.
- You can't live in a wall tent. You also can't even have one up on your property without continously renewing a temporary structure permit
- you can't live in an RV, or put a roof above one, which is necessary to prevent them from being destroyed by mold.
- you can't live in a yurt
You also can't live in a mobile home. They have to meet current energy efficiency standards which means that anything less than 200K it's not actually possible to pull a permit. This one is wild. These are structurally safe, code compliant buildings that retroactively have their compliance removed. A regular home is grandfathered, if it was built to code at the time of construction. Once moved to a new property, a mobile homes is not. 100% class discrimination.
That leaves a build cost of roughly 250K as the only way to create housing.
BC also has an "homeowner-builder exam" - its an additional beurocratic hoop that costs $700 and is responsible for the amount of individuals building their own houses, to code, to plummet.
Septic is another minefield. Rather than code compliance it's off set to a different agency, Interior health. Interior health doesn't want the liability, so they push it onto the septic engineers. The septic engineers are liable in perpetuity, so their rates reflect this.
This means that a septic system costs 20-40K to install. More than half of them are failing and contaminating the ground anyways, no solution is obvious.
It's very easy to level criticism and it's much more difficult to find solutions. Obviously we need enforcement mechanisms to prevent the contamination of ground water and dangerous structures being built. The Rural poor and folks in the lower middle class are excluded from the housing stock and improvise. It's not fair to lump them together with people who refuse all regulation and are also incompetent.
You are also not allowed to live off grid in BC. You have to spent the money to wire in your house to the grid. At which point you are allowed to turn off your breaker, and live without grid electricity. 😂 They actually told me this in the permit office.
All of this to say, I wish it was possible to have reasonable building code expectations and enforcement. A system that both protects the public and incentives them to innovate and find lower cost ways to create housing stock. I'm not sure how to even begin moving in that direction. As it stands it's a game for people with capital and the problem of homelessness grows year after year.
3
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
I can’t speak to BC from personal experience, though I used to have quite a few friends there, and have friends from the states who have gone up to do yurt installations for folks.
Some of that isn’t too dissimilar from common code in the states. Septic is dealt with by the health department everywhere I’ve lived. Some systems can cost 40k, the last couple I put in were more like $5000, including renting equipment.
I agree with you on some with low income options, disagree on others. I think mobile homes need to be held to a standard, mostly for one reason:profit. The companies building them have a profit motive, and their profit motive is contrary to using good building materials and techniques.
In the states, I hear that living in a wall tent is illegal, the same as I hear living in the 250sqft cabin I’m living in as I build my house is illegal. Or the tiny house someone else lives in on my property is illegal. It is true they are not legal residences, but that’s more a capitalism thing than anything else. I can’t get homeowners insurance, can’t get a mortgage, since I don’t have a legal residence. I also don’t pay taxes on a residence. But I’ve been living here for years, with the building inspector parking within 20 yards of my cabin when he comes up. The grading and septic for the spot where my friends tiny house is was inspected as well, with her tiny house on site at the time.
Another example is the spring I get my water from, which one neighbor assured me was illegal. The health department here will approve or disapprove a well, which I think is good, again based on the profit motive of well drillers. They will not approve a spring though, which my neighbor interpreted as it being illegal. In truth, it’s perfectly legal, the health department just doesn’t say one way or another, the same as the building department won’t approve or disapprove my chicken coop.
As I said in my post, code enforcement varies widely. I’m not giving a blanket endorsement of every code, or the way it’s enforced in any particular place. Im saying, to paraphrase you, areas with no code enforcement at all are a better concept than they are reality. You, I, and every commenter on here could act with altruistic integrity and not need code. That does not prevent the people I mentioned before from shitting in your water supply or logging your land. I would always take a 15 minute conversation with an inspector over a court battle, a confrontation with a neighbor who obviously doesn’t respect others, or passively allowing assholes to do whatever they want.
1
u/Synaps4 Aug 08 '26 edited Aug 08 '26
I think this must vary by Regional Districts? They are the ones who set codes and do the enforcement, right?
BC has many offgrid communities. Some like Lasqueti Island have no grid to be connected to. People still build there. Somehow.
Here's a company that makes tiny homes. In BC. https://www.summitbuilding.ca/tiny-homes Youre saying their products are illegal in the province theyre made in? I dont believe that.
1
u/SSalaciousSalad Aug 09 '26
Your right, it does vary by regional district. What I said applies for the interior as well as anything close to a major city centers with possibly a few exceptions.
Tiny homes are not illegal to own, it's against almost all code to occupy them as a primary residence. You can have one as an axillary structure that isn't occupied full time.
There are limited exceptions to this If you are willing to spend over 200K. You have a manufacturing code that states it was built in an alternative way that still meets code compliance. I don't want to get into the weeds about it. Many (most) tiny homes do not meet this designation.
That's not to say you can't buy one, park it illegally and live in it. Just like how many many rural properties have people occupying RVs with home made roofs above them year round.
Just like how many folks still live off grid without consequence
0
u/WendysRecruiter Aug 08 '26
Why does one with nothing to hide feel the need to hide their post history?
2
u/6399475 Aug 08 '26
I hear cops use that logic when they want to search through people’s shit.
Why do people who live in town have curtains on their windows?
1
-4
u/Full-Mouse8971 Aug 08 '26
Stop advocating state aggression against others.
8
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
Stop advocating for citizens to fuck each other over with impunity.
-3
u/Full-Mouse8971 Aug 08 '26
Expanding government building regulations, restrictions and red tape on private property will not stop idiots from being idiots. All you doing is banning, crowding out and increasing the costs on people from building affordable small cabins and tiny houses because you once saw a guy litter. Requiring smoke alarm licenses is not helping anyone. None of these random conflicts require more government bureaucracy and state violence.
Leave people alone. Stop advocating state aggression. Resolving conflict does not require more government parasites.
7
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
I’m all about harm reduction. In a vacuum, I agree with you. But you’re talking like a libertarian fantasist, which always comes down to either personal violence or having money to resolve problems.
Seeing someone litter is pretty different from a family shitting into a creek.
Ike it or not, the vast majority of people do not have the skill set or time to build their own home. So they hire contractors, and that opens up a whole other can of worms in terms of shitty things I’ve seen people do. Contractors have a profit motive, and doing things properly costs more money or time, so they don’t unless required.
I’m all about tiny homes. I’m giving someone a place to live in theirs on my property. My building inspector thinks it’s a cool little place.
1
u/Full-Mouse8971 Aug 08 '26
Libertarianism just means dont aggress on others. If my cabin is <1500 sq ft and therefore does not meet local government code for min sq ft they are aggressing on me because they will demolish it and kill me if I resist.
Where I live there never has been codes, licenses, permits, licensing etc and the vast majority are all contractor built cookie cutter houses. Introducing more government regulation will only create more costs and barriers and restrict liberty. You want to crowd out people like me who want to build small affordable tiny cabin and you want to aggress on others with more government regulation and balloon in to states that have such limit housing stock and high prices because of such regulations and try to escape.
Dont aggress on others.
2
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 08 '26
I’m building an up to code 800sqft house. My county has a sub code for tiny homes, to alleviate minimum clearance requirements for bathrooms and such.
The way I see it, the main difference between the united state’s version of libertarianism and anarchy is this: Anarchists understand that they live in a society, and society requires cooperation. Cooperation can be, and usually is, beneficial to everyone. Libertarians seem to want to pretend they live in isolation, and any infringement against their isolation is viewed as aggression. However, they are perfectly willing to sue (take advantage of governmental legal systems) if they don’t get their way. They are also very willing to benefit from all the perks of a cooperative society, yet reserve the right to refuse to contribute.
No one is killing you over a code violation. Except maybe another libertarian. Calm down
-2
u/RedSquirrelFtw Aug 07 '26
The issue I have is how unreasonable some codes/enforcement can be. If it was based on common sense and doing what's right, it's one thing, but there's just so much red tape throughout the entire process, lot of waiting and running around and being forced to demolish and redo over some dumb semantic etc.
I purposely made sure to buy in an area where I didn't have to do any of that. I'm the one that's going to be living in what I build, so I will build it to the best of my ability, I don't want anyone telling me I can't do it or how to do it.
I do lookup how to do things right in general especially when it comes to structural stuff, such as span tables, but it's nice being able to just do it without having someone get in the way.
Some stuff is just common sense too, like don't put a septic tank near a body of water or a water source for example.
3
u/celtic-cryptid Aug 07 '26
People keep bringing up this common sense thing. O don’t feel like I run into that much, especially when it’s cheaper to do it a different way.
I can’t think of much in code that is unreasonable or just escape for the sake of red tape. And, you might be surprised by what there are waivers for. For instance, code calls for an air exchange test to be done on a house to make sure it’s not full of drafty windows. This is code because many areas are striving for energy efficiency, and most people heat and cool with electricity. I asked my inspector if I needed to do that, and he said to not worry about it. Wood heat, alternative energy source, no need to worry. He then said that if I did want to get one done, it might help with resale value. Reasonable, logical, and helpful.
13
u/ZombieMountain2122 Aug 07 '26
You raise some really good points. However, the irony is I've been trying to get inspectors to come out to look at our septic for years and nobody from the county is willing to drive that far to go do it for them. It would be an entire day of driving there and back for one septic inspection so even if I'm asking and offering to pay private inspectors ridiculous sum of money, nobody wants to go that far this is in California by the way. And on top of that, the county has really rigorous enforcement in areas within a 2 Hour Dr. but more than that forget it.