Thoughts on building inspectors Dec 2023

Mat Redsell

I farm in Bayham township and made legally changes to my buildings. About five years ago I built an extension to our farm house for a workshop and an apartment on the second floor going through the proper channels at the Bayham office . The idea seemed at the time to have many merits. We could offer accommodation farm help and I would have a decent place to do machine shop work and woodworking for the farm equipment repair and construction. The idea was hatched just before I was diagnosed with leukemia that determined that I probably would not survive. This did not bother me since while I was still living I decided to build my extension to the house and build a pole barn as well to house my machinery for the farm, all from my hospital room with my computer access in Victoria hospital in London and later at the princess Margaret hospital in Toronto.

Luckily the building inspector Bill Knifton was good to work with who frequently was able to make good suggestions and answer all of questions. I did recover from Leukemia but it was only after 5 years of recovery from a stem cell transplant that I was able to continue the house extension. Most of the physical structure had been completed. Unfortunately Bill Knifton decided to retire at the wrong moment and Chris Peck took over. Chris looked the situation over and made some suggestions. Chris thought that there was no need to have the house connected to the Workshop so we eliminated the entrance to the house from the workshop . He decided that there was no need to have the ceiling shop dry walled if we dry walled the staircase that came from the apartment on the second floor with drywall enclosure on the inside and a firewall 5/8ths drywall on the outside of the staircase. He felt that with the fire alarm system joining the house, firewall drywall on the staircase and solid floor there was no need to put dry wall on the 10 ft ceiling of the workshop. He did want chimney pipe extended above the roof ,also the kitchen sink drain was incorrectly done and the vent on the hot water tank needed to be extended to the floor and all doors needed to be put in. Since we had closed off the staircase to the second floor we needed to lower the main door to the workshop which was made to allow the entrance of the forklift to the workshop The original plans called for an entrance to the original house with a door inoto the rear bedroom and in the negotiations it became no longer necessary. Since the workshop was connected to the house I presumed it did not need an air exchanger and no one would be living there. Chris Peck did the final inspection and we allowed a farm worker to assume residence and work for us in April 2023.

Next we had Paul Hillenaar as the Bayham building inspector for a month or so who was also very helpful and encouraged me to renovate a small existing apartment in the north barn to accommodate a farm worker. His many suggestions were very helpful but unfortunately before long he informed me that he was no longer hired by Bayham and that I was on my own with a Building inspectors from Malahide. I felt abandoned in the middle of many things.

I was without knowing what was going on and things like the sewage system which had been previously found to compliant, was not on record it having been officially passed. This again took a long time and with the proper documentation has now passed inspection at the bureaucratic level.

Scott Sutherland came over to review the situation and I felt that he would be good to work with him . But this changed drastically when Shane Hughes working under Scott Sutherland, who came to visit and to tell me that I should have hired a contractor decided that there was many things that did not meet specifications in the previously “OK to occupy” apartment above the workshop and he had the authority to have contractors come in and change things at my expense.

Suddenly things changed and I felt that the new building inspectors from Malahide really had no experience in building and were only concerned with the regulations and numbers as more bureaucrats than engineers and contractors with experience.

Shane Hughes really upset and depressed me by being authoritarian in telling me about his authority and how he has the authority to get things removed such as the Evacuated tube system which was at the moment not working since I take out the evacuated tubes for the winter since our hot water for our house and apartment during winter comes from our cook stove in the house and large backup water heater in he house. He wanted the numbers from our insulated stove pipe on the building, and the ceiling of the shop was to be dry-walled with 5/8 fire-rated drywall. There was no discussion possible. This is not the way to encourage good relations and safety practices and only encourages people to make changes without informing the Building inspectors.

Many of the regulations in the building codes also seem very counter to our goals of lessening our fossil fuel dependence. With all of the emphasis on codes that dictate electricity, gadgets that exchange air, numbers on appliances, stoves and electronics there is little chance on reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. When I started farming I wanted to be self sufficient , organic and free from fossil fuels but as I go into the future of farming the regulations they all point to more use of energy from fossil fuels. There is also a growing use of the internet for everything associated with the farm. Malahide has informed me that all building inspection services are now run by a computer program but I have not been able to access this program yet. Getting emails is a chore since the amount of Spam is unbelievable even though I have a Spam Drain program installed. On line difficulties are common such as our bank accounts were hacked and I lost a lot of money. Our emails have been hacked and now I spend a lot of time going through my spam accounts looking for important notices from government agencies. The internet service is unreliable and slow using the Eastlink phone lines.