I need a building inspector. No more than two days a week plus occasional plan reviews. There is no skilled pool to draw from. The last inspector was 2 1/2 hours away. What do other small, isolated towns do?
I need a building inspector. No more than two days a week plus occasional plan reviews. There is no skilled pool to draw from. The last inspector was 2 1/2 hours away. What do other small, isolated towns do?
Where I live they have county offices that provide these people for all the small towns in a county. The small city first has to agree to wave jurisdiction in that area, though. Do you have a county-level government association? You could also find nearby towns and try and find a full-time workload between you and them?
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Around here we also have many communities that contract with the county. Alternatively, they use somebody without any qualifications, or do not require inspections.
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For counties without planning departments in New Mexico the State has regional building inspectors for general construction that you have to file and schedule with.
I used to work for a county that did the inspection in a small municipality for them. You could file and pay at the county.
Also, for larger projects (assuming this is more than a basic house or commercial building) you can get the applicant to pay for and supply building inspection certification from an engineering firm.
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Where I work, building inspections are contracted to Middle Department Inspection Agency, a private company that serves the mid-Atlantic. They have an office about 45 miles away and serve most of the counties and towns in the area. The inspector spends about an hour every other day at our office reviewing permits and then goes out to do inspections. We collect the fees as part of the building permit and all inspections are scheduled by the company office.
We trained a person from the ground up. There are wonderful classes in Las Vegas that offer an intensive one week session and guarantee a pass on the exams. They are offered in other places too, but they DO work. It prepares a person for the book answer, but they will need on the ground training also. I would have them shaddow a building inspector in a nearby City or County for a week or two, if you are starting a program from the ground up. Contract with a private inspector to be available to review pictures sent by i-phone if the new person needs help in the field. Or even have the contracted building inspector ride along twice a week for a month. It won't be cheap, but you will end up with a good inspection program.
On the ground, protecting the Cyburbia Shove since 2004.
All good responses, thanks. However:
There is no county inspections program.
There is no regional council of governments. (communism...the start towards the one world government)
There are no state districts for construction activity. (hey, it's Kansas)
There is no local talent to train.
I may try to see if nearby towns could pool resources for a full time person to work amongst us. Contracting work on major projects is a last resort, and doable. Unfortunately that will not help with smaller projects and catching work done without a permit. Perhaps I should add the need includes zoning reviews/inspections. Before our post-tornado rebuilding no one cared.
Sounds like you could source this out as a code enforcement office/building inspector either part time or full time and maybe get someone.
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I just moved from Surprise, Az to take over the Saline County, KS planning gig. It's a big learning curve for me to start learning rural planning. Here we have no county inspectors, we work with Salina to use the city nspectors to handle commercial permits - no residential permit nspections. Maybe you can contact Great Bend or Dodge City to help out when you need it? Another option might be to check if there's some private company in Wichita to do the permits.
Good luck
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The guy we ended up training for the building inspector job just won inspector of the year in Arizona and was a warehous manager, janitor and code enforcement officer before being trained. So I'm sure you could find someone.
On the ground, protecting the Cyburbia Shove since 2004.
Welcome to KS. Even though you are 3 hours east of me people in the Kansas City area consider Salina to be the western part of the state. Hope to see you at the APA_KS fall conference.Originally posted by dvdneal
I'm checking to see if my budget will let me, I hope to make it over to KC.
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