Zoning

If you are thinking about building a shed, or any building, you should check out zoning laws. Even if you think you don't need a building permit, you should look at zoning laws and find out where you are allowed to build. In my neighborhood you cannot put any structure within 5 ft of your property line.

Last Thursday my roommate called me and said, There are a bunch of building inspector men in the back yard, and I don't know what to tell them. I called her back and she explained that the inspectors came by and gave a work stop order and left a number where I could call. I called them the next morning and the man was incredibly nice. He explained that my structure was in fact too big to build with out a permit, and that I would need to come down town and get one. He also said that I was doing a good job building and that everything he saw looked great. I was happy to hear that, but then he said that I was probably too close to the property and that when I went down town they would tell me the zoning laws.

So I went down town, and had another really good encounter. The building permit man explained everything I would need and gave me the application. He told me that since I am only building a shed that all I need to do is have some drawings that show the size of the building and the size of all the materials and fill out the application. That was great, and then he checked on the zoning laws, and told me about the 5 ft rule.

Right now my posts are pretty much on the property line, which means I have a couple of options. I can take everything down, dig the concrete piers out of the ground, find a way to get them out of the hole, dig new holes and move them in, then re-erect the structure. I could try and brace the structure to itself and move it as a single unit, and do the same thing with the piers. I could also re-design the building to try and use as much of the existing structure as possible.

I have elected to redesign. For one thing, the owner of the house where I am building does not want this shed right in the middle of his yard. He has quietly expressed concern about it encroaching on the rest of his space. For another thing it will be an amazing amount of work to move everything. Moving the wood would definitely be a big job considering the work it took to get it up, but moving the concrete is the part that I think would be truly miserable. Each pier weighs at least 200lbs and getting that big heavy cylinder out of one hole and into another is a feat of engineering that I am not willing to undertake. Out of everything I am probably most upset about the wasted concrete. It is a terribly energy intensive (fossil fuel energy, not mine) material, and I have wasted a lot of it. In the redesigned shed I intend to use four of the nine posts and piers. That means that I have wasted 5 of them, which is at least 1000 lbs of concrete. That is pretty bad. I feel fairly guilty. The extra wood is not a worry. I'll use that for something else, and it was already saved from a mulch destiny.