City Code. Who, Where, How?

Alphabuilder422

Hey guys,

I am a New General Contractor in San JOse CA. I am working on a 12 unit townhouse for one of my client to complete the scope of work. There are a bunch of little questions i have in regards to City Codes. I can not always rely on the city to respond to me in a timely manner. Is there a person I can normally speak to that can help me any question like What is standard size for shower pan that meets city codes? Can I go online to find the city codes? How do I obtain there code book?

thx much

Dat

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Silicon Valley California Builder
Second Generation Builder
www.svalphaconstruction.com

Chris Johnson

Follow the plans, they are stamped and approved by the city.

One of the only things the city doesn't argue with are engineering specs, under the new code pretty much all structural is put on the EOR and the city generally accepts his calcs at face value...this is why we are now seeing engineer specs all over the map, same house designed by two different engineers and two completely different engineer specs.

The city itself will follow the IRC for building codes (except plumbing most are still UBC). If they have an update or 'better' code (such as a minimum shower pan size that is larger than the IRC) it will be noted on the stamped plans in big red ink.

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Chris

Bodger

I'm in LA, and there is a lot of good info on the Building and Safety website, probably the same for San Jose. I had the same situation when I started out, and I found that the best thing to do was to go to the building department with the approved plans that were signed off by a plan checker, and just tell them you need some info on code requirements. In my case, they were pretty willing to help and referred me to the printed literature that stated code. One thing about codes and requirements, they are always written down somewhere in black and white. Whether they are absolutely specific to your field conditions may be a matter of debate and between you and the inspector, but the written code is always the best place to start in my opinion. I've passed more than one inspection on some pretty weird re-model retrofitted framing because I could talk code with the inspector and at least plead my case as to why I felt it was the best representation of the requirement.