Certificate of Occupancy in rural northern Maine

[FaberumHyperboreus]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

Welcome! It's a nice remote town.

Thank you Maine Writer. I noticed that ! And that was the reason for choosing it after decades in crazy big cities :-)


However, that quietness also came with lack of information to help me get started.
For example: Do I need to get permit for partial land clearing ? What is the power company servicing the area ?
Will they connect the power to a temporary, shed-like structure, that I can use for a few years before build a house ?
Do I need to provide design for the building permit up-front or I can start with some temporary and decide later, once I see the land cleared ? Any recommendation / hints about septic/well contractor ? Any nearby companies that deliver gravel/concrete. etc....



A very hungry for info,
Faber

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by FaberumHyperboreus

Thank you Maine Writer. I noticed that ! And that was the reason for choosing it after decades in crazy big cities :-)


However, that quietness also came with lack of information to help me get started.
For example: Do I need to get permit for partial land clearing ? What is the power company servicing the area ?
Will they connect the power to a temporary, shed-like structure, that I can use for a few years before build a house ?
Do I need to provide design for the building permit up-front or I can start with some temporary and decide later, once I see the land cleared ? Any recommendation / hints about septic/well contractor ? Any nearby companies that deliver gravel/concrete. etc....



A very hungry for info,
Faber

Drew is also known as Wytopitlock or 'pitlock. This should get you to the town office or clerk. (207) 456-7337. They should be able to answer most of your questions.

I *think* the power company is Eastern Maine Electric Coop in Calais. (207) 454-7555 - (800) 696-7444

When you're looking for services it's probably helpful to include Medway in your search. There's nothing in 'pitlock.

[FaberumHyperboreus]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

Drew is also known as Wytopitlock or 'pitlock....

Wow, thank you very much Maine Writer. Really good information.


When googleing around, I actually discarded all hits returning Wytopitlock cause I saw it to be in a different county than Drew. Who could have thought that the town office of Drew Plantation from Penobscot County is located in Reed Plantation in Aroostook County
That definitely gives me a good starting point. Thank you again.

[Maine Writer]

Originally Posted by FaberumHyperboreus

Wow, thank you very much Maine Writer. Really good information.


When googleing around, I actually discarded all hits returning Wytopitlock cause I saw it to be in a different county than Drew. Who could have thought that the town office of Drew Plantation from Penobscot County is located in Reed Plantation in Aroostook County
That definitely gives me a good starting point. Thank you again.

I have Drew and Reed turned around. Wytopitlock is part of Reed, not Drew. Tiny towns often get lumped together even when they aren't the same. Google doesn't acknowledge my town and places my business listing in another town. Nobody I asked about gravel and concrete knew but suggested you extend your search into Lincoln if you don't find what you need in Medway or Millinocket.

[FaberumHyperboreus]

Originally Posted by Maine Writer

Tiny towns often get lumped together even when they aren't the same. Google doesn't acknowledge my town and places my business listing in another town.

Yup, I also had 2 different addresses for the same plot of land on different sites.

Thank you for your reply. I will come and ask more in the future.
F

[Submariner]

In 2016 I bought a commercial building in an organized town in Maine. The building had been vacant for many decades. It took us four years of repair work to get the building up to the currently enforced level of codes, and in 2020 I was issued a 'Certificate of Occupancy'.

I am currently living in my fifth house. All of my previous houses have required significant remodeling and repair work. This commercial building has been the first time for me to have ever seen a 'Certificate of Occupancy'. Or to have dealt with a Building Inspectors office that even issues such a document.

If you are located in a town that has a Building Inspector then get the proper permits and get all work inspected.

Keep in mind that 55% of the towns in Maine are not organized, they simply do not have sufficient tax revenue to pay the salary of a Building Inspector.

I lived in a city one time, where their taxes are so incredibly high that they have separate office buildings for each of the various types of inspectors. They have zoning inspectors, housing inspectors, electrical inspectors, building inspectors, plumbing inspectors, health inspectors, and the Fire Marshal. Whenever I got a permit to do work on my house it triggered all of those inspectors to come around to perform weekly walkthroughs.

My Dw tells a story of one time when the inspectors from two different city offices came at the same time, and they got into an argument over which one's regulations held force over the other one's regulations. In the end, we had to insist that those two offices send their inspectors on different days, so they would never be onsite at the same time. [the fire marshal insisted that our furnace had to be in a fire-rated room with its own sprinkler system. Another inspector insisted that the door to the fire-rate room had to be kept open at all times for make-up air to be sufficient to feed the furnace. and another inspector insisted that the door had to be kept closed. So depending on which inspector was scheduled onsite on any given day, we had to run down into the basement to open or close that door.] Oh god how I love what cities do when they have far too much tax revenue.

When we first moved to Maine some of our first close friends here [Ralph and Katie] lived in Greenfield. They had lived in an old farmhouse for many decades but that house was settling pretty badly so they built a new house right next door. I helped them to move furniture from their old house and into the new house. In the old house's basement were four large stones, one stone in each corner of the basement. Each of those corner stones had a vertical post resting on it, and those posts supported the four corners of the house foundation. When the corner stones began frost heaving the entire house shifted, and that made the wife [Katie] upset. So she insisted that they build a new house. I was told that back in the 1800s it was common for people to dig out a basement and to set four corner stones in that manner.

In 2016 our youngest son married a girl from Lincoln. Her family had lived in an apartment, at that time they bought a house on route 2 on the Southside of town. I thought it was a very nice house. One time I toured their basement, and I was surprised to see that the basement walls were dirt and the basement had four corner stones with posts on them. A year later two of the supporting posts slipped off the corner stones and the entire house slid down into the basement hole. It was like the earth had opened and swallowed the house. The house had been inspected by the town Code Enforcement officer, and it was insured before a bank would issue a mortgage on the house. The last time I spoke with them, they were still fighting the insurance company to cover the outstanding mortgage principal.

Sometimes a Building inspector plays an important role, and at other times they consume a tax-funded paycheck and lots of beer.

[nm9stheham]

Inspectors (code enforcement officers in Maine) have their place but it all has it's limitations.

- No one has x-ray vision
- Nobody has time to check every detail
- Much has to be inspected just at the surface
- Much is dependent on properly parts, tools and techniques that cannot be checked.
- Much is not actually checked

They can catch some things but not all. Ditto for any lead carpenter, master electrician, etc.; they have to train their people to do things right or personally check every screw... not gonna happen And finding really good competent independent inspectors is not easy.. most are not that good or experienced, and pick on little things and miss big things.



Code inspections are done when there are any significant modifications or repairs/rebuilds could effect structural matters. Minor repairs don't merit inspections when they don't effect structure or other major matters. The story above does not give any idea if this was an older home that used a foundation technique that was used commonly in the past. And the failure could have been in the bracing to each post.... either rotted or never put in right. So hard to say what was good/bad, what failed, and if it should/could have been caught with a simple visual inspection.


But the story about the furnace room is believable!