Building Codes

[reicherb]

I'm in Michigan and dug a trench to run electrical to my garage. Now I'm thinking maybe I should run gas as well. Does anyone know how deep gas has to be and how close it can be to electrical that is in conduit?

Thanks.

 

[bunker]

Depends on what county you are in. The counties set their own codes.

 

[reicherb]

They must be somewhat similar. To be honest, I'm more worried about safety then meeting code.

 

[BigFatCow]

usually the building codes are the way they are because of safety.

 

[reicherb]

So county A says that 24" deep is safe and county B says 18" is safe. If I go 18" deep in county A, my house will blow up?

I'm just looking for a general idea here.

 

[Armitage]

You really need to check the code in your area. A few things.

- You may not be allowed to run your own gas line. In fact, you may not be allowed to run your own electrical line

- If a permit is required, but not obtained, you could have trouble selling the house down the line. And they could make you tear out the whole thing at that point because it wasn't inspected.

Just call the county building dept. They can give you the basics over the phone.

 

[reicherb]

I tried calling and the gas guy is only there from 8-9am and is going to "try and call me." I had the electrical inspected and it's fine. I'm also not worried about not being able to sell the house. Do you actually know people that ask for permits for previous work when they look at a house?

 

[Evadman]

36" for electrical and gas in my area. ( Bartlett, IL)

 

[reicherb]

Electrical is 24" direct barried and 18" in conduit here (Shiawassee county MI)/

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: reicherb
I tried calling and the gas guy is only there from 8-9am and is going to "try and call me." I had the electrical inspected and it's fine. I'm also not worried about not being able to sell the house. Do you actually know people that ask for permits for previous work when they look at a house?

I have. And withdrew an offer because they didn't.
Was looking at a house. It had a large, fairly new detached garage, and the electrical work looked sloppy. Nothing serious, just didn't look profesional. That and a socket testor showed switched polarity on one of the sockets. I looked up permits on the house at our regional building department's website and found that the whole garage was not permitted. The least of this is that the estimated property taxes were going to go up next time it was assesed.

I asked the guy about it, and he said he did all the work himself, and didn't want to deal with all that "permit BS". Which is fine. I do most of my own work on my home. I'm building a 1400 ft^2 addition right now. But I just didn't get a good impression from this guys work, and it hadn't been inspected, so I passed. It wasn't the only factor, but it was there.

A home inspector I know always pulls the permit history for homes he inspects just to get a feel for what work has been done by whom.

 

[rival]

electrical pvc is 18" from top of pip to top of soil per the Nat'l electrical code, however your city code may differ...

i dont think its a matter of how close the elec and gas lines can be, its more of the gas line needs X amount "DG" or sand around it, as well as the elec conduits

 

[reicherb]

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: reicherb
I tried calling and the gas guy is only there from 8-9am and is going to "try and call me." I had the electrical inspected and it's fine. I'm also not worried about not being able to sell the house. Do you actually know people that ask for permits for previous work when they look at a house?

I have. And withdrew an offer because they didn't.
Was looking at a house. It had a large, fairly new detached garage, and the electrical work looked sloppy. Nothing serious, just didn't look profesional. That and a socket testor showed switched polarity on one of the sockets. I looked up permits on the house at our regional building department's website and found that the whole garage was not permitted. The least of this is that the estimated property taxes were going to go up next time it was assesed.

I asked the guy about it, and he said he did all the work himself, and didn't want to deal with all that "permit BS". Which is fine. I do most of my own work on my home. I'm building a 1400 ft^2 addition right now. But I just didn't get a good impression from this guys work, and it hadn't been inspected, so I passed. It wasn't the only factor, but it was there.

A home inspector I know always pulls the permit history for homes he inspects just to get a feel for what work has been done by whom.

I guess I agree that if I saw shotty work, the lack of a permit would make it even worse, but the fact is, shotty work is shotty work wether it's inspected or not.

I replaced the service to my house and garage and burried everything. It took the inspector 5 minutes to inspect it all and he didn't even open the meter socket to see if it was right so the inspection might not really mean that much. I know mine wasn't, and I was pretty mad I paid money for what I got.

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: reicherb

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: reicherb
I tried calling and the gas guy is only there from 8-9am and is going to "try and call me." I had the electrical inspected and it's fine. I'm also not worried about not being able to sell the house. Do you actually know people that ask for permits for previous work when they look at a house?

I have. And withdrew an offer because they didn't.
Was looking at a house. It had a large, fairly new detached garage, and the electrical work looked sloppy. Nothing serious, just didn't look profesional. That and a socket testor showed switched polarity on one of the sockets. I looked up permits on the house at our regional building department's website and found that the whole garage was not permitted. The least of this is that the estimated property taxes were going to go up next time it was assesed.

I asked the guy about it, and he said he did all the work himself, and didn't want to deal with all that "permit BS". Which is fine. I do most of my own work on my home. I'm building a 1400 ft^2 addition right now. But I just didn't get a good impression from this guys work, and it hadn't been inspected, so I passed. It wasn't the only factor, but it was there.

A home inspector I know always pulls the permit history for homes he inspects just to get a feel for what work has been done by whom.

I guess I agree that if I saw shotty work, the lack of a permit would make it even worse, but the fact is, shotty work is shotty work wether it's inspected or not.

I replaced the service to my house and garage and burried everything. It took the inspector 5 minutes to inspect it all and he didn't even open the meter socket to see if it was right so the inspection might not really mean that much. I know mine wasn't, and I was pretty mad I paid money for what I got.

I also had a "quickie" electrical inspection when I replaced the breaker box in my house.

One nice thing, though, is that if the house burns down, I can prove to the insurance company that the electrical work was inspected and they can't deny a claim because of it. 🙂

 

[Armitage]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink

Originally posted by: reicherb

Originally posted by: ergeorge

Originally posted by: reicherb
I tried calling and the gas guy is only there from 8-9am and is going to "try and call me." I had the electrical inspected and it's fine. I'm also not worried about not being able to sell the house. Do you actually know people that ask for permits for previous work when they look at a house?

I have. And withdrew an offer because they didn't.
Was looking at a house. It had a large, fairly new detached garage, and the electrical work looked sloppy. Nothing serious, just didn't look profesional. That and a socket testor showed switched polarity on one of the sockets. I looked up permits on the house at our regional building department's website and found that the whole garage was not permitted. The least of this is that the estimated property taxes were going to go up next time it was assesed.

I asked the guy about it, and he said he did all the work himself, and didn't want to deal with all that "permit BS". Which is fine. I do most of my own work on my home. I'm building a 1400 ft^2 addition right now. But I just didn't get a good impression from this guys work, and it hadn't been inspected, so I passed. It wasn't the only factor, but it was there.

A home inspector I know always pulls the permit history for homes he inspects just to get a feel for what work has been done by whom.

I guess I agree that if I saw shotty work, the lack of a permit would make it even worse, but the fact is, shotty work is shotty work wether it's inspected or not.

I replaced the service to my house and garage and burried everything. It took the inspector 5 minutes to inspect it all and he didn't even open the meter socket to see if it was right so the inspection might not really mean that much. I know mine wasn't, and I was pretty mad I paid money for what I got.

I also had a "quickie" electrical inspection when I replaced the breaker box in my house.

One nice thing, though, is that if the house burns down, I can prove to the insurance company that the electrical work was inspected and they can't deny a claim because of it. 🙂

Another good point.
Another reason to check permits when you buy a home: If you ever do work that needs to be inspected, they can flag you for past work that wasn't inspected. The previous owners of my home put in a 220 line for an outdoor hot tub, but didn't put it in conduit in the crawlspace. The electrical inspector came out to look at a new panel/service and saw that. He wouldn't sign off on the permit until that old work was up to code 🙁