# My brother did a reroof w/out permitting??? What now...



## bigcountry

Well, my brother has a problem, and Im trying to give him some advice so all comments are welcomed, and thanks in advance for your input...He lives in a rural country area, where everyone has 3-acres or better, so not in plain site...and he wasn't aware of the fact that you have to have a permit pulled and certain things done as far as improvement to meet code...He had a good friend come out and help him install it, they did not do the extra nail off, and did not seam seal the butt joints with a peal and stick(I think thats what they require), they basically tore off the old roof, replaced one piece of sheating, and went back with a 30-lb felt and Owens Corning Arch-30yr shingles.  this was several months ago, and we got to talking about it and I found out he had not pulled any permit etc, so he is worried now that I brought that up to him, and has no clue how to approach the issue...He obviously doesnt want to tear off his brand new shingles, I guess Im just trying to give him some advice as to what to do, any suggestions?  What would the building official do or rather make him do if he let them know what happened?  I mean the roof looks great and has been fine through some rough weather in the little bit of time its been on there, Im sure it will hold up, it seemed to have held up nicely before through the hurricanes with the old 20yr old standard 3-tabs...Oh and he lives in FL...Any help or advice is appreciated...


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## woodchuck

Of course you don't live in Alabama but we don't need a permit to replace roofing. I would call the appropriate people and ask them about it anonymously.


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## tinner666

"they did not do the extra nail off, and did not seam seal the butt joints with a peal and stick(I think thats what they require), " 

Are you talking about the plywood?
Florida is anal about glueing thngs down, as opposed to roofing anything. They are interested in having the plywood keep the water out, not the roof material. Did he nail the roof on to withstand the 110mph winds? Or for 45 mph winds? Those directions are on the wrapper.


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## bigcountry

Ill have to ask him, but I think he left the old nailing on the sheathing and did not add anymore to it, but they looked it over good supposedly making sure of no leak damage...And as far as the shingles go, Im pretty sure they used the proper nailing that was called for to hold the shingles down...And Id imagine that to be the 110mph pattern...The thing he is worried about is he didnt do any of the extra requirements underneath the felt...Im assuming he wont report it, and just let it ride since its done and over with, if for whatever reason the building officials did find out though is his concern, what do they do about it?


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## kok328

If your going to be keeping the home, I'd do nothing.
If your looking to sell the home in the near future, you might want to suck it up and confess to the local inspector for further instruction.
If their having a good day, you'll most likely have to bring it up to code, pay the permit fee and a fine.
If their having a bad day, you'll have to tear it all off, pull a permit and start over.


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## inspectorD

Well, in todays economy, they really can't do much. They can tell you to take it off, but if you do not have the money, you don't have the money. They are not going to make you remove an entire roof if you cannot put another back on. They may tell you how to improve it, but the bottom line is they have to give you a permit to fix the roof, they just do not have to sign off on it until it is up to code. What this creates are issues with your homeowners insurance or resale should you get that bad storm.

Have your brother talk to some of the local roofing contractors as to what he should do if he does not contact the building official. There may be some alternatives for his area we are not familiar with.
Good luck and let us know so we can help the next person.


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## jdougn

Just call the local building inspectors office and ask them what is required to PREPARE for reroofing a house. (Not that you've already done your job.) No permits are required for re-roofing around here. 
hth, Doug


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## no_tropics

definately call florida inspection & find out what is required.
[you said he was in Florida]
If your brother needs to buy home owners insurance in future(in FL), or if he gets dropped from the company he's with and has to go buy home owners insurance,they will require a home inspection.(4 points usually) 
That inspector comes out and checks that your electrical to make sure it is up to current code, they check your central AC, they get up and check your roof, and something else, I forget the 4th item.
If your roof is not per code, then you won't pass inspection, and you can't get insurance until you do.
Additionally, looking at the worst case scenario,  if there's a hurricane, and part of the roof gets damaged. The claims adjustor will notice the roof was recently repaired: he will be able to determine what damages are expected & what would be considered not the norm if the roof was done per code. or he;ll see work was done recently, and assume you had a permit, and tell you to have roofer fix badly done roof work. [I had part of the roof repaired, no permit, when a hurricane hit, the adjustor said to contact roofer since roofs are usually gauranteed for 10-20 years.]
 [i.e. it could screw up your claim]
It's not like that in other states, but in FL doing repairs without permits can ultimately screw you up as far as your home/wind insurance & claims after hurricanes.
I don't know what county your brother is in, but in Miami Dade, you can only do a repair without a permit if the roof repair is less than 25% of the total square footage of the roof.
 (and you can only do that repair of 25% of the roof without a permit, ONCE.)
[i.e. you can't repair 25% of the roof without permit, then 6 months later repair a different 25% of the roof, and so on.]

Even with that rule, you are required to do it to code, so call & find out what it is.

My insurance company actually pulled the home records to find out what permits were pulled for my home, that was before they started requiring inspections. (whatever is on record)
If there's nothing on record showing the roof was repaired/replaced in the last 30 years, they're going to assume your roof is that old, since there's nothing on file showing a permit pulled to do the roof. 

They get you coming and going in Fl.

Florida insurance (home & wind) is a real b**** in Florida and doing repairs yourself, can really screw you up with that.


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## Tom Witcomb

I would do nothing *till or if *he gets caught. Permit fines would be the same. If he used 6 nails per single and they were long enough..no problem. Just make sure he mudded the edge of the first row at the drip edge.
In my experience most home inspectors for insurance just check the life of the roof. Unless it looks like an idiot reroofed it.!!

Just my 2 cents.

Tom


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## BigDawg72

Don't do anything. Its the homeowners responsibility for trying to hire an unlicensed roofer and save a couple bucks. As a contractor myself I hope it blows off in a storm. You are suppose to nail the decking 4" on the seams and 6" in the field. Now if the decking was nailed with staples when constructed then it could be a problem sooner than later. We dry in roofs with a peel n stick which adheres directly to the deck so that if shingles are blown off in a storm then the peel n stick will remain and the nails from the shingles will be sealed so that no further water damage will ruin all items in the house. Insurance companies give breaks on insurance because of this. The peel n stick will prevent a bigger claim to insurance for water damage on the inside of your home and is why they want it.


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## oldognewtrick

Big Dawg,  to House Repair Talk. The original post is 5 years old, chances are, it's not a problem anymore.


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## Wuzzat?

Either because it blew off or it held for five years.



BigDawg72 said:


> As a contractor myself I hope it blows off in a storm.


If it does it may be
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence

Here's some possible outcomes:

Follow good practice and roof doesn't blow off: conclusion is that good practice works or the storm wasn't bad, or both.

Follow good practice and roof blows off anyway: conclusion is that good practice does not guarantee the roof can withstand all storms. 

Not follow good practice and roof doesn't blow off: conclusion is that the HO was lucky, or extraordinarily skillful.

Not follow good practice and roof blows off: conclusion is that the HO got what he/she deserved for going against the wisdom of good practice! 
And I hope no bystanders were injured. . .
Or the roof would have blown off no matter what the HO did.


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## ottmiester

its done,you going to open a can of worms if you tell the inspectors about it done and over with it, they inspected the sheating when it was first done so there is nothing you can do about it now. I had a profesional company license and insured due my roof in fl.and they baisically did a good job  took out a permit and posted it on the front door BUT THEY DID NOT DUE THE PROPER INSPECTIONS,they got done  the inspector came out and failed it simply because they did not due the middle inspection,to make a long story short the company went out of buisness and filed bankrupsy,10 years later am still trying to close this permit out, solution i have to hire a structural engineer and a roofer to tear the roof appart and take pictures showing that was done correctlty and submit them and have it inspected and then they will close the permit out,if it was done correctly if not i have to re-do the whole roof again, i would of rather they did not take a permit out and the company was prosecuted by the state of fl 5 years later and still palm beach county will not give me a pass on the roof or just have a roofer check it and tell them it was done correctly ,it has to be a structural engineer its going to cost me 1000.00 to do that if it ok if not its going to cost like 10k to have the roof re-done ,it sucks big time and i insisted they take out a permit.trying to do the right thing.


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## slownsteady

Tough story Ottmeister, and welcome to the site. It's an old thread but the post is a good lesson for whoever reads it. If you can hold out another ten or so years, you can just go ahead with the next roof, I hope.


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