At long last, we had our final inspections for the River House today. We passed our energy storage system (battery backup) electrical, fire, and building inspections. Only the permitting for the Natural Resource Commission has been more arduous than the battery. Because the technology is so new, the fire inspectors have approached the whole situation with an overabundance of caution. The next Concord family that decides to install an ESS will have us to thank for blazing the trail.

We were not so fortunate with our occupancy inspection. We failed on two counts. (1) We have been using the area under the landing for our basement stairs as a storage area for leftover paint and tile. Access to the space was by way of a 45″x 30″ opening. By code, the interior of this space needs to be finished with 5/8″ gypsum wallboard to impede fire propagation. The amount of work to do this in such a confined and irregular space would not be worth the benefit. Our other option was to permanently seal off the access opening which is what I opted to do. Pictured above is the final result which I completed after a run to Home Depot for the materials. (2) The door to the garage needs to be self closing. The one we have is equipped with self closing hinges but they had not been engaged. I attempted to do so, but a manufacturing defect in one of the hinges prevented me from finishing. I have called our builder to address this problem as it should have been installed with the springs engaged in the first place.

It would have been nice to pass on our first attempt, but I am thrilled that our punch list is so short. As soon as the garage door is addressed we should be good to go.