Chapter 3 – To read from the beginning of this saga, please click here.
The rejections came, and quickly! Both the grading and building permit applications were incomplete. The county planners asked for more complete soils engineering plans. I contacted the soils engineering firm, and got the broader soils reports and submitted those to the county the next day. Then I awaited the next rejection or correction request.
This is the fasteners page of the steel building engineering plan. These structures are quite complex.
Chapter 4 – Money
The permit applications then passed the "intake" phase. I knew this because the county sent me an invoice for just under $11,000. I was told that this is normal for projects like mine. I gulped, but was relieved to have gotten over the first major hurdle. Asking for money indicated that the County had accepted my applications. Those fees go to pay for the planners to review the plans (and send them back for corrections and additions). These fees also pay for local schools, based on construction costs, and other operations of our local government.
It was the largest charge I had ever put on a credit card. I went online and put the fees into my cart, then put in my card number and pushed the PAY NOW button. And it worked!
After the fees were paid, the planners dug in to my plans, checking them against local and national codes. Since my building is so simple, there isn't much to consider. I have grading plans, engineering drawings for the concrete pad, engineering details for the steel building, and the soils report. Then there is the electrical plan, which includes lighting, electrical outlets, several in-floor power boxes, and three ventilation fans. I didn't expect much difficulty on those items. I was wrong, of course.
Chapter 5 – Corrections
In mid-May, I received a letter from the County indicating that my plans had been reviewed and that a Corrections document had been generated. In that letter were 26 corrections and comments. One example: "Remove the heat pump. This type of building cannot have heating or cooling." Another: "Electrical outlets below 5'4" from the floor must have tamper-resistant covers."
There were a small number of questions about the concrete foundation engineering, all of which were answered by the firm I hired to do the engineering. The man at the County rejected the structural engineering drawings provided by the building manufacturer because they were based on the wrong California Building Code year. I paid an additional $1,850 to the manufacturer to get new structural drawings. The only thing that engineer changed, as far as I can tell, was the date. Ouch!
I was told to remove the smoke detectors I had included in my plans; I also removed a booster pump for the fire sprinkler system, and had the contractor replace that with a water main fed by an upstream pump. I added motion-sensing light controls on the exterior of the building, and added motion- and occupancy-sensing controls on the interior.
The most difficult item in the list was the Collateral Load calculation for the building's roof. Apparently, most steel buildings have an excess load carrying capacity (Collateral Load) in the range of 3-5 pounds per square foot (psf). My building has only a 1 psf capacity.
The County was concerned that the fire sprinkler pipes, charged with water, combined with electrical conduits, light fixtures, and wiring would exceed the 1 psf value. I was in a bind. I asked the sprinkler contractor how much the sprinkler system would weigh, then added to that all the electrical loads, and made a spreadsheet showing that the total weight of these would be just over 0.3 psf –well below 1 psf, and (I hope) this makes the building's Collateral Load capacity able to support those things with strength to spare.
Chapter 6 –Resubmittal
Making all these changes took several weeks, and lots of conversations with engineers, contractors and the County planner. I had to re-submit all of the elements of the building permit application at the same time to allow the County to review version 2 of all of this. I did that on June 16. Now I wait for their response.
Chapter 7 – And that's only half the application!
There are two big parts to this application process: first, the building and its foundation, and second, the grading necessary for the building. Those are treated as two different projects by the County. They have different analysts looking at the two parts. Ironically, the building was reviewed prior to the grading. The grading must go first, obviously, but the planner has not yet begun to review the grading plans. That will happen in early July.
More on this project as the various steps are made. I'll report here as it happens!
No comments:
Post a Comment