A building permit… almost

My building permit is almost ready. Just like my septic system is almost ready. You decide which one deals with more waste 🙂

Working with Contra Costa County is not unlike every other relationship in life (working with your significant other, your children, or your boss).

You need to press hard enough to be noticed, but not too much to be looked at like a jerk.

It’s really an art! Here is Thea’s turn at art:

And sometimes a break is required to get things done

A North Carolinian break

I am not working on the land at all this week. I am in the beautiful state of North Carolina to see my sister-in-law get married. There are so many waterfalls and trees in the Nantahala national forest! My wife grew up here in a town called Franklin NC amongst the Appalachian Mountains (if you can pronounce those two bolded words, you may be from the south 😊). About 30 mins away is a place called Dry Falls…

It must rain a lot here, if those are “dry falls”.

It has been wonderful to take a break from everything. Although another life event hit my in-laws the same time as this wedding. My wife’s Uncle (Mother’s brother) passed away when he was preparing to drive from Kentucky to NC for the wedding. Now, after the wedding everyone is driving to KY to see the funeral for Shelton Lee Davis’.

Wiring up a septic panel

Before my break (last week) I went out to the land and did a little bit of work with my older kids. My wife left early for NC. My goal was to do 4 things on my list:

1. Wire up the septic alarm/pump panel
2. Add a bit of trenching to the water trench to stub up spickets or something later (I was recommended not having the stubs come off the main line in case of accidents)
3. Lay the water line
4. Wire the septic alarm panel back to the sub-panel

I got the 1^st one, wiring this septic panel, halfway done…

I took the older kids out there for a BBQ to help me run wire. It took 3 hours to run 50’ of 3 strands of 12 gauge wire. Here is Tiva helping out:

My BBQ was done with as much care and experience as my wiring job 😊

I’d like to blame my kids, because when they are involved things take 3X as long and only get ½ done…. But I’m afraid I’m largely to blame for not really knowing what I was doing. I do now though. And also, I found the company’s video showing how to wire up the panel. I can’t screw that up now… right?

Finally, a Building permit… almost

Back to this week. I was out of town taking a break with my family. However, I was calling the county as often as necessary to try to push things along. A miracle happened on Wednesday! I attempted to call the building inspector who is over my permit and HE ANSWERED! I’ve left him 2 voicemails and 1 email already. He’s been “so busy” he hasn’t had time to check his voicemail or email… I think his job is to check those things… but whatever. Anyway, he told me that my stuff was stuck at grading because he only had 2 of 3 copies of my site plan, so I needed to call grading.

I called grading and wouldn’t you know it… they picked up too! It’s like everyone at the county was working on a Wednesday at 10am! He put me on a long hold, came back and said he’d call me later. About 30 mins later, my building inspector called again. He said

“there was a mix-up with your plans. I’m very sorry, we lost one. But we’ll make it right, come in when you have time and I’ll send you to Kinkos with your site plans. You’ll need to run a copy of what we do have, and we’ll get you a permit the same day!”

I didn’t think it was possible to get a permit, let alone on the same day work was done on my application. But, I will take him up on that offer as soon as I get back! Turns out the drainage guy doesn’t work Mondays (wouldn’t you know) so I will hopefully have a permit in my hand on Tuesday!

Building permit checklist revisited

Since I’m nearly done, and now have the knowledge I once wish I had…. I’d like to revisit the county’s checklist. It may help anyone reading who is hoping to “build your own home” and get a permit from Contra Costa County…

In case you didn’t read my previous post How to get a permit in Contra Costa County, here is a quicker updated version:

• Provide Architechural, Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing drawings (3 sets)
  • This is done with the 3 set up manuals my General Contractor Provided
• Title 24
  • n/a with manufactured home
• Cal green Compliance
  • n/a with manufactured home
• Structural drawings, Calculations and document submittals
  • I got a foundation plan from my General Contractor stamped by the state of CA

• Plans must be approved and stamped by the Sanitary District
  • Contra Costa Environmental Health who authorized my septic needed $250 and my site plans for 4 weeks to rubber stamp my plans. The County said every other sanitary district stamps plans over the counter
• Knightsen School fee
  • The County took 1 fee, for Liberty High, but I need to pay Knightsen as well Fees are about $1500 bucks
• Plans must be approved by planning
  • This was hell for me. They took 8 months to get my plans through planning. All due to a ridiculous condition in the minor subdivision of these 5 acres that required an extensive and irrelevant soils report and about $4000
• Drainage Plan
  • No fee here but another 4 weeks to sit on someone’s desk, and in my case, 1 set of plans got lost on it’s return to Building 😊
• Fire District Approval
  • I needed two approvals from East Contra Costa Fire,
    • Rural Water use $460 permit cost
    • Propane Tank setup $460 permit cost
  • The forms can be found here and they are at Brentwood civil offices on Tues/Thurs
  • They were easy to work with and got my stuff approve in 2 of the 7 quoted business days

That’s it! Other than planning sucking my life for 8 months, and not being able to reach my building inspector / him-not-calling-me about losing my plans… I could see the best case scenario of doing this in 1 month.

Lessons learned – Conclusion

There were 3 people that purchased land, all at the same time, all part of the same subdivision.

• 1 neighbor missed planning by “oversight” and could have moved into their home 8 months ago. They waited to get PGE power, but ended up moving in with a generator about 5 months ago. PGE only got them power 3 weeks ago. PGE was their hold up.
• Another Neighbor fought planning with me for 7 months. Got through, and got their permit 3 weeks ago.
• I hopefully will get my permit in 1 weeks time. Total time 9 months. About how long it takes to grow a human baby.

Average time from land acquisition to manufactured home = 8 months

Without the awfulness of the planning dept and stupid condition on the land. I still wouldn’t have had power till a month ago in my home. Which for me, means I would not have been able to live in it, because the bank financed my home. If you would like to build your own home on land, especially in CA I would say….

Make sure you have more money, time, grit/determination than you think you need. This process will take all that you can give it and then some. But in the end, you will get what you wanted.

And I did this process with divine inspiration/blessings. I can’t imagine doing this because only I “wanted” to. In short…

Do it if you feel up for the challenge!