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Article:
Should You Apply and Get Home Improvement Permits for
Replacement Window Installations
Homeowners, and incredibly, many home replacement windows contractors and
installers want to ignore local building permits when taking on their home
improvement projects.
Replacing and installing home windows is regulated by many local and US
state building authorities. These communities want to be sure a building
is sound and safe-- and home replacement windows installed incorrectly
could potentially damage a home's insulation-- and in the case of
replacing basement windows, a home's very foundation and emergency exit
safety.
Many US cities and counties now REQUIRE a permit and an inspection after
install from the local department. If a permit is needed and not used,
BEWARE, if you later sell your house and the home replacement windows are
not TO CODE, you might have to PAY to have them all ripped out and re-done
before sale!
Find out then from the
windows installer or contractor who pays for the permit (the installer
should get it and pay for it) and who calls to order the inspection when
all is said and done (the homeowner calls the city for the inspection).
Get copies of EVERYTHING when they're done.
Special permit
considerations include needing tempered glass (safety glass that is more
difficult to break and if it does, the glass breaks in rounded-edged
pieces) in bathrooms or other home locations if the window is a certain
distance from a door, a wall, a sink or inside a tub or shower.
Tempered glass is
also required by permit for windows over a certain tallness of the
replacement window or within 18" from a wall.
Basements are also
another BIG permit issue. Basements per most US building codes MUST have
an egress window cut out of every finished (carpet/walls) bedroom or
living room area. This window is a 48" x 48" inch opening at least. The
window must open and be big enough for a fireman to get out with a pack on
his back. Therefore, many, many of the older houses with the old 24" x 18"
tiny little windows up on the wall are NOT PERMITTED to be changed to new
windows without FIRST making egress windows. This means NOT EVEN ONE
WINDOW can be changed BEFORE the egress is done.
And anyway, do you
really want little Sally or Joey sleeping down there and not able to get
out if there's a fire?
Creating egress home
windows in basements means cutting through the concrete foundation,
digging a window well, and then shoring up the walls in each window
location. There are special licensed contractors who will do that.
Follow the permits or you could be severly fined if found out and/or the
lack of home improvement permits on record make the house VERY difficult
to re-sell with structural work done (like just changing out the tiny
basement windows with new tiny windows) without the proper permits and
approval inspections.
Michael Dennis
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About the author
IPS Group,
Inc. Board Member and Director of their Home Improvement Division,
Michael Dennis is an avid real estate fix and flip investor, a former
long-time replacement window salesman, and the
author of several books and websites on home replacement windows including
How to Save Thousands on Replacement Windows: The Homeowner's Insider
Secrets Manual, and the tell-all report on the big-brand home
improvement centers, The 7 Myths The Big-Brand Home Improvement Centers
Want You to Believe About Replacement Windows. Visit
their website at
www.vinylwindowmanufacturer.com to get your copy TODAY.
Copyright © 2006-2009. All Rights Reserved.
www.vinylwindowmanufacturer.com
IPS Group, Inc.
191 University Blvd Ste 860
Denver, CO 80206 USA
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