Get the Right Plumbing and Heating Permits
We recently had a plumbing and heating quote at a customer’s house in Saskatoon, it was an older character home.
The owners are doing a renovation to the old character home built around 1913 and in addition to a lot of cosmetic work, it was necessary to upgrade and replace some elements of the plumbing and heating.
The current plumbing consisted of a bathroom on the 2nd floor with a kitchen on the main floor and a suite in the basement. My customer’s new plumbing plan was to upgrade all the old piping and add a bathroom to the second floor as well as a half bath on the main floor.
When we were walking through the house, the plumbing was all cast and had lead joints … this is really old stuff. It’s pretty cool to see how the old time plumbers put together piping, there were no shark-bite fittings back then!
When we were looking at the basement suite we had some concerns that the plumbing in the suite might not permitted through the city of Saskatoon. The fixtures looked modern and it was all dry-walled compared to the upper floors being lath and plaster. We contacted the city to make certain everything was in order and sure enough there had been no permits taken on the basement for any of the plumbing and heating work.
Proper permits are very important when you do renovations!!! The cost of getting the permits up front far out-weighs the potential costs of having to rip apart un-permitted work after the fact. In addition to that, taking out a permit makes sure that an inspector checks the work that is being done. When you are paying a plumber thousands of dollars you want to make sure everything is done right! At Gibbon we take pride in the work of our plumbers and have a good reputation with the city of Saskatoon.
Due to the fact that no permit was pulled for the basement plumbing and heating, we now have to completely take apart walls and excavate the ground to expose all the piping for the city inspectors to inspect!
This is the 2nd Saskatoon home we have run into within the last month that has illegal plumbing. When you buy a house make sure that you do your due diligence to make sure that all the proper permits were taken out and approved by the proper authorities. There is something called a Property Condition Disclosure statement that you can ask your realtor to get the sellers to fill out. If a seller refuses to complete the form, that should raise a red flag!
If you have any questions at all, just give us a call at 306.343.9576 or drop us an email at info@gibbonheating.com .
Thanks.
– The Gibbon Team!