Upon moving in to the house, it became apparent that the bathroom added in '67 was in pretty bad shape. It had a flat roof, deteriorating wood siding, signs of mold in the walls and other problems. It was built without any air duct, so in the summer it got very hot and in the winter it was unbelievably cold in the mornings. It also had no air vent to remove moist air from the room. I'm sure all of this contributed to the poor condition of the walls and what later became an apparent and sever mold problem.
SO - We decided to bite the bullet and build a new bathroom. The severe mold, flat rough, and lack of compliance with just about any building code in Phoenix meant that complete demolition of the existing bathroom structure would be the way to go. Since we were going to go to all the trouble and expense of demolishing the structure and rebuilding from the ground up, we figured we might as well do it right and build a bathroom we would really be happy with and add on a walk-in closet at the same time.
I started thinking about layouts and ideas during the summer of 2011. By September 2011 I was well into drafting floor plans and researching what I would need to give the Building Department in order to pull a permit. I decided overkill was the way to go and prepared a full set of plans, including site plan, floor plan, electric, isometric plumbing, reflected ceiling, roofing, foundation, demolition, elevation, details and lots of notes about compliance with codes and building methods. I worked on the plans whenever I felt like it at night and on weekends. The whole drafting process from start to finish probably took me 40-50 hours. Not too bad considering I'd never drafted a building before, did everything with pencil, paper and an architectural ruler. What I ended up with was a six page set of plans on 24"x36" paper. Copies at the local copy center cost me about $4 per page. Here is a quick view of the floor plan:
Enter the Building Official! I figured getting a permit would be an interesting experience, but I never figured it would be so darn expensive and frustrating. The building official who reviewed my plans decided that I would need a larger water meter ($700), new water service line ($500-2000 depending on material used), AFCI compliant wiring in the bedrooms (even though we aren't working in the bedrooms), compliance with current electric code with regard to the service line (even though we aren't working on the electric panel) and that the aluminum patio cover in the back was installed without a permit - Never mind that it was probably installed in the 50s or 60s.
After getting back my red-lined (building officials remarks) plans, two things were immediately apparent. First, the guy who reviewed my plans has a massive stick up his ass. Second, the city is out to collect every cent they can from people trying to do home improvement projects. Here is a breakdown of amounts paid to the city for my permit:
$440 Plan review
$440 Permit
$90 Water Meter
$700 Water Meter Change Fee (took the guy 15 minutes to do)
$1,670 Total paid to the city for a piece of paper that says I can build. Good gravy! I paid it (whilst privately grumbling), took my permit and went home. The initial plan review took the building official about 5 days. The revised plans (changes I made to satisfy his red-lined comments) took him just over two weeks to review and release. Between my four visits, I spent about 3 hours total down at city hall to get this done, which is less time than I would have thought. I still have to go back to submit my truss calculations once they are ready and to fill out a form for a permit on the 50 year old patio cover...
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