How a good contractor handles inspectors

By now, we’ve had a LOT of experience dealing with city inspections.

And we’ve seen how many different contractors handle them.

And here’s what separates the contractors who get their permits signed off from the ones who get endless streams of corrections:

  1. Good quality work (obviously); and
  2. Confidence.

The nature of renovating old buildings is that things are not always going to get built exactly to plan.

You and your contractor are going to have to improvise in order to create the best possible space within the constraints under which you are forced to operate.

The hard part is when the inspector comes in and sees that what has been done deviates from the plans.

Now, if what you have done violates the building codes, there’s not much anyone can do… you’re not going to get away with it.

However, if the work is to code, then you might. If your contractor has a history of doing good work and projects confidence in his own knowledge of the building code, the inspector is likely to allow some deviations without requiring you to go back to plan-check (which can impose weeks or months of delays).

If, on the other hand, your contractor does low quality work and/or lacks confidence in his own knowledge of the building codes, the inspector is likely going to run roughshod over him, which means multiples rounds of additional inspections and / or trips back to plan-check.

With isolated exceptions, we have found city inspectors to be pretty reasonable people. If they think you know what you’re doing, they let you proceed. If they think you’re an amateur, then they force you through the wringer (which, by the way, is how you go from being an amateur to being a pro… trust me!).