You know, I may be mistaken... won't be the first time, and certainly not the last time....... But, homes built with codes & Permits... fall down all the time, they burn to the ground all the time... they're subject to the same vagaries of physics that homes built without codes or inspections/permits are. A piece of paper won't stop termites, hurricanes, tornadoes, fires, etc.

My home was never inspected. It was overbuilt... like I mentioned, the code is the bare minimum for safety... I doubled up on pretty much everything they required. Stud every 16"? I have them on 8's. #12 or 14 wire? mines #10. Yada yada yada...

Had a tornado make a swipe right over my house in 94, lost a big swath of trees... one 200 year old oak missed my house by inches... didn't hurt my home at all... one door blew open, replaced a single board, and I was good to go.

My new home won't be inspected. It will be built to last 500 years. 12 to 18" solid stone walls, insect resistant beams, mostly fireproof/rotproof walls and floors (hoping I can swing a slate roof, to make it a trifecta. I'll put my home up against any in the country for 'safety' sake. I'll not pay plumbers, electricians, carpenters up to 50$/hour when I can do the work just as good.

I wish I had pictures of a whole neighborhood of homes in MS that fell apart back about 10 years ago. One was a 2 story and the whole brick front fell off. Another one was a split level that split right down the center. All brand new with all the proper permits and codes met.

Building codes can be good or bad. I have counties above me that have a code against people using my Sawmill Lumber for a structure that is livable. I checked to see what I would have to do to get my lumber to code.
1 Have it under 19% moisture content (No Problem)
2 Have the lumber meet grade standards (No problem I am selling lumber 4 grades above what you buy at the lumber stores.
3 Pay a private association $330.00 per month for the right to put an ink stamp on the wood.
Lumber codes are nothing more than a Mafia rip off that has a powerful Lobby in congress

Yeah, and the quality of commercial wood that's been stamped and has met those conditions is just junk. It warps, splits, and has more knots than a piece of rope in a Boy Scout camp.

I believe that if people could see the entire sweep of the infringement upon the free market and our individual rights, the revolution would start in the next ten minutes.

Huh? The NEC has been in place for 113 years. NBC 105 years.

You could ask those who surviived in the apartment houses in earthquake-stricken Haiti, if they are still alive. Or, check with those that live in the CA hills, who did not have fireproof roofing and siding.

Building/electrical codes cover design safety and any modern building material will have to meed the codes. It would be impossible to build more than a few houses with native hardwoods any more, anyway. What are they supposed to use? Hardwood will rot also, it it get wet long enough. I've seen 30 year old installed particle board that looks about the same as new (cheap). No reason it shouldn't last forever, if it does not get wet.

Most common standards are there for a reason and make common sense, at least to me. I always try to build or wire to standards.

It's when the building inspector forwards the plans to the tax assessor, that irks most people.

How would this even work?

An Electrician who quotes you a job price is licenced, but he knows he can save money by using 14ga wire, where 8ga may be required by "code". Hey, it's inside the wall, who will know? Also, no one in the know, is checking it.

What happens when you plug in your welder?

I'd reckon human kind has been around a lot longer that the NEC or the NBC. I can also say more than 3/4s of the houses built around here were built by builders who never heard of the NEC or NBC (including mine).

Haiti's problem is lack of money. Codes will do nothing to help a nation that eats dirt cakes for substinence. Get rid of the poverty and safe housing will follow.

Short of building underground or a house out of cement there is nothing that is fire proof. Certain areas are more risk prone, it should be up to the person on how much risk they want to take. If you want people to build better houses maybe you should offer to donate money and time otherwise put up and shut up. It is always easy to tell people what to do, not so easy to be pro-active and help them.

Like anything houses need maintanence. In the case of the farm house I live in now the folks forgot that one should fix a roof once it starts leaking. I had holes a foot in diameter covered by wood paneling. Had the house been made out of partical board the rot would have been much more extensive and possibly made the house unsafe to even walk in. But since it was made out of hard wood I could safely make repairs without fear of my house crumbling into rotted saw dust.

With all this common sense going around I wonder how the heck things like wooden basements can be allowed.

Many new codes are governed politically, pressured by business, for sure. That's why stick built, shingled roof houses, blow down time after time in hurricane areas.

Some areas (Chicago or Boston, I think) do not allow ABS plastic drain pipe, that is used nearly everywhere else in the U.S. They have to use the much more expensive (to buy and install) cast iron drain pipe. This is forced by pressure by plumbers unions, since they love expensive and expensive to install, verses cheap and easy.

Well, here in Nc ,in the county I live, without permits you face fines and cannot inhabited the residence. These can be hefty fines, some can be assessed daily.

This issue has been in the news a lot over the past couple of years. People who hired a certain builder could not move into their home because the builder had not obtained the proper permits. That is still in litigation.
In my county it is absolutely against the law to have a grey water system but you can have composting toilets . Go figure.
If the building method is not approved it could be deemed unihabitable or even condemned.
If you are adamant about an alternative method of bulding you could list the property as non-profit for educational research, provided you actually have some sort of educational activity going on .
An example would be something like "Green Building Research Center of ( whatever county you reside in) ". This is how others have side-stepped the bias against alternative building methods.
This suggestion was made to me when I posted a query on alternative building website. I wanted to build an earthship or dry block house.

[QUOTE=PhilJohnson;4518181]


I don't need to put, or shut up. I don't want to visit "better" homes, just safe one's and for the most part, basic building codes ensure that. And if anyone actually reads up on them, many of them probably cost little or maybe even nothing more to implement, as they follow commons sense building practices anyway.

The amount of risk "anyone" want to take if fine, as long as no one else is ever involved and therefore may be at risk.

Would I want my kid's to spend the night in a neighbor's basement bedroom, that did not bother to have an egress window and therefore in the event of a fire, there is only one way out? I don't think so.

One common theme in this threads, is that people do not want to be told what to do, but are probably happy that other's are told what to do, so that one can be protected from dangers.

How about a movie theatre with one, or even better, NO fire exits? How about no sprinklers or emergency exits at the Walmart? Should it not be their right, to build them this way?

Just goes to prove that many people still prefer the chains of security over freedom.

I'll chime in too, with the same kinds of posts:

A guy got a permit for a barn, and then turned it into a house. It cost him more in legal fees and fines than it cost him to build it, and even though he was allowed to keep the building, the county had already condemned it, and was seeking that it be torn down.

In a town just north of us, the city removed a very expensive fence...about 40 feet of it, because it went over the city/utility easement. This happened in a nice subdivision. The city workers cut it down with chainsaws, and then sent the bill to the homeowner. I bet he paid it, because they would put a lien on the home if he didn't.

Many years ago, there was a $400,000 home built on a lake lot in Indiana. The owner did not get a sewer permit first, and the house sat empty for many years, and they couldn't sell the place because of the lack of sewer.

All three of the examples I've given were made worse because the govt authority not only made an issue of these things, but also because they could....in a big, big way.

True, but they are also three really good examples, of why you should have all of your ducks, in a row, before starting any building project.

No permits here except septic. One idiot did have a large pole barn built too close to the road on a county highway and had to move it. He built it on highway right of way going into a curve. It was a vision hazard for drivers.

If I hire a "homebuilder" to build my house, then there would be the requisite permits.

If I build it myself with friends? No permits required. Heck, I could live in my barn if I wanted to :shrug:

We never, ever, ever would have purchased a farm property in an area that had any zoning restrictions whatsoever. We had some modest restrictions at our last property (no hogs, only a certain # of horses per acre, etc...) and even though the restrictions didn't interfere with what we wanted to do at that time, we knew that we might want to pursue different things in the future and didn't want to have to move in order to do them!

I rather like that my horse barn sits so close to our house that I can call "Good morning ponies!" to the horses from my bathroom window.

You have that choice. This is about freedom of choice. You can choose not to have your kids in that situation. Somewhere along the line people forgot about personal responsibility and instead rely on external protections because they can't assess a bad situation. If you wander into an alligator farm don't complain when you get bit.

There is only one way your going to be endangered by someone's little crackerbox of a house out in the middle of nowhere, and that is by you choosing to be there. In town I can see a point to building codes because a house falling over could hit a neighbor's house or fire jumping from one house to the next.

Apples to oranges, a person's private residence is not open to the public. Joe blow can't walk off the street and into my house and if he did he would be liable to get shot which would be much more hazardous to his health than any shoddy construction could ever be.

I have the same problem with my lumber here. They recently made building a house illegal with roughsawn unstamped lumber on the grounds that the insurence industry didn't wanna cover wood that wasn't stamped. I am currently building with my lumber (I quit selling it). A friend asked what Im gonna do for insurence, and I pointed at my sawmill. After my house is finished I will start on my shop, which is basically a back up house w/power tools in it!

This looks like a lively thread which I haven't read too much.

'Here' the permit & zoning costs are automatically doubled, and your construction must meet code to a Tee - you will _not_ get any breaks for sure! If you are not in the right zoning, your construction goes bye bye. At your expense.

Someone put in a smallish windmill tower, boy where they in hot water, don't know how it turned out, but a tower over 25 feet tall did not go well with those in charge of the county.

--->Paul

Ignore arabian knight. He is a control nazi. He has no interest in freedom. You will never change his mind

Nice name calling there,,,,,, nice way to get this thread deleted,,,, or at the very least Moved~!

Arabian Knight says what he thinks and believes which is generally the antithsis of where I'm coming from but I notice the madder I get, the bigger opportunity I have to see where my buttons are that get pushed, which frequently enlarges my perspective. Anyway, I bet Arabian Knight is a knightess!
We probably all have images of our co-posters and mine of AR from the first post I read was female. Hey, takes one to know one! (Uh maybe)

Navotifarm, a good presepective to have on internet forums. :)

I'm a fairly pleasent & quiet person in person; in typed words, much of my smile & laid-back speach turns into harsh-looking black & white. I keep trying to moderate that some, but it's an always-there deal.

You might want to take a peek at the 'Monsanto gets fined' thread that just appeared here - I kinda cross-linked it's theme you your questions here on zoning. May or may not intreest you to see what appears on that thought.

We humans love to control what others around us do; and hate controls on ourselves. It is the center of the universe thing, and whatever we do is always with good intent so we are good, but others are evil.

Human nature.

It's real hard to live in a world where the neighbors have no restrictions at all. It's called Chaos.

It's real hard to live with restrictions that don't make sense to what one believes. That too is real hard.

The difficult is trying to make those different goals match up and work in a world of people with very different goals & lifestyles.

150 years ago when poeple lived 5-8 people per 160 acres, you could not worry about a septic system.

You could hop on a wagon & horses & roll across the the prairie because no one owned it that you cared about.

Today things are a little more crowded, there are more people on smaller plots, people tend to want some safety in their lives.

It's difficult to balance the safety, freedoms, old laws, and new ideas to make everyone happy, secure, and feel important.

You have a good topic here, it can bring out frustrations from some, very ridgid black & white feelings from others, and so forth.

--->Paul

Us too... No code here... I am so glad....but FWIW...we built to better than code cause code was just the minimum..and we never do anything just minimum...heck I did better than even the plan... Usually it went like this..code would require 2x6 min...and the plan called for 2x8..But I chose 2x10 ( just in case)..nothing sags...nothing bounces..nothing rotted..no roof leaks..LOL..

This thread does show a good reason for building codes (not say the quality of the government that enforces them,) in that the people who don't want any codes are upset that anyone would interfere with their freedom to do what they want. They only speak of the bad effect on themselves.
In truth building codes more importantly protect the rest of the world from those who only are interested in what they want. The man who dumps his toilet in to the open ditch running the length of the road or allows run off from his barn to flow thought his neighbor's property or takes all the water for his use so that the down stream people have none.
So permits are neccessary when the activity being permitted interferes with other people's freedoms.

We do have a building code in this parish. It's enforced pretty strictly on homes, but most rural outbuildings are pretty much ignored.

I think that's a good compromise point....

When Lowe's Advertises Center cut 2X4s as a premium realize that on my mill I remove the center cut and send it to the pallet mill as junk. With all your Lumber regs you are reduced to using the worse lumber possible and it has gone to the point that to keep it from crumbling down the engineered market has taken over the wood market.
To the one that talked about particle board, Poplar Lap Siding when normally painted has a easy life of 100 years. It also does not have Arsenic and termites don,t like it.
When you see the footage of a tornado look at how many barns that were build out of green lumber versus your great dried stick building. I volunteer in a disaster relief outfit and I hardly ever see the old structures destroyed. (Yes when a tornado hits head on even the foundation is ripped up, thats not what I am speaking of)

(Emphasis added.)

The issue is private property. I should be able to do whatever I want on my property as long as it does not infringe the rights of another person. The courts exist to exact justice when a person's rights are infringed. Insurance exists to cover liability. We can live without all the government intrusion.

Would this also include min. sq. footage requirements for new construction too?

Curious situation
 

Hi! I'm new to Homesteading Today and read through this entire thread, thanks to all who asked questions / posted their experiences.

I have the same question as the original poster, but with specific details:

1. Our county's website states, in bold, that it does not issue building codes or permits. We live outside any city's limits.
2. We're building a small steward's cabin, off-grid, for the land stewards of a conservation easement protected area. We would hypothetically need permits and inspections for water, electricity, and sewage but since we're not grid-tied in any way we couldn't get these inspected (there is no septic system to inspect).
3. We chose a composting toilet that meets the Arkansas approved varieties of composting toilet.
4. We bought our home buliding plans from an architect with engineering degrees, and we plan to build safely according to common sense (nothing experimental about it).
5. There is a farm house on the property with septic and traditionally built, and my research on building codes leads me to believe that even if codes applied to us, here we can have an out building with an approved type of composting toilet or off-grid features as long as there's a septic system on the property that works, which it does.
6. We'd like to do everything 100% legal, but it seems like there aren't codes or permits that apply here.

Given all of that, and despite being out of sight from the road, I'm worried that someday someone will insist we violated some code that doesn't actually apply to our area (outside city), specifically for having too small of a cabin or for having sustainable design. I'm worried we'll have to pay fines for breaking laws I can't find out about...am I worrying for nothing? I want to get things permitted if that's the law, but their website specifically says no permits are issued for our area - will they fine us or tear the cabin down anyway? Thanks for any advice.

Which is why I live where I do, no authorities here to visit me! Ok that's not entirely true, I did have to get my power inspected by the power company before they would turn power on and I did have the septic "inspected" by county health dept guy. He just glanced at everything asked me if the leach lines were level and told me it was all good.

I'm not sure if I understand. If there is no permitting necessary then you can build what ever you want. That is how it is here. There is no need for a permit for building. We can build however we want for our own private use.

If I want to build a public building then there is a requirement for following some of the codes but you shouldn't hit on that with building your home.

Your insurance company may want you to build to code to protect against chimney fires, electrical fires, etc. But you might not want to bother with insurance.

Your bank may want you to build to code to make sure they can sell the house easily when they foreclose on you. But if you have no bank loan then that may not be an issue for you.

I would highly recommend reading the national electrical code, national plumbing code, national mechanical code, etc. They're fascinating treaties. There is a reason behind every line of text in those books. You can get them online. Well worth a winter's read.

My method is I built small things and then progressively larger things and I built to code. I even invited the inspector's out to look over what I had done. They loved it. But as they pointed out, I didn't have to do that. They enjoyed seeing someone take the time to do things right and worked with me answering my questions along the way. Simply talking with them taught me new things. I have now fixed up and built several houses and our on-farm butcher shop which we just finished and had our final physical plant inspection. That is to be USDA/State inspected. While it's not a public building and thus not required to be built to code I did build it all to code and beyond. The heads of inspection told me they wished everyone did such a good job. It's fun feedback to get and it did not stifle my creativity in the slightest to do things right. If anything, it was stimulating.

ON THE OTHER HAND, if you build in a hostile town who does have building permit requirements and you do not get the necessary permits then YES they CAN make you tear it down. I saw that happen with a very fancy house that someone built far south of us. Quite the saga in the newspaper as they fought it in court and lost and then the house got torn down. The message there is know your local laws, regulations and zoning and most of all, don't buy or build in hostile towns.

-Walter

We ran into problems when we bought the property we live on. Hubby asked the assessor if we needed a permit to do work and add things to our property. He was told no because we were in the country. About a year later they sent a letter and demanded to know what work had been done because we did not get a permit. When they showed up on the property I told them we did not have a permit because we were told we didn't need one and hubby spoke to someone at the assessor's office about it before anything was done. I did end up having to tell them what work we did do inside the house because they had pictures of a dumpster being on the property by the house with building materials in it. They then said that we were ok, and did not need the permit, but needed to report any changes with the buildings on the property. Another two years go by and they show up again; this time 2 of them. One was measuring the deck on the house and they other was writing things down. When I confronted them they said we added the deck and didn't report it. I explained the deck was built by the previous owners it was documented in the inspection report before we bought the place and there were pictures of it on the county website dated from before us purchasing the property. They claimed it was not on file and we built it. Again, they said we did not need a permit, but needed to report it. It depends on the area, and when we lived in town we always got permits; in the country we haven't gotten them and had no issues except having to report changes to the county assessor. I don't even know what we are supposed to really have permits or what they want, but we have not been fined or had to tear anything down. I know in town they are fined and liens can be placed on the property if the fines and back taxes on the adjusted valuation are not paid.

Walter, thank you for your post!

Reading through some of the previous (and quite old) posts, there have been some that suggested that if a person doesn't get permitted and inspected, they'll build poorly and end up with an unsafe structure. Not necessarily, and I think your post illustrates that some of us really do care about the quality of our work whether there are permits and/or inspection or not.

I'm like you, I want to do it right, not just to pass an inspection but because I really do want something built well. To some extent, at least for me, it's a matter of pride.

(It's a bit like when I was in school. There were some that were there with the intention of getting a good grade. I never really cared a whole lot about the grade but I wanted to LEARN. The grade pretty much took care of itself.)

While there are probably a lot of "pencil pusher" type inspectors out there, I would bet that there are some really good ones that a person could learn a lot from. And learning new things is something that can keep things interesting for me.

Do get things in writing and keep records.

-Walter

Great wisdom
The blood of many victims wrote the code.
I wish each line had a footnote to explain why it's there.
Lots of times your. "Great Idea" has been tried and eventually found wanting in some totally unexpected way.

But for the New OP.
Sometimes one department of a county will say nope no codes while another says the opposite.
And there is the state.
And here there are things like water districts , drainage districts ,fire districts etc.

Two tales of unpermitted building-
1) guy buys unbuildable land due to unable to get a passing perk test and land bordering on stream. He puts a tool shed up, next year adds light to shed. Then drills well. Then moves old house to property to store it. Then attaches everything and start living there during 'summer.' Actually his summer lasts twelve months a year. For decades- finally gets it permitted.

2) guy down the road builds arena addition to his horse boarding facility illegally by saying it was a hay storage barn. His neighbors complain, county tells him to take it down and he's in court until he is bankrupt and loses property.

The difference? The first guy is a lawyer. And the second is not. And the neighbor who complained about the second guy? He's a lawyer too.

Here is the problem.

There are federal rules and codes that you -need- to follow.

There likely are state rules and codes that you -need- to follow.

Septic.

Wetlands development.

Electrical wiring.

Wells.

Livestock buildings and yards.

Heating units and chimneys and ventilation.

There really isn't anyplace in the USA that isn't affected on these specific issues.


However.......

If your county does not enforce these things, then there is no one to do the inspections, or give you a piece of paper saying you are ok. Because enforcement of these codes and issues is commonly left up the local county to do.

This means you are stuck in never - never land. You -do- have codes you need to follow, but there is no one to work out the paperwork and show you what to follow!

Now, in 10, or 20, or whatever years, someday your county will change, and will start enforcing codes.

And -then- you have problems. Because you probably get grandfathered in, but if you sell to your kids or strangers or whatever, then all these codes will hit at once, and everything needs to get inspected and brought up to the codes that are out there.

And it is a mess.

And, today, if your county does not have any inspections or so forth, thrn you really can't do much to prepare for that.

So you are just stuck.

I would try real hard to check out state and national codes and try my best to follow them.

In general, code on keeping septic and wells away from each other, and livestock away from wells, and using safe wiring code is really just good common sense isn't it, so one should want to follow those? Once in a while the paperwork gets mind numbing and the current 'green' approach to force is to use poor products to replace what actually worked isn't so great, but anyhow a lot of these codes from the 1980s and 1990s were actually pretty smart, good ideas to follow?


Now, another problem is taxes. The tax branch of your county will want to know what you are building and improving so they can collect the appropriate 'in their view' taxes.

A lot of,permits are just there so,they can keep tabs of how much you spend so they know how much they can tax. This might be a separate division of your county govt, and you might run a fouls of only asking the planning/ zoning vs the assessor's branches of your county. Best to check with both.....


Paul

Thanks!
 

Thank you everyone who is sharing their expertise and stories, it helps a lot to see the different circumstances and wisdom here on the forums.

We aren't trying to build anything experimental and we're not using our "great ideas" but rather the plans from an architect with engineering degrees. True the house is environmentally-friendly but that doesn't mean the model won't work since it's worked before and been heavily tested, in our case, by people who know more than we do. Yes we'll be following electrical and plumbing codes, but of course without the electrical grid and without septic (using an Arkansas-approved composting toilet and solar panels).

Many of you are hitting the nail on the head - there are no permits or codes issued here, but that doesn't make me feel too confident that somebody won't come asking for them someday. I'm hopeful about it since we have the community / city's support, are working with respected non-profits and aren't building in a wetland or doing anything with livestock or structures that would harm neighbors.

We will need to report it to the assessor somehow I think, either through the owner of the land or ourselves or both, and pay taxes. I just hope that goes well and doesn't end up with demolition of the cabin in our "code-free" county. I hope everyone's building and homesteading projects went well, too!

I've lived in a number of different towns and cities, and it appears to me that there is no consistency from one jurisdiction to another regarding how this kind of thing is handled.

I know of one situation in a nearby state in which a party that had refused to abide by local ordinances was forced to tear out some construction and rebuild it in an approved manner. And, at the opposite end of the spectrum, I know of a family here in my town that built a camp two years ago without drilling a well and without installing any kind of graywater system or septic system, and as far as I know the family spends substantial time there and is not getting any heat from local officials. And I've seen many in-between situations.

Another situation arose in our town several years ago when two families built large "hoop houses" without permits. Our town has assesed thousands of dollars in fines and taxes, and for awhile there was talk of lawsuits, but as far as I know neither family has paid the fines or the taxes assessed on the hoop houses. Every year the families' names and relevant dollar amounts appear in our town's annual report (a printed book containing information about the town's finances - copies of the book are available to all households in the town).

So even within the same town there isn't always consistency regarding such things. This has a lot to do with who is in office at the time an infraction comes to light.

I've observed that lots of people are resistant to getting permits for any and all structures or improvements on their land. These folks feel they should be able to do whatever they want on their own land.

Personally, I make it a point to obey the rules and regs. For one thing, I think they serve an important purpose, in most situations. The other thing is that I would not want to endure the humiliation and embarrassment that would come with having my name published as part of a list of delinquent taxpayers or whatever.

The work we have done was we did what we could and we hired electricians, plumbers, and HVAC people to take care of the rest. There is still possibilities of things happening when the work is done to code. Our electrical was done to code and we could have lost our house to a fire. One of the outlets shorted out and started burning, but thankfully it did not get very far. We had two seperate electricians come and look at it and the wiring was done correctly, it was a faulty outlet that was installed. We wanted quality work to be done that would last. While we were in town, we needed an inspector to look everything over to sign off the work for the state, while a few miles down the road in the country no one cares except the tax collector. The previous owners crawled up the power pole and tapped into the power line that runs down from the main wire to the meter. They spliced it and used electrical tape to hold it together. I was shocked that nothing was said about that during the inspection before we bought the property and more surprised that the power company didn't do anything when they came out to check the meter box and lock it after the property was sold.