I envy you in NJ Les. Here clueless inspectors are rotated around like bad priests. There is no enforcement of fines for fraudulent permits, or failure to pull a permit. Carpenters freely do electrical work, and some of the inspectors know little more than the carpenters.
I recently walked with an inspector on rough & he's lecturing me on smoke alarms...only one per level, like having them in every sleeping area was a violation...and that I'd used firestop caulk when all that was required was draftstopping.
I asked another inspector a question regarding bonding/grounding & his answer was "Call me for final".
When you know where outlets are required in a house, you can look in new homes around here & see that the house is missing three required outlets & somehow got past rough & final inspections.
With this going on I don't have the faith that a phone call would accomplish anything other than get someone upset that I brought attention to their ignorance. The $200 was either my wasted time, or correcting a non-violation.
Having vented my small frustrations I'd like to add that in ten years I've only had one power-hungry wrong inspector that cost me $1,000. I've had sharp inspections that would rate with the top inspectors in this forum, which is always a pleasure.
Usually I have inspections by guys who have too little time and too much to absorb with multiple trade inspections and are very friendly and easy to get along with. In general I rarely attempt to educate the ones that need it & have never appealled.
In one of the sharpest departments around they say that IL has a law on the books that if an inspector makes you correct a non-violation you can sue for quadruple damages. If I have another power-hungry inspector red-tag me, I'll go for it.
Dave
