All Forum Posts by: Parker Eberhard

@Sai T. You need to either have the wires re-run through the center of the joists or fur the wall as suggested. As it stands now this isn’t up to code or safe

@Edward L lauckern you cant just start cutting notches in the studs as the house may become structurally unstable and fall down

@Simone Johnson as most of the responses have stated, dealing with inspectors / building department isn’t as bad as people sometimes think it is.

I have found the majority of the inspectors I have worked with to be pretty nice guys and gals; they are typically former contractors who no longer want to swing a hammer and like the security of working for the government. Their main job is to enforce code for sure, as it typically pertains to life safety and they want to cover their (and the jurisdictions) *** if anything were to happen.

If you go into the process with the intent of playing by the rules and wanting to fix what has been an eyesore, they are typically much more receptive to helping you out. Also, if you ‘play dumb’ a little, I have found the inspectors to want to look like ‘heroes’ and want to help you that much more.

Where I have seen people run into issues is where they are obviously violating the codes and doing unpermitted work to try to sneak by the inspectors; they don’t like this and will make your life hell. Also , if the job site is always a mess, they may be harder on you as a clean job site usually means a cleaner overall project

@Ryan Schuler sounds like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place

@Gary Abner I just threw BECU out as an option. I have actually gotten better service from them than from Chase Private Client

@Varinder Kumar owner occupied means owner occupied

@Ryan Schuler you could look at flipping the kitchen location with one of the bedrooms so that it is next to the living room and that would give you at least one bedroom with some privacy. Numbers would have to work obviously

@Elisabeth Ihler I find it hard to believe that people are building ADUs here in Seattle for $120-$170k; we are currently the 6th most expensive city in the world to build in

@Will Barnard another thing that needs to be taken into account with allowances is how they are actually reconciled according to the contract.

If, for example, you have a $10,000 kitchen cabinet allowance, and your cabinets end up costing $15,000, that isn’t necessarily just a $5000 additional cost to the project. If allowances are reconciled as change orders, which is how many contractors do their, there may be an additional cost per change order (all should be stated in the contract), as well as GC markup and taxes, and any additional project management costs. That being said, as $5000 additional cabinet cost could easily cost you $6000+ once all is factored in

@Jon Vert if the inspectors haven’t said anything thus far I wouldn’t bring their attention to the issue. Also, will you be doing any additional work on the house that is going; I’m curious why you are worried about the garage, as inspectors don’t just knock on doors looking to inspect things (unless they get complaints of un-permitted work being preformed)

You can typically get away with existing non-conforming work anyways unless you start building ‘on top of it’ in which case you may have to bring up to code (this is why you never want to completely tear down a non-conforming garage for example; as you can typically use the foundation to rebuild, even if it isn’t within site setbacks, which many aren’t)