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  1. #1
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    Default Watering down of AHJ inspection

    At least in metropolitan areas, it appears that incompetent, illegal renovation is performed increasingly, partly in response to housing shortages and price escalation. At the same time, inspection seems to have slackened in many places.

    It's not so much that inspectors never catch and fine illegal work. This can be a cash cow. Rather, many jurisdictions seem to hire less qualified inspectors, and don't train them up. Some of these counties and cities, and even many jurisdictions that demand competence and continuing education of inspectors, give them very little time to perform inspections, so they are highly unlikely to catch any but the most blatant illegalities. These are not necessarily the most dangerous illegalities.

    Does this match your observations?

    What has changed that the polity accepts this and, presumably, encourages it by electing people whose policies of budget-setting and management create it?

    This leaves the HI coming in at the time of sale as the first point of competent inspection and protection. Yet I seem (gasp) to see a similar trend among some HIs, too, I'm afraid, where HOs are kind of lucky if they manage to hire HIs of the caliber of folks I've met on this forum; but a lot of them are not so lucky, judging from reports I've been shown. I'm not suggesting that qualified HIs hire duds to work for them. However, HOs don't know how to find the qualified folks, and even association membership is no guarantee.

    Similar Threads:
    Last edited by david shapiro; 12-17-2021 at 10:49 AM.
    Inspection Referral

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Watering down of AHJ inspection

    David, that's what I've posted about several times here (at least I think I have, I've been saying it everywhere to everyone for years).

    Building Officials and their representatives (plans examiners, inspectors, etc al) are employed by cities and counties to ... (technically) ... ensure that building codes are followed and that buildings are 'reasonably" safe (meet minimum code requirements, which do not make a building "safe", just meets minimum legal requirements).

    Building Officials are therefore subject to the whims of acceptance by contractors, and contractors are often main contributors to re-election campaigns, and getting re-elected is what city and county officers (commissioners/council members/etc) need to do.

    Building Officials who actually enforce the code and ensure that contractors do what they said they would do (all contracts I've seen state that the contractors will meet the code ... contractors submit plans and say this is what I want to do, building departments review those plans and say 'sure, looks good, do it', and inspectors are simply verifying 'good job, guys') ... and that creates problems.

    Problems for the contractors.

    Who create problems for city and county Officials.

    Who create problems for Building Officials (and plans examiners/inspectors).

    I did AHJ code inspections for 10 years and watched the decline first hand. That's why I retired from AHJ code inspections - I couldn't 'not do' what I was supposed to do. Some AHJ are worse than others, but all given resistance to doing what they should be doing.

    Jerry Peck
    Construction/Litigation/Code Consultant - Retired
    www.AskCodeMan.com

  3. #3
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    Cool Re: Watering down of AHJ inspection

    David, I did HI for 20 years. I had my SBCCI (first, then ... ) ICC inspector and plan reviewer certifications, and Florida licenses when Florida began licensing plan reviewers and inspectors (I did not renew my Florida licenses at the end of last month as we moved to NC).

    I went to local AHJ inspectors meetings and met the various Building Officials and Chief Inspectors in my inspection area (which was basically 20-30 miles wide ocean to Everglades by 100-125 north/south).

    I watched, and tried slowing, the decline from the HI side, then retired from HI and switched to the AHJ side for 10 years before I retired from that.

    At least in Florida, only a full realignment of authority will change it. And Florida even had a statute which prohibits unlicensed people from interfering with licensed building officials, plans examiners, and inspectors.

    Jerry Peck
    Construction/Litigation/Code Consultant - Retired
    www.AskCodeMan.com

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Watering down of AHJ inspection

    From what I see, it's systemic.

    In my area, it seems to be workload-related for the municipal inspectors. I knew a local combination building inspector who, when he started working for the city department, was doing between 9 and 12 inspections each day. This would vary from looking at the steel and hold-downs in a foundation (which is pretty quick) to a full close-in inspection (which could take up to two hours). When he retired (this was several years ago) he had between 19-22 inspections daily.

    Clearly, one person cannot perform 20 thorough building inspections in the same time he/she was doing 10 and something has to give. What happens is the quick inspection is almost a drive-by and the close-in becomes a spot-check rather than a full inspection. Inspectors get to know contractors and will tailor their inspections depending on past experience.

    The problem is that fees and permits in this area are closing in on $100K for a new single-family home. These include infrastructure mitigation and hookup fees (more families means a need for more schools, police, fire, sewage treatment, etc) along with the permit fees. Even It is impossible to produce affordable housing when you are spending that much prior to breaking ground, and raising the cost of the permit so more inspectors can be hired just isn't going to fly.

    Right now, with the huge rebuild after our 2017 and 2019 fires, the building departments had to subcontract to private inspection firms to perform building inspections. And, these folks do not put the same effort into enforcement that the city inspectors do. For instance, if a city inspector is inspecting work on 100 Main St. and sees that the building next door is doing work, he will stop by to take a look at the permit. No permit gets a red tag. The subcontracted inspectors just look at what is on their paperwork.

    Department of Redundancy Department
    Supreme Emperor of Hyperbole
    http://www.FullCircleInspect.com/

  5. #5
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    Cool Re: Watering down of AHJ inspection

    The numbers I was given back around 1991 by a Building Official in a 'smallish' South Florida town when he was talking with me about going to work for him, and why, were:
    1 hour in the office in the morning with paperwork and phone calls
    3 hours doing inspections
    1 hour for lunch (while doing paperwork and phone calls in your truck)
    3 hours doing inspections
    1 hour paperwork and phone calls from the office

    Keep in mind that was before notebook computers, and early Cell phones (i.e., "The Brick" cellphones).

    8 hours (not counting what you would do at "lunch")
    - 2 hours (in office in morning and afternoon)
    = 6 hours, or 360 minutes

    360 minutes divided by 18 inspections per day = 20 minutes per inspection

    Timing was something like this - it's been 30 years, so memory is not exact to the minute)
    5 minutes to drive to inspection
    2 minutes to park, lock car, and find the permit and plans
    3 minutes to review plans for what you are there to inspect
    5 minutes to walk in and look at what you are inspecting
    2 minutes to write up what you found and give code sections (Florida requires AHJ inspectors to provide code sections on notices)
    3 minutes to walk back to permit card, replace plans, sign cards/leave notice

    That's 20 minutes

    Sometimes inspections are next door in the next house, sometimes 15 minute drive, but the average time to actually "inspect" was about 2-3 minutes ... try doing a framing inspection in 3 minutes.

    He said he needed more inspectors, I agreed, then said to the effect of 'but not me', then added 'but I'll continue to help from what I'm doing.

    Two years later, after trying to recover from Hurricane Andrew, inspectors were being given 80 ... yes, 80 ... inspections per day all over the South Florida area.

    Jerry Peck
    Construction/Litigation/Code Consultant - Retired
    www.AskCodeMan.com

  6. #6
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    Default Re: Watering down of AHJ inspection

    Quote Originally Posted by Jerry Peck View Post
    Two years later, after trying to recover from Hurricane Andrew, inspectors were being given 80 ... yes, 80 ... inspections per day all over the South Florida area.
    That's beyond horrible and on to theatre of the absurd.

    And yet. . .

    My dead friend Alan Nadon, when he was chief electrical inspector for Elkhart, IN, told me that after a flood he breezed through houses and gave the utility cut-in notices as long as the panelboards were dry. He explained that otherwise, people strung extension cords house-to-house.

    When I told my sweetheart what you said about the aftermath of Andrew, she protested that jurisdictions didn't have enough steady work to hire enough inspectors to do the job right after such a crisis. (She's joined me at IAEI conferences for ~25 years, helped edit my books &c; she's not ignorant in this area.)

    I know that IAEI has put out notices asking electrical inspectors to come down and help out after some emergencies. (This may have been before its last two CEOs were in charge.) It seems to me that if inspection departments were fully staffed generally, there would be enough slack that they could release people to help out in emergencies elsewhere, much as do firefighters.

    I get what you and Gunnar and have been saying about the disincentives that have degraded the system. What I don't get is what's changed about them over the last few decades.

    Incidentally, I agree with Gunnar that third party inspectors don't cast their eyes over nearby properties and stick their noses in. However, when people hired me as a TPI, or some other colleagues, they got a more thorough inspection than AHJ employees could give. There's a tradeoff, just like the tradeoff of having a marketplace in which some TPIs might compete on price, others on going easy. Say, that's kinda like NRTLs, too.


  7. #7
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    Default Re: Watering down of AHJ inspection

    Quote Originally Posted by david shapiro View Post
    Incidentally, I agree with Gunnar that third party inspectors don't cast their eyes over nearby properties and stick their noses in. However, when people hired me as a TPI, or some other colleagues, they got a more thorough inspection than AHJ employees could give. There's a tradeoff, just like the tradeoff of having a marketplace in which some TPIs might compete on price, others on going easy. Say, that's kinda like NRTLs, too.
    About half of my time doing AHJ inspections was for Private Providers (3rd party providers of building officials, plans examiners, inspectors) and the other half of the time as an employee of AHJs. I agree that many/most Private Providers not only don't look elsewhere, they don't look very hard even directly in front of them, and, like you, I looked all around and with greater care than many others (AHJ employees or Private Provider employees). That may have been in part because I had certifications in all of the trades (building, mechanical, plumbing, fuel gas, electrical, et al) and was aware of what was around what I was looking at, and in part because that is who I am and what I do.

    I think that all inspectors should be multi-discipline so they are not blinded to only one aspect (even if they may then still only inspect for one discipline, which would depend on the jurisdiction they are working for/in), that way they can serve as another set of eyes for inspectors of the other disciplines.

    Jerry Peck
    Construction/Litigation/Code Consultant - Retired
    www.AskCodeMan.com

  8. #8
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    Default Re: Watering down of AHJ inspection

    Jerry, I agree that multi-discipline competence would be invaluable. The political will to invest in competence and add further training? I don't know what that will take. What came out of the pronunciamentos about reinspection following June's Champlain Towers collapse?


    Intercommunication and interagency cooperation would help a lot, too. I remember that you told the building official you would offer what support you could, from the outside.

    Here's a personal experience. In my area, AHJs use multihats to cover SFR inspections, all except plumbing/pipefitting. That's more of a CSA model, where the water utility sends out their own people (yes, covering gas as well, even though they're not the gas utility). My house is block and brick on slab, downstairs. After gutting it, I added 2 inches of isocyanurate board and, after wiring, plumbing, sprinklers, passed concealment/rough inspection, 5/8" firecode drywall.

    The plumbing contractor was caught with a dozen or two violations. One was that he neglected to put a shutoff valve on the gas fitting feeding our stove. He gouged a hole in the wall and installed one. This passed inspection. I protested that unbarriered R-max is a fire hazard. The inspector shrugged it off, telling me to take it up with the building inspector, who'd already signed off on the job.

    Grrr. Sorry for the vent.

    I guess if there were to be a point in this, it would be the same one we've made all along: the utility doesn't pay enough to get qualified people and train them enough and give them enough time to bother with more than the minimum, including the minimum paperwork. And the building department doesn't want to have to pay for multihats who are competent enough to satisfy the water and gas companies.


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