Permits- Do I really need one?

Do I really need a permit for demolition? Will the city ever notice? What will happen if I don't get one?

I called the 311 phone number today for the City of Minneapolis. They say we need two permits for our next project. The first is a general building permit. The second is a street use permit for the dumpster we will need.

My question is, has anyone ever been caught without a permit? What happens? Why do they care? They just want my money, right? Or will they reassess my property value and tax me even higher?

Maybe if they had some reasonable hours I'd be less resistant, but their 8:00-3:30 business hours leaves a lot to be desired for someone who works in the other Twin City.

Pre-Demolition

In two weeks we are going to be tearing down a wall and re-dry walling all the walls and ceiling. Also, we will be doing some flooring and the fireplace.

As a Christmas present, my parents are going to help. Today, my dad came out to see what we are looking at.


The wall are dry wall. The ceiling is plaster. The wall we are taking down is part load bearing, part not.

I'm excited to get started.

Notorious

This article calls the Kmart 3 blocks from our house notorious. That is, nationally notorious for selling fake IDs to illegal immigrants.

While I don't approve of any crime within three blocks of our house, if this was the worst of it, I'd be thrilled. I guess that is part of why we got a dog.

Permanent Guest

We now have a permanent house guest, his name is Jeff.


Isn't he cute?

Drafts and Stuff

So, the windows are in. It is awesome. Of course, when we got that cold source taken care of, we now see some of the other problems.

The doors. Cold air pours in from the doors. I'm going to redo the weather stripping (some of it got messed up by the windows guys,) but that isn't going to solve all the problems.

The walls. The walls are cold. Touch the walls and feel the cold. Get close to the walls and feel the cold. The inside walls are okay, but the exterior walls are so cold. I think it has something to do with not having any insulation. You know, when you renovate in Minnesota, throw some insulation in the damn walls.

The ceiling. I think there is no insulation there either. We don't have an attic, just a flat roof. I think the only thing between me and our roof is sheetrock and paint.

The furnace. We just don't get a lot of heat upstairs. The heat is all in the center of the floor and it just doesn't really get into the bedrooms. The furnace is most likely over 100 years old, it is called a gravity furnace. Some people call them octopus furnaces. It takes up our whole basement, and heats it nicely, but it is cold up here.

Energy efficiency is very important to us. We hope someday to have wind or solar power on our roof. We need to have it efficient in structure before we start adding on super expensive alternative energy type stuff.

So, what are we going to do?

This weekend I'm going do my best to seal the doors.

As we renovate ceilings and walls we will be adding insulation. This means some will be done this winter, but it will be a multi year job.

The furnace. We are thinking it will take a couple years before we can fix that (and put in air conditioning.) It will be awesome though. Someday.