Second Story Construction

Many times during the estimating phase of the job I would be asked by the homeowner a slew of construction questions.

What size roof rafters are you going to use?

What is the spacing of the wall framing 2X4s?

How thick is the sheathing?

etc, etc, etc

This person is nervous. He is not sure I am going to build his second story addition correctly.  He thinks that a few months after we leave everything is going to sag, collapse or cave in. He feels something will go wrong & he is going to experience horrendous problems.

I would always answer his questions of course but I believe he did not have the slightest notion whether I gave him the right answer. He usually knows almost nothing about construction & this is not the time to start learning. The contractor will always be way ahead of the homeowner. 

To assure him I would explain that in order to obtain a building permit I would have to present a set of building plans to be approved by the Town Engineers along with my license number & proof of insurance. The construction is then inspected three times by the building department & if everything is done correctly they will issue occupancy permit.

There are plenty of safeguards built into the system to assure proper construction. In my book I describe a little known tactic that effectively guarantees your addition is going to be built in accordance with local building code standards.

Find a second story contractor here

Hey, wait a minute. What about those horror storys I read about in the newspaper?

If you know the background of the story almost all these additions are built without a building permit. Most of the time it is with the knowledge of the homeowner who is trying to save on his taxes. Bad homeowner, bad contractor equals bad job & many times big problems.