The House That Wisdom Built - EP 07: Red Tape, Road Blocks, and Municipal Madness.

In this episode of Building Brews and BBQ, Vince and Nathan get into the murky waters of permitting, inspections, and everything that can delay your build before a single nail is hammered. From confusing digital portals to costly tree ordinances, we’re talking about the bureaucratic maze that frustrates homeowners and builders alike.

Why does it take three months to get a permit in some cities? Why can’t you remove that tree—on your own property? And why does it feel like your builder disappeared after design approval? This episode answers all of that and more.

We’re pulling no punches and shedding light on the not-so-fun phase of pre-construction—because if you’re not prepared for the red tape, your dream home might hit more road blocks than you expect.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Intro

2:00 – The Permitting Black Hole

9:00 – From Donuts to Portals: Losing the Human Touch

17:00 – Tree Ordinances & the $300K Penalty

24:00 – Drainage, Setbacks, and the Disappearing Pool Space

31:00 – “But the City Approved It!” (And Why That Doesn’t Matter)

35:00 – Final Takeaways: What You Need to Know

Building Brews & BBQ
Instagram: @buildingbrewsandbbq
YouTube: YouTube.com/@BuildingBrewsandBBQ

Hosts:
Vince Longo
longocustombuilders.com
Instagram: @longocustombuilders

Nathan Walters:
massarossa.com
Instagram: @massarossa

Produced by:
Michael Newman
michaelnewmanfilm.com
Instagram: @michaelnewmanfilm

Transcript

Vince (00:00)
Well, now the cities get to tell you, oh, no, no, no, no, no. You can't build your house in that box because where you were supposed to be permitted to build, because you're going to kill that tree. even though it's your property and you own it, since that tree is in that setback, the city actually owns it. Dirty little secret, everybody. You might've bought that property, but try not paying your taxes for a couple years and see what happens to it.

Nathan (00:26)
See

what happens, that's right.

Vince (00:34)
Hey, welcome back to Building Brews and Barbecue. In today's episode, me, Vince Longo and.

Nathan (00:41)
⁓ shoot, hold on, I'm Nathan but I forgot my product placement. All right, there we go. Better. wanted y'all to know. That's the bruise portion and what is my bru?

Vince (00:46)
much. That's the bruise portion.

What isn't it? It's always Miller Lite. Yeah, I'm doing the Heineken today. Feels like a Heineken kind of day. It does? Yep. Yeah. Is the German in me coming out?

Nathan (00:53)
Another light I see you've changed your

I'm wondering, hey, if anybody knows of ⁓ works for Miller Lite, connections with Miller Lite, ⁓ get me in touch. Would love a sponsorship. I digress.

Vince (01:14)
You'd wear that ⁓ Miller Lite cowboy hat I saw you had. I saw. Gosh, your wife tells me stories. Boy, the Lord. So we're back in our series, kind of getting to the end and wrapping up the first real big phase that's important to our listeners before shifting to the construction physically, building their house. And this is our series, The House That Wisdom Built. Yeah. And so in this kind of coming to the end,

We're gonna go over one of the most boring, annoying, know, bamboo under the fingernails, we've gotta talk about.

Nathan (01:50)
Yeah, I don't

I don't want our listeners ears to bleed, but they might.

Vince (02:00)
We're talking about permits, inspections, and red tape, baby.

Nathan (02:05)
Yep. It's, I know in our, I know working through our system, we're trying to get better with our process of bring these customers in. And as we've talked about from the beginning of this series through, I mean, you can hear how connected we are to the customer and how connected we are to the process. This part of the process, when we go into inspections,

We're not inspections, sorry, going to permits, inspections though too, but that's in the construction series, but we go into permits and we're trying to find a better way to hone our process to where it doesn't feel like there's a complete disconnect from our customer because that's what it feels like. We do all this work, we do all this budgeting, we do all this design, we get all this stuff going, then we gotta go fight the red tape at the municipalities and...

Our customers are like, there anything we can do? Can we help? It doesn't feel like we talked to you guys in a while. Are we starting? Do you know? And the answers are no to almost solve that. No, you can't help. No, we don't know when we're going to start. No, we don't know when they're going to be done, you know, getting us through the red tape. It's a very unfun process for the customer. And it does feel like we get disconnected because we're fighting red tape at the municipality.

Vince (03:23)
Yeah, it's a maze. It's a maze that you've got to try to work your way through. And if you've ever gone to one of those corn maze things that they call, I don't know. I come to this T, do I go left? Do I go right? You go right and all of a sudden you're back to where you started. That's permitting. And to our listeners that from around the country, obviously permitting is going to be different ⁓ for different people in different municipalities around the country. There's different requirements.

Nathan (03:39)
That's right.

Vince (03:52)
red tape, bureaucracies we've got to deal with. boy, we love bureaucracies. It's worse and worse.

Nathan (03:59)
Ours is good

and ours is different than yours. like, like for me complaining, it's hard for me to complain when I get to listen to Vins. ⁓ Yeah, Oklahoma, it's nothing like Vins, but it's also in our market. Nothing like it was 15 years ago.

Vince (04:09)
You're Oklahoma. ⁓

Right. It's nothing like it was three years ago. Yeah. Every year it gets more more difficult ⁓ to get something permitted. ⁓ Just to start, I would say, obviously you've got to consult the pro, right? you should talk to builders when you're in the planning. But when we're in this pre-construction phase, we start to then let the customer know that they're each member of the power team that we've talked about in other episodes.

has to now have their product, what they're responsible for, they're accountable for, they're a professional, typically with a stamp or a certification for, now has to bring their product, their final product to the table. Those things have to get bundled together and somehow that has to get down to the city or county or jurisdiction. ⁓

What we always tell the customers and we try to dictate upfront is thank God for the internet and this and that because now most of the municipalities have their permitting requirements online. So wherever our listeners are coming from, if they're going to build a remodel, one of those important steps, your builder will probably help you with that, but if not, log online. Go to that city's website. Go to their community development, typically their zoning department.

And there's typically a permitting department. If you live in a small town, you might just have to call down there or go down there is even better. Let them see your face. Let them get to know you. If you're going to be the one submitting the permit, but even not what I find is people in that permitting office, even if you're not the one permitting it. And I'll tell you why we don't. Little a hook pay a ticket, paying attention why we don't submit permits, but

if still good for those people down there that are taking it, the people that are taking it in and bringing it into intake are the ones that are probably going to be reviewing it. And so if they are familiar with your face, your address, why this is important to you, and I always recommend homeowners do it if they have the time. ⁓ That's a tough one, especially in Atlanta, you might get shivved or shot and going down there. ⁓

Nathan (06:46)
Cut that out. I'm kidding. Keep that in.

Vince (06:50)
But you build those relationships so when they see that address come through, they'll recognize, ⁓ I remember so and so. Those favors actually really do work. That networking work.

Nathan (07:05)
Man, I don't know it must not have changed for you. Those are all great. We used to be able to do all of that. ⁓ and our main two municipalities that we build in through COVID, they changed everything to where all of our submissions are done in portals. Really. We can't even, we can no longer go physically drop off our packets anymore. Used to, you're exactly right. Bundled them together, took them up there.

Heck, one of our main municipalities, if you actually went up there, they had a thing that if you waited, you could get same day turnaround time. If you went and took it up, gave it to them, had everything there, got in line and sat there, they would do same day and turnaround. No more. have to, everything has to get bundled into PDF and submitted to report.

Vince (07:55)
So let me ask you, and I guess that is an advancement,

Nathan (07:59)
But

it is an advancement in time, but it is, it is makes a, for us makes a colder, harder process because what you were saying was a hundred percent right. built rapport in the main municipalities we built in. that's one of the cells as a builder that we were able to give to customers on our side is we can get through the permitting process.

We know the people up there. have conversations with them. We bring them donuts, you know, things like that. Now can't we submit everything on the portal? They, ⁓ and usually if there's comments, it's just a comment on the portal. They comment back to you and it doesn't even funnel to your email. You have to log in daily. You have to log in daily and see what's going on. And so yes.

Vince (08:44)
It doesn't send you

Nathan (08:48)
The aspect of not having to take it up there is sometimes good, but you're right, it has killed the personal relationship side of it, and now it's just all this...

Vince (08:59)
Electronic maze. That's right. You're in the electronic maze. Yeah. you're like Tom Cruise. Yeah. You look like Tom Cruise. I don't think For those listeners.

Nathan (09:09)
That's probably wrong. Tom Cruise is like 5'4".

Vince (09:13)
You look like, you know who you look like. Who have you been told you look like?

Nathan (09:16)
I don't know. tell me. Frank, Frank, Frank, hey, maybe, maybe we go to Home Depot. And if we have time, maybe I go to Bed Bath and Beyond today. I don't know. We'll see after the podcast.

Vince (09:19)
Frank the Tank, baby!

Take care.

That's

funny. Well, I look like Pee-wee Herman, it's just ... Bless his heart. That's my clean-the-fing. Anyway, yeah, so that's it. In your market, how long does it take to get a permit, let alone you don't have errors on it?

Nathan (09:35)
RIP.

Yeah, so used to and again, like I said, it's not even fun to talk about with you because I'm going to tell you a timeframe and you're going to laugh and say you wish it was the same. But I mean, like I said, one of our municipalities used to be same day turnaround. If we waited there, our other main municipalities three days, ⁓ we have easily gotten to two to three weeks now that it takes for us to get a single family residential home permit if we don't have heirs. But it seems

with the codes constantly changing, things changing that we're always missing something, it feels like.

Yes.

we're not gonna we're not gonna help in ⁓ go ahead and go ahead and ⁓ is it because it changes

Vince (10:47)
say it's horrible if it's three weeks.

Nathan (10:51)
Yeah, it's super bad and customers are mad. Customers get angry. Yeah.

Vince (10:57)
We're lucky in Atlanta, city of Atlanta, if it's three months.

Nathan (11:02)
for a single family residential permit.

Vince (11:04)
Yes. They'll lie and they'll say, ⁓ you can get it in three weeks, four weeks. No, each department pushes it out to the max. Then they always find something and they send it back. And then you have to get it addressed. It's three months. I tell my customers, this is 12 weeks. Yeah. Anything less than that, we're really crushing it. But that's amazing. That sounds like a dream.

Nathan (11:31)
I'm assuming it's the same for you too in this process that we want to educate the listeners is, man, us as the builders, we didn't go anywhere and maybe we need to do better inside of our processes of just updating them weekly, but from my side, it's hard to up. I don't know what to update you. It's still impermanent.

Vince (11:53)
Yeah.

Nathan (11:54)
It's still impermanent.

Still impermanent. But I also understand that the customer's like, where'd my builder go? Like we were meeting, we were in all this in-depth work, where'd they go? And it's, we just are working through red tape. We're just working through items that we gotta get through.

Vince (12:12)
Do you have to put in the Oklahoma market, do you see the requirements for engineering stamped, stamped plans, floor systems that are stamped and designed by the lumber provider?

Nathan (12:24)
last couple of years, it's all

changing. It's all changing. We used to forever only had to have a foundation detail. That was it forever. was all that had to that we had to turn in with the permit. is completely different now. It's a foundation detail. It's sheer wall detail. It's tall wall details, floor sys. Side by side, you know, we still haven't got to, we have to give them a plot plan, but it's a plot plan. That's just on

Vince (12:45)
I'll be just a swan.

Nathan (12:54)
paper. It's house is on it, but there's no, it's not, I kind of wish it was, it was done with a civil and we had the topo and we knew exactly what it was. It's, literally just the app, the dimensions, the four dimensions and in the house sitting and making all they're really checking in our municipality is are we inside the build lines and are we outside of the easement?

Vince (12:55)
With the physical house on it.

That's right. And so the build lines are basically that dimension or that box we call it the build box. Yup. On the lot within what are called the setbacks. That's right. Which are like, it ranges. It ranges. Right. It could be 15 feet on the sides. you're on a main road, it could be deeper on the front. If you're on a corner, it's deeper on the front and the major roadside.

Nathan (13:44)
And ours are subdivisions, really.

Vince (13:47)
And that is all what we've talked about in the past is the homeowner needs to go to the city or the builder needs to tell them upfront, and the architect's gonna do this anyways, and the civil, they're gonna put it on the site plan, but they get all that from your local zoning officials, because they also review the plans. Are you within the compliance of the zoning? Something that happens in Atlanta, and it might happen in some of our listeners' towns is Atlanta wants to be the city amongst the trees, right? Their goal.

is a 50 % canopy just because they feel like they have to beat Charlotte. And it's a different city. Charlotte's a different city, different layout, and I don't know why they have it in their thick skulls. They've got to beat them, but their goal is to be the city amongst the trees. And what drives us a little bit crazy is they continue to create these tree ordinances, because that's the other part to permitting, is have you checked all of your ordinances?

because we check all the setbacks, things like that, the civil stuff, but then there's the dirty little layer secret that I want all of our listeners to understand. There are ordinances that aren't gonna get picked up by the civil guy, your engineer. You just have to know it and find it and spend that time down there and analyze what is the city council and the county municipalities doing to change this. So for example, in Atlanta, trees, we just talked about it, they love trees.

They constantly try to get tree ordinances changed through attorneys that the city hires, dirty little secret, we know it, and try to keep pushing these regulations. And what it does is it constantly evolves, they get it approved through these backdoor avenues, and it costs money. So we're at a point now where we just...

beg to accept what they've already burdened us with. Yeah. You know? And then they try to change. Like right now we pay $100 per inch of tree we remove from that site. Okay? If a tree is in a setback, meaning that space you just talked about outside of the build box between the build box and the property line, the city reserves a right to deny you the ability to take that tree down.

Now what does that mean? Let's say that tree sits one foot from your building setback line where you can put your physical house. But a tree has a critical root zone and a canopy. you're now building your house here. You're now getting into that critical root zone, which in essence, you get past a certain point of in disturbing that you've now ruined the tree. Well, now the cities get to tell you, no, no, no, no, no.

you can't build your house in that box because where you were supposed to be permitted to build because you're going to kill that tree. even though it's your property and you own it, since that tree is in that setback, the city actually owns it. Dirty little secret, everybody. You might've bought that property, but try not paying your taxes for couple years and see what happens to it. Dirty little secret, they own it, so they know that. And they've gotten lawyers ready and ready to go to...

Nathan (16:57)
see what happens. right.

Vince (17:05)
basically tell you, you're not taking that tree down on your lot. We deal with this in Atlanta. It's getting worse to the point where now they're trying to push an ordinance where it's almost $1,000 per inch. Wow. So you take your moat, and what does that mean to us, the listeners? On average, homeowners are gonna take down somewhere around 250 to 300 inches on average of trees down on a lot. On average. Yeah.

to build a home. So multiply 300 by 1,000, and that's the fee, the penalty, City of Atlanta is trying to impose on builders. So 300,000 is gonna be in addition to your permit. Just to write, that doesn't mean they take it down for you. still have to to get it down. Support your local home builders association to put it back on these evil ones.

Nathan (17:53)
Hey, take it down soon.

So that is not, we aren't there yet, but it's coming. We don't face it on the builder side, we face it on the developer side. So in our main municipality that we build and develop in, our developments, they passed what they call the tree ordinance, and we have to keep a 20 % canopy. We buy 160 acres.

Say even though we get, say we even get zoning, say we get some crazy density zoning, right? And we get 14 units an acre we can put on there. Well, we really can't do 14 units an acre because 20 % of the original canopy has to stay on the development. So what they did is the east side of the town that we live in is full of trees. And what they didn't want, which I understand is they didn't want developers coming in, doing what they call scraping.

Scraping off every tree putting as many houses and want some trees to stay but what it's done is it makes it Very difficult and it's again people are like man these lot prices. Why these lot prices so high? Well, you'll spend thirty forty thousand dollars dollars surveying every tree to know which the canopies are and which ones you're saving and which ones you're not saving to be able to do this so it's it's it's and that's where it starts, right?

So you guys are there on the homeowner side. Well, ours has started now on the development side. Okay, well, it's going to be the developments. Well, you know what's next. Once they hit the developers, it moves to the builders. And once they do the builders and it ends up ultimately coming to

Vince (19:35)
That's right, that's right. so they, and listen, we're not saying we're enemies of trees, right? We love trees, I love trees. Yeah, of course. you've gotta let these homeowners, like our listeners, be able to utilize at least the building box on their property.

Nathan (19:49)
We build where we build because of the hills and trees, right? Oklahoma is known to be flat. You've been and you visited me where we live is not flat with no trees. We love it there for the trees agreed. But then sometimes you're right. like, you're making it impossible to build. We can't build or that much more expensive to build, which I always find funny is every municipality they love talking about.

affordable housing. we got to have more you builders. You're out there getting rich. You're not building affordable housing and you, need more affordable housing while retroactively adding in things that make it harder, more time consuming, more expensive.

Vince (20:29)
Well, because what people don't realize, and I mean, I've had many conversations with past city mayors in Atlanta and even helped get them elected as president of the Home Builders Association ⁓ for their initiatives for affordable housing. And then they turn around and stab you in the back. But that's for another podcast. that's different. Lucia, you might want to cut that or else I'll never get a permit again. you're exactly right. And what happens is they have these, they'll tell people one thing in an election cycle.

Nathan (20:46)
So that's a different.

Vince (20:59)
and then they'll immediately do the opposite. They'll make it more expensive. They'll tell, you know, in Atlanta, we've got all these areas that keep getting re-gentrified, rebuilt, you know, because there's a lot of people moving to the Atlanta redevelopment. So you get Ms. Sally that's owned her home on the west side of Atlanta for 60 years, and growth is going there, right? At least in the past...

growth going there meant that price would come up. Ms. Sally now had an option to sell that property for a really good profit to the next buyer, whether it be a builder or a homeowner, and be able to go to wherever she wants to go, right, in retirement. Now, with these new ordinances, zoning, tree, everything, now Ms. Sally,

that's had this beautiful oak tree in her front yard that's now 60 inches in diameter, which you would normally think is an unbelievable asset and add value to the property now has a liability and it's made the property worthless. And now the city of Atlanta does not know what to do. And we see this happening across the country and now poor Ms. Sally is stuck. Can't get Because I'm not buying it. I can't get rid of the tree. The new ordinance says, no, if not, that tree cost me 60.

$6,000 to remove, potentially. Not today. Today it would be 100 per inch, so that's $6,000 for the tree instead of $660. But it's coming. Those days are coming. And I get it, we went on a diatribe, right? But I think our biggest point here is listeners, do your diligence, talk to your builder during this pre-construction phase, because there are probably costs that you might not even know about.

or limitations that might affect your design of the home physically, your lot design, your costs. Let me ask you, in Oklahoma, do you have to have water quality retention devices that catch all of the water from your physical home into a tank or some sort of storage facility? No.

Nathan (23:16)
No, they don't. So I think a little bit of the difference between Oklahoma, where I'm at in Atlanta, in Georgia, where you're at is due to how much infill you're doing there. They're putting a lot of the emphasis back on you guys as the builders. What we see where we are is there's a lot of development. So a lot of the stuff you're doing as a builder that gets put on the developers.

So all the water catching, all the things due to the subdivisions, all the retention ponds, where the water's draining, how it's going to drain there, ⁓ the developers are dealing with the majority of that burden because we're going out and buying raw land, developing it. And so we're getting way more burden on the developers. The water burden is way more pushed onto the developer than it is.

Vince (24:08)
Your a lot costs are higher. Yeah ⁓

Nathan (24:10)
Because of that.

Yeah. Because of that. The lot cost her and definitely in our main municipality, definitely in that because somewhere in the seventies, as we know, the seventies were the wild west, the seventies houses were flooding and our main municipality was like, this will never happen again. And so every rule and regulation that comes down is trying to defend against that, which is good. It's just the more and more there are, the more and more expensive the lots come.

Vince (24:37)
That's right. And I'll go and say, hey, north of Atlanta, outside of the perimeter in those counties, they're still called the Metro, but they're 30 miles out, 40 miles out. The developers are still responsible for that. so that's good clarity for our listener because I'm talking about infill. Infill lots within the city limits, tear downs, things like that. ⁓ And I just want to make sure that they know that. And what do we mean by that?

Nathan (24:54)
You're talking about inf.

Vince (25:04)
Well, we'll spend anywhere from 25 to $50,000 on these systems. And what are these systems? Well, it catches every ounce of water from your roof through the gutters. The gutters go down into very detailed leaf filters, catch it, catches the water, it gets rid of the leaves. They go into not your little black flexible pipe, the cheap stuff. You get goals at Home Depot or your local landscape supplier. It goes into now, has to go into...

PVC pipe, schedule 29 or 40, the thick, like you would use for plumbing in your house. But outside, to catch all that water, it all has to go and get directed into pits. And these pits either have what are called ⁓ flow well systems, where it's tanks that let the water out, not directly to the soil, it has to be like a pig in a blanket where it's got stone around it, and then filter fabric so the

the outside dirt doesn't get in and clog up your stone. then it's just wild, That is wild. Inspection ports so the cities can come around and inspect it and charge you maintenance fees and things like that if you don't maintain your system. then you have houses of different elevation. Like we talked about topography. So you might need two of these systems, one in the front, one in the back.

then all of sudden you can't put your pool in. Yeah, because you got no place to put it. you can't let the overflow. So it's like one of these things that... Intentions are always good with regulation in zoning. But it's the burden that gets put on the homeowner, the builder, or the developer. And so we say all that, let's land the plane that it's important for the homeowner and the listener to ask those questions ahead of time, because it may affect your budget. Yes. And...

in the case of permitting, the timeframe. Budget meaning the cost of installing the systems, budget meaning the professional fees from the engineers to design these systems, and also the amount of time it's gonna take in permitting to have these examined by the municipalities. And guess what? The dirty little secret is you never pass all the way through once. They're gonna find some reason why they don't like that leaf catch, and they want this model number.

Nathan (27:20)
And why? Reinspect fees.

Vince (27:22)
Reinspect fees and delays so they don't, cause they're busy and they need to, cause they're understaffed. They need to go work on something else. And they know that if they reject it, it goes back to you and it's going to take 10 days and they got to start the clock again. IE three months to get a permit. Yeah. So,

Nathan (27:38)
That's right.

Well, it's well, the deal is, what we, yes, it's a diatribe that we went on, but it's, we're letting, the whole point is to inform the listener of this is what your builder's dealing with. And no matter the municipalities you're in, we're all fighting something and we are fighting on behalf of the homeowner. And, and no, during this stage, there can feel like a disconnect from your home builder because

Vince (27:59)
That's right.

Nathan (28:09)
You were so intertwined in pre-construction. Then it goes into permitting. Sometimes there aren't updates to give. What's the update? Still with the city. Do you know where at at the city? No. Do you know who has it? No. Because they haven't updated the portal, you know, whatever it is. so it's, it's, it's a, it's a process that's funky. It's a process that it's weird. And, and really what we're trying to do is inform listeners. And sometimes the information we're giving them.

Vince (28:22)
because we haven't updated the portal.

Nathan (28:39)
is nothing to act on. It's just informing them that when you get to this stage with your builder, this is how it's going to go.

Vince (28:45)
That's the difference between me and you. You're calling that informing the listener. I call it a horror story. It's Because I'm like shell shocked right now. Yeah. Like I think I just wet my pants. Yeah. It's just crazy. So, okay, so we get it submitted, we pay the fees, we finally get that permit.

Nathan (28:58)
We'll get that fixed up.

Vince (29:10)
What a celebration, right? Yeah. Let's go one step further. going to, because I believe in horror stories. Yeah. I thought we did too, but was something that I just thought about is, did you know that, I don't know if you'd realize this, and I don't know if our listener, but this is like the peace day resistance to always be on edge. That if you think, like for example, you get a permit push through, okay? You get your thing permitted. You may or may not know that there was an error on that plan.

Nathan (29:18)
I was just gonna say, I thought we landed this.

Vince (29:40)
You couldn't build that wall that high by regulation. But let's say in your municipality, wherever our listeners are, in that setback, you have a retaining wall that holds back dirt or whatever, and it's brick or stone or wood. If an ordinance says you can't have a retaining wall taller than three foot in that setback, but your plan somehow said, showed a five foot wall and you...

Don't catch it. You don't even realize it was that high because of the dirt. And it's the reason why it's that high is because of the actual topo. The city missed it because they're human. Yeah. And there's so much turnover in most cities. That's exactly right. That's the dirty little secret. People say, well, you gave me a permit. I was approved. It's your responsibility as the builder, homeowner, whatever, to fix those errors in the field where they can shut you down.

Nathan (30:21)
It's still you and the homeowners response.

Vince (30:39)
Same. And force you to make that change. And what happens if you did have to retain five foot of dirt?

They approved it, but now it doesn't work because you can't put a five foot wall, you have to do three. What do you do then? And they won't let you change the grade. We've had it to the point where you have to go through what's called a variance, where you have to go to court and then every neighbor, whether it's your neighbor next door or somebody three miles away, can come argue as to why you shouldn't be allowed to do that wall, even though the city approved it. And now you're stuck and you're, guess what happens to your project? It won't stop.

Instead, get what's called a stop work order and can't continue.

Nathan (31:16)
Yep. We've had, ⁓ we have as well, again, they're human, come do rough-in inspections. Everything's good. Get your green stickers to move on. Everything's great. Come do final inspections. Fail something that wasn't caught at rough-in inspections that now is almost impossible to fix. And same thing, but you gave us a permit. This was on the plans. You didn't catch it then.

We went through rough-in inspections. This was installed. You gave us green stickers to move forward. Now we're at the end and you won't give us CO, correct?

Vince (31:54)
So that's okay. Yeah, you're exactly right. So that's really part you, you get your permit. You're not done with the city. All they come with you all the way through the building, because you had mentioned inspections. Tell the listener, you're not done with the city. They have physical inspectors that work for the city that come inspect your project at different phases, right? All the way through. One, tell the listener what they're checking for and...

Nathan (32:00)
You're not done. You take them all the way through.

Vince (32:24)
to when those typical inspections, because you said the word rough, rough inspection. I don't think our listeners, some of our listeners might not know.

Nathan (32:30)
don't know because we're not there yet and I'm not going to get too deep into this because this will be a whole other episode. Inspections will be a whole other episode but they come with you all the way through on certain inspections and what they're looking for depends on the municipality. To be honest with you it's all municipal driven because it's and in some of ours which is hilarious it's not even municipal our municipalities aren't even cohesive enough it's inspector driven which is always super enjoyable.

They interpret code differently inside the same municipality and depending on which inspector you get they're gonna look at different things so it's always a moving target and when we get into the construction side we'll have an entire episode on inspections and I think that it'll blow people's

Vince (33:20)
I think so too. So I call it an additional layer. You you listen, the city's got to inspect it and that's fine. We want them to inspect it because everybody's human. building a imperfect ... We're building a house with imperfect people and an imperfect condition. Yep. And so yes, having the inspector from the city is important. like for example, going back to our last episode on contracts, in our contract or two episodes ago, on our contract

Nathan (33:33)
Yeah, we use the

Perfect material.

Vince (33:49)
We ask them, we tell the customer, it's okay for you to have a private inspector. And we encourage it. Same. Because we want it to be right and we are imperfect. so we want you to catch stuff. And so there are two different types of inspectors that'll follow us all the way through sometimes. Sometimes the customers or the listeners fine with just a local municipality. And sometimes they just want to have an additional layer of security. We allow that. They've got to have insurance. They got to be reputable. They're inspectors and stuff like that.

just to keep us protected as well from work that doesn't make any sense. ⁓ So you're right. Do you have those rough inspections they come through, they look at your stuff, I call it the inside of the wall stuff, whether it's inside your foundation walls, the steel, under your slabs, ⁓ inside your framing, your electrical, HVAC, plumbing, mechanicals, all the insulation, and then...

you have what are called the first set is all your roughs. You got to pass all that before they'll let you cover the walls with your sheetrock and stuff like that and go to what's called, we call it the flip in the schedule in is the construction phase, is the finish phase. And that's when everything goes on after. And then you have your finish inspections all the way through to the last inspection will be the certificate of occupancy also called CO in some other municipalities in different parts of the country, we'll call it something different.

but you call it a CO or- It's CO. It's a CO there. ⁓ And that basically says everything's been, it confirms everything's been inspected, approved, passed, and this qualifies for life safety. Yep. That they're sure that somebody won't ordinarily die without some mischief happening. That's right. And here's your certificate of occupancy. You can now move into the home, an occupied home. So that's kind of the inspection process. Like you said, we'll touch on that once we flip.

into the construction phase of our series. ⁓ Is there anything, any key takeaways, know, maybe one or two that you just say, hey, from this episode, Mr. Mrs. Listener, think of this.

Nathan (35:59)
Again, I will say, Hey, it is a, it's a maze. is your builders working for you. It can be an uncomfortable situation in the build. The takeaway needs to be. Talk to your builder, listen to him, understand that he may not have all the answers because Hey, we definitely do not own our trades, but the fact that we put them on multiple projects, they will listen to us. have.

no control of our municipalities. They literally do what they want, when they want, how they want. We can't give you the greatest answers. We can give you some ideas. We are at their, we are at their.

Vince (36:39)
Good. My key takeaway for this is double, triple, quadruple check your permit requirements, every document, and check your local ordinances that may not have gotten caught on your plans as part two to that before you submit.

it will save you weeks, if not months, in the permitting process. cool. Well, we hope that this was valuable for your listener and those watching on YouTube. So, if you are watching on YouTube, we'd love it if you'd give us ⁓ a rating. A five star would be far more preferred over Five stars only. Yeah. And ⁓ if you would, follow us there, like, share, DM us if you have any questions. You can also listen to this.

on all of your podcast stations. And thank you for joining us in the series, The House That Wisdom Built. Next will be our last episode in the pre-construction phase, and we're gonna be talking about the handoff. Nice. And then we're gonna go through to how we physically build your home, step by step. ⁓ And so thank you so much for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

Nathan (37:59)
you