The Century Tree Reader

Do I need a permit?

BRYAN, TX — Well, I’m not really doing any major structural repairs…No one will notice if I add-on a little room here…The city is just out to make an extra buck on my renovations.  Yes, we’ve heard all the excuses for not pulling a permit on your little bathroom upgrade.

Think about it from a community position, though.  If you don’t visit the City of Bryan website to apply for a permit, you’re jeopardizing your good neighbors in the loss of utilities or phone services.  The city makes it so easy now to mail in the short form I highlighted from the city website in the previous sentence.

There are more construction items requiring work permits than I have room or time for here.  Some upgrades you might not think about are:

Water heater replacements

Sprinkler irrigation systems

Carports

The guys at the city are the experts on our safety codes.  If you have a question as to whether or not a permit is necessary, call Greg Cox at 209-5010 or visit www.Bryantx.gov for answers.

Legally, the only reason you don’t have to disturb our friends in Planning and Development is if you are painting, installing cabinets, adding a children’s playscape, building a short fence, or placing a small storage shed on skids.  Everything else has a safety concern…hence the need to call.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 at 6:06 am and is filed under Home Improvement & Design, Land & Rural. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. Mt. Pleasant Condos said at November 24th, 2009 at 9:14 pm

   Yeah I’ve had some interesting stories with permits before. Here’s a tip that I learned… I hired a guy to do some electrical work and he didn’t have a permit. But he went out and got the permit and then hid the charge in my bill.

   I was to nice and didn’t ask why it seemed so high. Make sure that anybody you hire has all the necessary permits and certifications they need.

   Good post.

2. Scott Sanachatilo said at November 25th, 2009 at 2:21 am

   There are many homeowners who are confuse when to get a permit when it comes to renovating a house, I think it’s on your locality and what kind of renovation you will be doing.

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