It would take a substantial amount of time and effort to document the stupidity of government. It would also turn a brief blog post into a book. What you ask is not necessary, and if it is necessary for you, Google is right there waiting for you.

Good one. I thought I was the only one who remembered our late Governor Hugh’s offer to drink a glass of PCB’s. For the real world result, see that Georgia politician (not USA, the other one) who actually ingested PCB’s as a result of a poisoning attempt. Not pretty.

I’m a business owner and an economist and a (not civil/structural) engineer by training. I have never built a deck nor had anything to do with one. Therefore, my list of 7 items below may be utter BS and may have nothing whatsoever to do with his deck or reality. So I’m going to try to make a list of 7 considerations below that are completely pulled from my backside but I think sound legitimate.

Please let us remember that unless I misread, he seems to be writing about a large deck, possibly used in business, not a backyard bbq station.

So, let me try here:

1. Asbestos. If the structure is large, perhaps he needs to have some certification that is asbestos-free before moving it. Yes, some decks have plumbing.
2. Historical Value. Does the structure have historical value or interest. I currently live for part of each year in a town in England where you certainly cannot put things up or take things down as you please as the buildings are “listed.”
3. Underground Considerations: if part of the deck supports to be removed require digging (such as to remove underground concerete anchors) then there needs to be a check to make sure that this will not conflict with existing underground pipes and cables.
4. Waste disposal / Environmental Impact: prove that you have a legitimate and environmentally decent plan to dispose of the waste. One form indicating the name of the skip company you hired.
5. Scheduling/Road blocking: if you need to block the road or in general if you are going to schedule work that requires heavy machinery and loud noise, then a permit is reasonably required.
6. Emergency exits – if the deck was part of an emergency / fire exit system for an attached building, then it would need to be proven that the remaining commercial structure still meets fire code regulations.
7. Assessment / Mapping notification. Perhaps the jurisdiction allows changes, but requires notice of these to be made as there are implications for local tax assessment or the county surveyor requires them for changes over a certain size in order to maintain accurate maps or something.

[8. electrical – if the deck has electrical connections to the city grid]

Now, my list of 7 above may be partially or totally BS. In the UK, all 7 items or something close to it are submitted in ONE form (basically, you make a little report with the above sections) to the city council.

The point is that we don’t know if his complaint is basically…

a) a complaint that some of the regulations are unnecessary (I’ve seen american strip mall hell, to say nothing of places in eastern europe/africa/asia where the permits and planning process range somewhere beween corrupt/chaotic and nonexistent, and so I actually do have a fair bit of sympathy for reasonable oversight) because they are themselves unnecessary

b) a complaint that the process is confusing, even if the regulations are necessary. for example, that too many disparate entities are needed where one will do.

c) a complaint that the process is unnecessarily expensive (if so, let’s look in detail where)

here in the UK, at least in the highly educated town where I am now, government basically works. sure, there is always a bit of moaning at the margins, but basically where inefficiency is spotted, it’s handled. service standards are clearly posted, including audited performance metrics (“we aim to process all applications within 1 week. in 2012, 98.4% of applications were processed within 1 week, and 99.8% were processed within 2 weeks”).

The problem with this guy’s blog, and, frankly, american approaches to discourse in general recently, is that we haven’t even gotten to the point where we can have an intelligent discussion since the guy hasn’t even bothered to let us know if it is an a) b), or c) problem, nominally intelligent people like no name guy can’t see this, and the discussion becomes a silly one of partisan name calling and absolutist shibboleth throwing nonsense. That is, too many of us would rather just throw our hands up and engage in meta discussion rather than really starting inductively and looking at the actual issues. Get enough followers complaining about “liberals” in your comment section, as that guy does, and the echo chamber effect is complete.

But lets think a bit….its a deck….its dangerous……it simply needs to be torn down. Please come up with a list of what 7 permits one might need.

To build a single family home in the regulation happy Soviet of Washington that I call home, I can come up with the following permits / inspection(s) that seem reasonable off the top of my head:
– Electrical, plumbing, general construction (e.g. framing, drywall, roofing, siding, etc), foundation, natural gas (but that’s only if gas is being installed), septic, but only if you’re not on sewer. I’m sure there’s probably one or two more in there, so lets throw in mystery permit, for things that aren’t covered (say if the city / county makes you get a separate permit for clearing / digging the foundation hole, separate from the actual foundation work).

A quick Google search indicates, for example, to build or rebuild a deck in Pierce County, WA (and needed only if the deck meets certain size and / or height thresholds, and presumably to also demolish one), it’s ONE permit. Perhaps the deck Coyote is talking about has lighting and the wiring has to be disconnected, capped and stowed safely…ok, electrical permit makes 2. Pray tell Steve, what 5 other permits could one need? Brainstorm for us, please. What permits would YOU need in YOUR jurisdiction to demolish a deck? Close to home for me, it’s one.

To solve a problem, one often bounds complex problems by making favorable and unfavorable assumptions, running the computations for each case, then uses reason to interpolate between those two bounds to locate a decent starting point for a more detailed analysis. Building a house is less that taking down a deck. I came up with 4, perhaps 6 permits for building a house (foundation, general construction, plumbing, electrical and perhaps natural gas & septic). House building >> complexity than a deck removal, therefore it should have more permits required.

They added my form to the other four.

Bob