Residential accessibility is about making a home work for the person living in it. Commercial accessibility is a legal standard, it is measured with a tape and a level, and in California it carries litigation exposure that residential work does not. The good news is that it is specific. Nothing on the list is a matter of opinion. The trigger: alterations and the path of travel When you alter an area of a building that contains a primary function, you are generally required to

Large parts of Riverside County are mapped in a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone. If your address is in one, the rules for anything built outside are different, and so are the rules for what grows next to it. This is not a formality. It changes materials, it changes clearances, and in recent years it has started to change what you are allowed to have in the first few feet around a structure. First: find out whether this applies to you Fire hazard severity zone maps are pub

A fire feature is the most requested thing in a Southern California backyard and the one with the widest gap between what people picture and what is allowed on their lot. The confusion comes from a single distinction that almost nobody makes out loud: a permanently installed gas fire feature and a wood-burning fire are two different things under two different sets of rules. Start here: which one are you building? A built-in gas fire pit or fireplace is an appliance. It is con

A pool is one trade. The backyard around it is five, and the rules that govern it are stricter than the rules for the pool itself. This is about everything outside the water line: the barrier, the deck, the equipment pad and the drainage. And it starts with a requirement that catches people who were not building a pool at all. Remodeling an existing pool triggers the barrier requirement The California Swimming Pool Safety Act, in Section 115922 of the Health and Safety Code,

Railings are the part of a project where taste and code collide hardest. A client picks a look from a photograph, and then four numbers decide how much of that look survives. Here are the four numbers, what they mean in practice, and why the same railing detail passes on one job and fails on the next. Number one: 30 inches, which decides whether you need a guard at all A guard is required on an open-sided walking surface located more than 30 inches above the floor or grade be

California has two balcony inspection laws, not one. They were written for different owners, they run on different clocks, and they require different people to do the inspecting. Both first deadlines are now behind us. If you own apartments or sit on a condominium board and no inspection has been done, this is the part worth reading carefully. What the laws actually cover Both statutes use the same awkward phrase: exterior elevated element, usually shortened to EEE. An EEE is

Los Angeles does not have one earthquake retrofit rule. It has several, they were written decades apart, and each one is triggered by something different: the year the building was permitted, how it is framed, how many units it has, or simply the fact that you are about to sell it. Most owners discover which one applies to them at the worst moment, when a deadline has already passed or an inspection report has already been written. This guide exists so you can find yourself o

A house built before about 1980 in Los Angeles may be sitting on its foundation rather than attached to it. In an earthquake, that difference decides whether the building rides the shaking or slides off the concrete. Foundation bolting is the work that connects the two, and for most older homes in this city it is the highest-value structural upgrade available per dollar spent. What the work actually is Foundation bolting secures the wood framing of the house to its concrete f

Most homeowners in Los Angeles find out about seismic gas shutoff valves at the worst possible moment: in escrow, days before closing, when the city report comes back with an open item. It is not an obscure rule. It is LAMC 94.1217.0, and it applies to far more situations than most people expect, including a remodel you may already be planning. The four triggers The ordinance requires a seismic gas shutoff valve in four situations: New construction. Any new building with fuel

Here is everything you need to know about Underpinning and how to determine what type best fits your situation best.

Video of Balcony collapse in Malibu, CA. This could be 100% prevented with preventive maintenance and an annual structural assessment.

Learn How Building Permits Made Easy Solving The Real Problems Renovations without permits can become a real headache. That is why we felt to make a video to address a real problem, which is - - why we have unpermitted structures and how to make building permits easier to get! Can People Build Without Permits? Why do people try to build without permits? If you live in Los Angeles and the adjacent cities, the short answer for the first question is NO! You cannot build structu

Perpetrators Cannot Hide if lights shine on them Home Security Lighting is often overlooked as one of the most important aspects of home and house security. The major benefit that home security lighting has, is that it helps to prevent and not just protect against intruders and vandals. Not only prevents intruders from wanting to hang around, but also there is an advantage of exposing anybody who may be lurking on the property at night. In this day and age with a bad economy,

Did you know that plumbing systems can be dangerous in unexpected ways? Most of the people that I talk to, have no idea that a simple sewer pipe can really explode if it is not installed correctly and, on a best case-scenario, can collapse all the underground pipes, and on a worst-case-scenario it can set the entire building on fire. That is why it is important to hire professionals that know what they are doing in the first place. Some items when done outside the building c

Retaining walls do not fail without warning. They fail after months or years of signs that were visible to anyone who knew what they were looking at. This is the reading guide. The build sequence is in how a retaining wall is actually built and the code thresholds are in retaining walls in Temecula and Murrieta. The five ways a wall fails Every symptom below maps to one of these, and knowing which one changes the repair: **Overturning** — the wall rotates outward about its ba