One long holiday weekend later, the City of Austin today issued a new and separate permit for the construction of the garage, resolving questions about how to call for inspections of the garage under the existing permit for the house when the inspections of the foundation, steelwork, concrete, framing and roofing of the house are already complete.
Category Archives: permits
Garage permit question
Ron and Kathleen from Ranserve report they have contacted the City of Austin to resolve a question about the garage construction permit.
As explained to Steven, the City approved construction of the garage as an amendment to the construction plans for the house — which is what the City advised was the correct procedure. But … when Ron spoke with the inspector two days ago about how to get the foundation for the garage inspected and approved, the inspector checked with the office — and he advised that the City needs to revise the permit, separating the garage as its own permit and construction process — which in turn will allow Ron to call for the foundation, steelwork, concrete, framing, roofing and other inspections — which he cannot do at this point because all those inspections are already done and approved for the house.
Kathleen advises she will have an update next week.
In the interim, complying in full with the plans already approved by the City, Gilsa continues to install steelwork for the foundation.
Above, long runs of rebar are prepped from front to back of garage.
Notes, 23 Sept. 2015
It’s the first day of Fall. Happy Equinox!
Kathleen Baker at Ranserve today submitted plans for the garage addition to the City of Austin, applying for a building permit. Now we wait for review.
Ron and Cris from Ranserve installed the duct for the kitchen exhaust hood inside the kitchen, foaming all around the metal duct to insulate it and the exterior wall, then sealing up around the duct with drywall.
Stairs, cascading
The knee bone’s connected to the shin bone …
The stairs are not built to code for rise and tread. The rise varies from stair to stair — 10 inches for the first stair and landing, then 7.25 inches, until you get to the top, where the rise suddenly shrinks to 5 inches. We suspect the stairs were originally carpeted, built nearly correctly. Then a remodel replaced the carpet with oak treads — tripping up ascents and descents.
To fix this, we need to add additional run — the horizontal distance the stairs travel from first stair to last.
Last week, the framers took out the closet over the stairs at what will be the loft, to ensure we’re not whacking our skulls each time we climb the steps. See photo here.
These issues force us to push the front entry of the house forward about 3.5 feet. It’s the only addition to the square footage in the entire remodel. We sweated whether this would complicate or delay permits from the City of Austin, because of limits on impermeable cover. But we’re building the extension over the existing slab, which is already impermeable. And bringing the stairs up to code for safety. The permits came more quickly than we expected.
Today, the framers opened up the front wall of the house, and went to work on the structure. By tomorrow, the front door will be repositioned forward 3 feet and turned 90 degrees.
Permit day
The City of Austin today approved demo and remodeling permits. Yay!