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PSA: Stop telling people to skip the permit for a water heater swap, my neighbor in Amarillo learned that the hard way
Every time someone asks about replacing a water heater on here, three people jump in saying just do it yourself, nobody pulls a permit for that, it is a $40 fee and two weeks of waiting for nothing. I used to nod along. Then last fall my neighbor Dave on the 3400 block of Bowie swapped his own 40 gallon unit on a Saturday. Looked fine. Sold the house in April and the buyer's inspector flagged it. No permit, no inspection record, and the venting was wrong, too close to the draft hood. Closing got held up 19 days while he paid a plumber $380 to redo the vent and then paid the city a doubled permit fee plus a $150 penalty for work done without one. Total mess for a job he thought he saved $300 on. I get it, the permit office on Georgia Street can be a pain and nobody wants to wait. But in Amarillo the inspection is quick and it covers your butt when you sell or when something floods. Anyway, curious if anyone here has actually been burned by skipping one, or am I overthinking this.
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jamie_webb6719d ago
Man, that closing delay alone would've cost him more than the permit ever would. Hate to say it but Dave kind of proved the point the hard way. Get the permit, it's cheap insurance.
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