Newport Beach Permits in 2010

I haven’t written about getting permits in Newport Beach for some time. On my brother’s house, it took about 8 months of arm wrestling. Over time, they wore me down and made it more and more difficult to get a solar permit. Recently, I finally achieved an approved permit.

Several weeks ago, we sold another solar installation in Newport Beach. I thought this would be an easy one as the array size was smaller than 300 sq. ft. The last time I submitted, lateral structural loads were not required if the array was less than 300 sq. ft. on the first floor. Their new requirement appears to be that lateral engineering is required for any system that weighs more than the roof surface x 1 pound per square foot.

Our permit was also rejected by the fire department because we didn’t dimension setbacks even though the fire department does not have requirements for flat roofs on residential properties.

The permit was also rejected for numerous electrical redlines. I did make one non critical mistake. I will grant them that. But most of the electrical corrections are actually not correct according to the 2005 NEC.

I’ve decided that I will document this permit process as best I can. I will say that the counter staff at Newport Beach is very friendly and helpful. They are stuck in a bureaucracy  that violates the requirements of California Civil Code 714.

I just finished making all the corrections except for 2.  Total Engineering time:  9 hours.

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