C of O

Today we received the Certificate of Occupancy.  It wasn't easy, though.  The final three panels to complete the deck and railing were to have come in last week but did not, so we installed one section of temporary railing to pass inspection.  Here's a building code related question.  What's wrong with the railings in this picture?

Here's a hint.  It involves the one section of temporary railing which has 2x4's top and bottom.  The portion of the deck facing the street, per the building code, actually doesn't need railings because it's less than 30" above grade.  However, the first thing the building inspector said was that the temporary railing needs to be pressure treated even though it may only be up for a week.  It seems rather wasteful and unnecessary to me, but we had to remove the railing you see, build another with pressure treated 2x4's top and bottom, and then in a week or so we'll toss that one too.

The final inspection was on the morning of June 9 and I was to fly to Miami that afternoon for the AIA Convention.  However, I had installed a furnace with 95% efficiency rather than the 96% efficient furnace I had anticipated in my REScheck energy calculations.  Even though the house more than met the energy code, I had to redo the calculations right away.  Fortunately I had my laptop computer with me.  If I didn't have my computer with the program and previous calculations with me, I would have really been stuck.  I recalculated things and drove down the street and found some wi-fi.

We are within a mile of the coast and, although the windows are impact rated and each pane of glass is properly stamped, I needed to provide certification.  Also, although the Board of Health had completed their inspections and approved things, they hadn't signed off on the building permit card.  Someone, though, had to phyically take the building permit card to the Board of Health office, but only between the 3:30 and 4:30 PM and I had a plane to catch.

I found someone who could take the permit to the BOH at the appointed time and then bring it back to the house.  The inspector went back to the house the next day, reinspected and signed the permit card.  I thought the inspector would take the permit back with him, but they don't do that.  Someone had to drive it back down to the building department.  It's surely not an efficient or user-friendly system.  This morning the Certificate of Occupancy was finally ready.

Here's the steel telescoping ladder from Calvert Stairs.  It's pretty neat how it works.

And this is the view from the roof.
 The wire you see is for the inverter for the photovoltaic solar panels, which will go on the roof just beyond the half-wall.  Those should have been in and producing electricity by now, but that's yet another story.