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The following projects illustrate some of the worst examples of mechanical and construction systems work in Howell County. In most cases the owners have been informed about these conditions. In cases where public safety is involved, public safety/building inspectors have been informed. In all of these examples no action has been taken by any state, county, or city building inspectors. While many of these examples are violations of building codes, most are not life safety problems, they are just costing the owners huge amounts of wasted operating and maintenance expense. To avoid unnecessary lawsuits, I am not listing any project names. They have all been given fictitious names. In most cases I will try give background information about the project that has lead to the sorry mechanical state. Each and every incident and condition shown here is true. If anybody cares to call me a liar, I'll be happy to set down, in court if necessary, and name names and dates.
In one local city, the building inspector would actively lie about the state of construction. He would attempt to punish any contractor who questioned his inspections. It was notable that he didn't own a pair of coveralls or a flashlight. It is not possible to inspect a building if you don't crawl around the attic and crawl space. It was commonalty assumed that he was taking payoffs from builder's. In one glaring example of a building's life safety code violation, I called him to see if any engineering exceptions had been granted to standard building code. He stated that there was nothing in the building code regarding this issue, and inquired as to why I was "trying to cause trouble". I looked up the reference it the building code, (it was a bit hard to find), and faxed a copy to the building inspector. I then delivered a copy to the building manager along with my recommendation that he refer the matter to his project engineers. The engineers agreed that there was a life safety code violation and the matter was corrected. I never received any acknowledgment from the city building inspector that he had been mistaken about an item of code. Instead I received harassment from this inspector. I complained to the city manager and attorney about his actions and offered to acquaint them with contractors who had stated that this inspector had accepted bribes for variations of building codes. I also warned them that at least one public building in their city, inspected by this inspector, appeared to be liable to collapse due to deteriorated structure. No action was taken! One can only assume that this city is keeping quite, hoping no one will sue them for non-code construction under their inspection.