Building Inspections and a City's Public Duty

This document is part of the http://RenovationTrap.com presentation

Regarding 8209 172nd Ave., NE, Redmond WA 98052

Let’s visit with the law for a moment. The Revised Code of Washington (RCW) states:

RCW 19.27.050. “The state building code required by this chapter shall be enforced by the counties and cities ...”

RCW 19.27.031.  “Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, there shall be in effect in all counties and cities the state building code which shall consist of the following codes which are hereby adopted by reference: (1)(a) The International Building Code, published by the International Code Council[,] Inc. (b) The International Residential Code, published by the International Code Council, Inc.”

Building Codes and Public Safety

Building codes are standards established and enforced by local government to ensure that buildings do not fall below minimum levels of quality and safety.  Anyone doing major work on a building is required to obtain a building permit before starting the work, and cities are required to send inspectors to ensure the work is being done according to code.

But what happens when a city does not perform its public duty—when it does not do the required inspections or does them negligently?  In those cases, a city like Redmond is not fulfilling its legal duty to enforce the building codes.  After the city inspectors approve the buildings and the construction companies and developers walk away with big profits, what happens to homeowners who find their homes don’t meet code?

Given that cities like Redmond charge for the building permits and are required by law to do the inspections, can they — and should they — be held accountable for dereliction of duty?  Since the city governments insist on calling the taxpayers "customers," shouldn't the cities bear the same contractual obligations of other merchants?  (See letter from the Redmond Building Official)

In San Diego, California, the issue of city accountability is being hotly debated after many sub-standard housing projects were built with the approval of city inspectors.  See the August 2005 Voice of San Diego four-part series:

1. Part 1: August 22, 2005 (cached copy)
2. Part 2: August 23, 2005 (cached copy)
3. Part 3: August 24, 2005 (cached copy)
4. Part 4: August 25, 2005 (cached copy)

Recently in Florida an appliance deliveryman was electrocuted when he attempted to plug in an appliance in a newly constructed house.  His widow is suing the developer, the subcontractor, and the county that OK’d the faulty electrical work.  See “Bizarre Electrocution Prompts Homeowner Lawsuit,” SmartMoney.com February 21, 2006.  (cached copy)

But what of Redmond?  Redmond’s lack of due diligence begins with the way it issues Building Permits.

Redmond, Over Easy

In the planning stages of our renovation, Windermere Real Estate agent Paul H. Stickney and Bob Trustworthy of Trust Me Construction (footnote) both recommended we take out the City of Redmond Building Permit in our own names, rather than have TMC take out the permit.  Stickney and Trustworthy said that

• Redmond would “turn around permits” differently for homeowners, and that
• the state of Washington would not charge tax on the renovation labor. 

As we later discovered, both statements were untrue.

Why did Stickney and Trustworthy tell us to apply for the Building Permit?  Perhaps because state law requires the city to check a contractor's registration and licensing number.  Since TMC was not registered, insured, or bonded at the time, Redmond might have discovered the truth and refused to issue a permit.  So Stickney and Trustworthy sent two unknowing people (—us—) to help them get around Washington State law.

And Redmond made it easy for them.

Stories of dishonest and incompetent contractors abound in the state of Washington.  The Washington Department of Labor and Industries must have seen many unregistered contractors persuade homeowners to take out building permits in order to get around the law.  In their booklet, Hiring a Contractor or Remodeler: What you should know, Labor and Industries states:

Be wary of contractors who: ... Ask you to pick up the building permit.  In most instances, the contractor is required to take out the permits.  Permits are your protection and help ensure that work will meet local building codes.

It’s hard to imagine that a renovation and construction minded city like Redmond would not be familiar with this Washington state consumer protection advisory.  Yet when we applied for the permit—which specified complex construction work such new roof trusses for a cathedral ceilings and a cantilever dining room/kitchen extension—Redmond asked no questions about our experience or qualifications. 

Other jurisdictions are more wary, and more protective of the consumer.  According to Labor and Industries, when homeowners apply for building permits, some jurisdictions shrewdly suspect that an unregistered contractor may be trying to avoid detection.  Some jurisdictions require the homeowners sign an affidavit that they will actually personally be doing the work.  But not Redmond!

If Redmond had a large poster on display summarizing the problem, we might have been on guard and our renovation story might be very different.  Such a poster might state:

Be wary of contractors who ask you to pick up the building permit.  In most instances, the person actually doing the work is required to take out the permits.

Instead (in our case), Redmond issued a Building Permit to two new-comers to the state who knew nothing about state construction law and no idea they were helping others dodge the law.

Assisting a Continual Deception

Even so, Redmond’s behavior during the construction helped the deception:  Trust Me Construction’s on-site supervisor Peter Oakes, not us, called Redmond to arrange for structural inspections.   Doubtlessly, Oakes identified himself when he called in.

We might expect the clerk at Redmond City Planning to say: “Who am I speaking to, please? Do you hold the permit on this work, Peter Oakes? The permit for that address was purchased by Carol and Mark DeCoursey.  Why are you calling for the inspection instead of them?”

Imagine the scene at the front door when the structural inspector arrived.  (In our case, the structural inspector was Richard Treharne, ID No. 2452.)  We expect Oakes and Treharne introduced themselves, and we believe Oakes used his real name.

We might expect the inspector to say: “So you are Peter Oakes.  That is nice.  Now, where is 'Carol or Mark DeCoursey,' the people who hold the permit for this work?”

But again, the system failed.  It seems the system is greased to enable this kind of law evasion rather than to stop it.

We don't think Oakes introduced himself as “Mark or Carol DeCoursey” because, months later when Treharne actually met us, he did not say: “Good grief!  You don’t look anything like you did a few months ago!”

All of this slippage, despite the warning from Labor and Industries: Be wary of contractors who ... ask you to pick up the building permit.  In most instances, the contractor is required to take out the permits ...  In our case, Redmond made it easy for this unregistered, uninsured contractor to get around the law.  Even more worrisome, Stickney, Trustworthy, and Oakes were apparently confident in advance that they could get away with it.

Now, a few words about how Redmond inspectors keep track of their inspections.

Inspection Records

In the City of Redmond, inspections are recorded on two media.  (1) When an inspector visits the site, he is required to immediately record his findings and sign the Inspection Record sheet that is kept on site.  (2) Later, he is required to enter his findings on the City computer.  Legal records (such as inspection records) are not stored in the brain cells of individuals who can quit, retire, move out of town, get run over by a bus, or misrepresent them.  Through written records, Redmond, the contractors, the owners, and any other interested parties know which inspections have been done and passed – and which have not.

Now we’ll discuss the sequencing of inspections.

Inspectors Don’t Have X-Ray Vision

Unlike Superman, a city inspector does not have X-ray vision.  Let us consider a typical example.

The walls of the house are built in stages.  The frame of a wall is the essential weight-bearing structure, and must be inspected in naked form before anything else is done to it.  If it carries electric wires (rough-in), the rough-in wiring must be inspected while it is visible.  If that wall is an exterior wall, it must of course be insulated.  But after the insulation is installed, the insulation hides the framing and wiring, and it is too late to inspect them.  Therefore, the framing and wiring inspections must be done before the insulation is installed.

Likewise, the insulation must be inspected before the sheetrock (drywall) is hung on the wall, which would hide the insulation, wiring, and framing.  Once the sheetrock is installed, if any of the previous inspections had been skipped, the quality of the work passes from view.

The same principle applies to other inspections—floor framing must be inspected before floor boards and carpeting are installed, and roof substrate nailing must be inspected before the shingles are installed.

Inspections must be done in sequence.  As each phase of the job is completed, work on that aspect of the structure must stop as the inspectors are called in to view the work.  Then, if everything is approved, the next aspect of the job is begun, often covering the work that was just finished with other building materials.

For this reason, the time for an inspection is once only; if missed, the moment for inspection may be lost.

What Happens When Inspections Not Done in Sequence?

Jason Lynch, Redmond Building Official, visited our home on January 24, 2006, and explained that Redmond requires an inspector to begin his visit by examining the on-site Inspection Record sheet.  If the Record reveals that any inspections have been missed or skipped, the inspector issues a correction; the inspector has the authority to order the contractor to uncover the work so he can see and inspect it.  If materials are ruined in the process, the contractor must suffer the loss.

We memorialized Mr. Lynch's remarks on January 24 in a letter to Ken Ellis, the Redmond Building Official.

The Proper Sequence of Our Inspections

In our case, based on our correspondence with Jason Lynch, the required sequence of inspections was this:

What the Inspection Record Sheet Actually Revealed

On May 10, 2005, after all work had stopped, our Inspection Record sheet looked like this.  Those inspections that had been done were done and signed off by Richard Treharne (Inspector ID 2452).

But, according to the Inspection Record, these inspections had not been done:

2.  Here is the composite picture in the sequence specified by Jason Lynch on January 24, 2006:

We Discover The Problem

1. The inspections that were not done were required.  That is, the City was absolutely obligated to do those.  It was the City’s public duty; also, by charging money for the permits, the City effectively made a contract with us to do the inspections.  Note that in his letter, Mr. Ellis characterizes the relationship of the citizen to the city as a "customer" — if that be so, what are the consumer's rights and the merchant's obligations?
2. Of the inspections that were done, all were done out of sequence.  According to Jason Lynch, the inspector should not have permitted inspections to be skipped (as recorded in our letter to Mr. Ellis), and should have noticed the skipped inspections as soon as the sheet was provided to him (see inspection sheet).  Instead, as told above, all four inspections were signed off despite prior skipped inspections.

When we discovered the gravity of the problem on August 23, 2005, we rushed to the Redmond City Planning office.  A city planner looked into the Redmond computer and confirmed what the on-site Inspection Record sheet showed: those skipped inspections had never been done.  The planner expressed worry about the skipped inspections and advised us to call the inspections desk immediately.  We did.  The inspections administrative assistant looked into the computer and confirmed the inspections had not been done.   She made an appointment for the inspector to come out the next day.

The problem we now faced was this:  On August 24, 2005, how could the inspector perform inspections he should have performed in the Fall of 2004?  The structures that were open to inspection then were now completely closed up.

Inspector Signs Off Inspections Nine Months Too Late

Redmond inspector Richard Treharne (ID No. 2452) was scheduled to arrive at 7:30 a.m. on August 24.  He arrived after 10 a.m.  Carol greeted him at the door and walked him to the dining room, where the Inspection Record sheet was resting on the sideboard.  At that time, the Inspection Record looked like this.

Carol asked Treharne how he would inspect roof nailing now that the shingles were in place, and how he would inspect other work that was no longer visible?

Inspector Treharne stated that he was not going to do any inspections because he had already done the inspections months ago and everything was OK then.  All he had to do now was to sign the Inspection Record sheet.  And he proceeded to sign off all the open inspections.  At that point, the Inspection Record sheet looked like this.  It shows that five of the skipped inspections were signed off on August 24, 2005.  Later we discovered those five plus three more were marked complete on the same date in the City computer. 

“We Are Not Quality Control”

Carol told Treharne that “concerns” had arisen over a number of the items he had just signed off.  He was disinterested, but she persisted.  She told him there were problems with the roof (completed in early November, 2004), and asked him if he wanted to see the independent roof report we had commissioned.  Treharne said “No,” that he was not interested in seeing the report.  He said:  “We are not quality control.”

Had Mr. Treharne been a pro-active building inspector, he might have been interested in that roofing report.  Of particular interest, that report identifies three separate aspects in which the roof does not comply with the International Building Code, the very code Mr. Treharne and the City of Redmond are legally obligated to enforce.

But what is "quality control"?  Ensuring that housing does not fall beneath certain minimum standards — i.e., the building code — is "quality control," and that is precisely what city inspectors are hired to do.

No reasonable person would expect a city to manage and guarantee the work of a builder beyond the standards defined in the building code.  The windows may be crooked, the plaster lumpy, the counters at the wrong height, and the bathroom adjoining the kitchen.  Those things a city can and must ignore.  But every reasonable person expects a city to hold the line on the building code, and Washington State law makes it the city's legal responsibility.

With a good building code and rigorous inspections to enforce the code, buildings do not collapse or electrocute the appliance installer.  When seen in that light, “Quality Control” is EXACTLY what the permit/inspection process is all about:  City inspections are performed to prevent the erection of sub-standard housing.  It is that simple.

We’ve since learned that “We are not quality control” is the mantra cities intone when they are caught not doing inspections, or doing them negligently.  A city should be held accountable for doing THAT job.

By crying “We are not quality control,” the city officials use a rhetorical trick — they are attempting to change the subject from their own lack of performance to the construction company's errors.

Inspector’s Story Is Not Credible

To our simple minds, Richard Treharne’s story (that he forgot to fill in the form but remembered the details of the construction months later) lacks credibility.  Let’s focus on the roof, and let’s see what we are asked to believe:

• We are asked to believe Mr. Treharne inspected the roof nailing nine months prior, way back in November, 2004.  But at the time, he forgot to record the inspection (a) on the on-site Inspection Record sheet and (b) in the Redmond computer.  Thus his November, 2004 memory failed twice.

• But then, nine months later, despite all his inspections in the meantime, Mr. Treharne could and did recall perfectly the details of his roof nailing inspection.
• We are also asked to believe the same scenario with the other four inspections: Each of them passed with flying colors, but Treharne forgot to (a) sign the green on-site Record Inspection sheet and (b) make note in the Redmond computer, making for eight lapses in memory.  But despite these memory lapses, and despite all the inspections he made during the intervening months, Treharne recalled the details of all the inspections perfectly on August 24, 2005.
• We are also expected to believe that each time he came to inspect, he looked at the Inspection Record sheet with skipped inspection approvals, and forgot to handle the situation again.  And again.  And again.
• Most wonderfully odd, however, each time the inspector forgot to sign off the on-site Inspection Record sheet, he also forgot to enter his findings in the Redmond office computer.  But on those days when he remembered to sign the Inspection Record, he also remembered to enter his findings on the Redmond office computer.

Redmond’s Convenient Credulity

On January 24, 2006, when Redmond Building Inspection Supervisor Jason Lynch visited us in our home, he apologized that Treharne had not followed recording procedures, but assured us that Treharne had actually done the inspections and remembered all the details:

“You’d be surprised.  An inspector can remember inspections from months back.  He really can ...” 

Yes, we would be surprised ... in fact, we are so surprised, we don't believe it.  And no one to whom we've told the story believes it either — they roar with laughter when we tell them.  Mr. Lynch is a charming man, but he is surely far too trusting.

Might Redmond have a pragmatic interest in believing Mr. Treharne's story?  According to Neal Rockwood, a San Diego attorney who specializes in construction defect lawsuits, city inspectors are generally immune from liability for negligence in their inspections. They are liable only if they fail to carry out their inspections (Voice of San Diego, August 22, 2005).  That is, if the City of Redmond admitted Treharne did not do the required inspections, the city could be held accountable. Thus, if Redmond decides they believe Mr. Treharne's story, they can perhaps claim they are not accountable.

You can see our letter to Mr. Ken Ellis, Redmond Building Official, memorializing what was said at that January 24 meeting.

Missed Floor Framing Inspection

Trust Me Construction built a cantilevered extension to the dining room/kitchen area.  The cantilever is unstable.  Before the plywood sub-flooring was added, the floor framing (420) should have been inspected and signed off.  But when we moved in on May 10, 2005, long after the floors were sealed and inaccessible, the floor framing inspection could not be done.  What Trust Me Construction actually did during construction is now hidden and impossible to see.

Negligent Insulation Inspection

And what of Mr. Treharne’s inspection of the insulation?  He signed that one off on January 5, 2005.  On August 29, 2005, we had our house inspected by Evergreen Building Inspection Services of Kirkland.  Evergreen found five code violations in the insulation.  Yet the Building Permit record sheet shows that the wall/vault insulation inspection (00435) and the ceiling/floor insulation inspection were both performed and approved on January 5, 2005.

Other Code Issues

For a discussion of other code issues, see Construction Defects.

Redmond Turns a Blind Eye to the Obvious

When an inspector visits a site, the contractor is required to provide the Building Permit that was issued for the job.  The inspector could not operate without knowledge of the Building Permit that was issued.

In our case, the Permit was issued to build a kitchen and dining room extension, change the roof structure, and install new energy efficient windows.  But Trust Me Construction should not have done what they did without other permits, as well.  Other work that should have been included on the permit consisted of the following:

• Converting of ground level garage space into a fourth bedroom and a full bathroom (Trust Me Construction insisted this work did not need to be included on the permit because those rooms were being made from existing garage space.  Wrong!)
• Relocating kitchen sink,
• Renovating and re-plumbing two upstairs bathrooms,
• Renovating three upstairs bedrooms,
• Renovating (framing and drywalling) recreation room,
• Newly defining (framing, drywalling, plumbing) laundry room,
• Relocating and replacing water heater.

No permits for this work were obtained.  A number of electrical permits were needed, too, but we’ll talk about the electrical permits in a moment.

Given the layout of the house—a typical Redmond split foyer—the inspectors who visited could not have failed to see the additional, unpermitted work being done on the house.

Given that the inspector's job should have begun with inspecting the permit(s), the inspector should have realized that the highly visible ongoing work on the rest of the house had not been included in the permit!  A responsible, pro-active city inspector might have said “What goes on?” and demanded answers.  But the Redmond inspectors didn’t do that.

Again, it seems that Trust Me Construction knew it could do unpermitted work right under the inspector’s nose and get away with it.  That’s a shame.  That fact tells us that our experience with the Redmond inspectors is the rule rather than the exception.

Now let’s turn to the debacle that was the electrical inspection(s).

Electrical Permits and Inspections or Lack Thereof

In order to understand the City of Redmond’s role in the electrical debacle, it is necessary to understand the permits obtained by the Automated Home Solutions (VEMIS), the licensed electrical contractors who claim responsibility for doing the electrical work in our house. 

Automated took out an electrical permit on December 2, 2004.  The job description on the permit reads:  “Swap Panel and Rewire Remodeled Areas.”  It should be noted that the main panel (fuse box) was located on the ground level northwest corner of the house in the new, unpermitted bedroom right next to the new, unpermitted bathroom.  An alert inspector should have noticed:

• Automated Home Solutions did not obtain a permit to install high voltage wiring in that new bedroom, bathroom, and laundry, but did the work anyway.
• Automated Home Solutions did not obtain a permit to rewire the upstairs bathrooms and bedrooms, but did so anyway.
• Automated Home Solutions did not obtain a permit to install a new panel grounding system, but did so anyway.
• Automated Home Solutions did not have a permit to install telephone, data, video, and sound wiring throughout the house, but did so anyway.
• Automated Home Solutions did not have a permit to install fire and smoke alarms, but they were installed anyway.

What Did Redmond Inspect?

Records show that the electrical rough-in inspection was done on December 28, 2004.  At that point, all the walls in the house were open.  Electrical inspector Jeff Sheppard had to walk downstairs to inspect the service panel (fuse box), walking past all the wiring in the new downstairs bedroom and bathroom being illegally constructed.  The new wiring in those rooms was very, very visible.  Was Mr. Sheppard wearing blinders—why didn’t he see unpermitted work and ask questions?

Records show that the City of Redmond performed a “final” inspection on the electrical work on April 11, 2005. 

But when we moved in, we found that the service panel was missing a blank.  That is not expensive to fix, but Jason Lynch, Redmond’s Building Inspection Supervisor, termed it a potentially life-threatening hazard when he visited our house on June 23, 2006.  He pointed out that a person attending the fuse box could accidentally stick their finger into the blank and be electrocuted.  The missing blank suggests that panel was  not inspected; since the service panel was on the City permit, it should have been inspected.

Electrical inspector Jeff Sheppard has told us in an April 19, 2006 email he can’t remember what transpired on April 11, 2005, the date he signed off the final electrical inspection.  Notice the difference between Jeff’s memory and Richard Treharne’s;  at least Jeff did not tell us a tall story, and we appreciate that.

Now let us turn our attention to the electrical work that was performed without a permit. 

The panel grounding should have included a large copper braid connecting the cold water pipe, the hot water pipe, and the gas pipe with the panel ground post, which is also connected by copper braid to a six foot metal stake driven into the earth outside the house.  The panel ground post is also connected to the grounding wires from all parts of the house, including the third prong of every plug-in socket, every metal junction box, and the metal casing on large appliances.  The people who wrote the electrical code obviously considered electricity is nothing to fool around with.

Without a permit, Automated Home Solutions purchased and installed a new grounding stake.  To install the stake, they should have obtained a permit.  Evergreen Building Inspection Services pointed out that the hot water and gas pipe grounding had not been done, and the cold water grounding clamp was loose and poorly done.  As part of the inspection, the electrical inspector should have insured that the new panel was correctly grounded (just as Evergreen did), both during the rough-in inspection and during the final inspection.  Had he done so, he would have discovered the unpermitted and defective grounding system.

Again, during the final electrical inspection on April 11, 2005, the inspector would have to walk past the new unpermitted bathroom and through the new unpermitted bedroom.  During his rough-in inspection, Jeff should have seen the new wiring in those rooms and questioned the lack of permits.  He should also have noticed and questioned the electricians about the following:

• Live, energized wires protruding from the walls in the newly constructed downstairs bathroom and renovated recreation room, and the exterior wall of the back of the house (wiring for outside lantern).
• Live, un-housed wires protruding into the downstairs shower
• An electric ceiling fan installed in the shower stall, contrary to code

We also found that the bathtub drain in the upstairs bathroom was energized at up to 110 Volts AC. 

Since we had not planned to have our bathtub electrified, that job was not understandably included in the electrical permit.  While we cannot blame the city for failing to check the electrical voltage on the metal drain (normally bathtubs are not electrified), we note that a rough-in inspection of the un-permitted areas should have found the stray, unterminated (or wrongly terminated) wire that is energizing the tub.

We also find fault with the April 11 final electrical inspection.  The bathtub was hot wired by a dedicated circuit right there in the panel.  That circuit was not labeled, and no other electrical systems in the house were connected to that circuit.  Jeff might have asked, “What’s this for?” and found our hot bathtub.

What happened to proactive building inspections?

The Larger View

A June 2005 Supreme Court decision (Kelo v. City of New London) gave local government broad rights to grant privately-held property—such as your home—to developers.

And throughout the country, tens of millions of acres of forestland and wetlands are handed over to real estate developers.  See, for example, “The great forestland sell-off,” in The Seattle Times, March 24, 2006.

What kind of housing is being erected by America’s big real estate developers?  In January, 2004, Consumer Reports published “Housewrecked,” revealing the shoddy nature of much new home construction.

Alan Mooney, president of Criterium Engineers, a consulting-engineering firm based in Portland, Maine, with offices in 35 states, estimates that seriously defective new homes account for 15 percent of all new-home construction, or 150,000 new homes a year. “That’s a huge number,” Mooney says, adding: “I don’t think many of these houses will last 50 years.”

The article goes on to state that municipal building departments are often too busy to keep up with required permits and inspections. 

Even where building codes do exist, many local governments have lax enforcement.  Home buyers can’t assume that officials have protected them by performing the required inspections.  Building-department officials say they are understaffed and underfunded, and can’t keep up with permitting and code enforcement in areas where hundreds of new homes are being erected at a time.

In suburban Cincinnati, for example, the Enquirer newspaper reported this past June (cached) that in one county alone, at least 750 houses built between 1993 and 2001 lacked certificates of occupancy, which are supposed to prove that a home has been inspected and is safe to live in.

In New Jersey, state and county prosecutors have launched fraud probes into allegations that building officials in one county falsified reports on hundreds of homes in several large developments that were never inspected.  Homeowners had long complained of faulty construction and poor sewage and storm-drainage connections.
—Consumer Reports "Housewrecked," January 2004, http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/personal-finance/shoddy-home-
construction-104/overview/index.htm?resultPageIndex=1&resultIndex
=2&searchTerm=new%20homes%20defects

See also the June 22, 2003 Cincinnati Enquirer article cited above, "Home inspections lagging in suburbs."  Note that the writer of the article characterizes Certificates of Occupancy as "paper work."

We notice that cities are not too busy to accommodate real estate developers, but merely too busy to protect the public interest.

After the developers make their money and the new homeowner is left with a house or condo that does not even meet Code, should a city or county be able to walk away and wash its hands of the matter?  By pretending to inspect and certifying the buildings, are not cities becoming accessories to fraud?  When cities fail to cite developers who sell their projects without obtaining certificates of occupancy, isn't it obvious that the cities are conniving with the developers and investors?

Certainly in Redmond, the Mayor and the City Council are bending over backwards to accommodate real estate developers.  Given the quality of inspection on our house, we wonder about the quality of inspections given to houses built by mayor-friendly developers.