MBZ, get a Monoxide and Gas detector like NOW. Also if you have a bad or unsafe furnace many power companies offer a replacement plan.

Thermocouples are cheap ($7) and available at Home Depot. Make sure you get the correct length. They are pretty simple to replace. Use a pipe cleaner to ream out the pilot tube. Plugged pilot tubes happen all the time on RV's because they are more exposed to insects.
Being a landlord makes a person adept at a lot of maintenance tasks. If you do this kind of work often it is good to keep a spray bottle with soapy water handy so you can test for gas leaks, or better yet, invest in a gas sniffer.

Consider yourself lucky, we just had a house red tagged because the licensed contractor didn't pull a permit prior to doing a simple maintenance. Apparently the city is low on funds and needs more permits.

What did the contractor do.........tell the city he was working without a permit?? :confused:

What the city doesn't know won't kill 'em.

I don't think I wrote that I actually did the work.
:)
One always has to be careful. I've talked the gas company out of red tagging me before.
For instance, Denver requires a solid pipe connection to all furnaces and hot water heaters. Aurora, immediately to the east, requires a flexible connection. Do the wrong thing in the wrong municipality and get red-tagged.
Apparently, there is no serious problem with taking either option since two adjacent municipalities think the opposite is ok. The gas company, which serves both municipalities seems sympathetic to these absurdities.
In Denver, it is illegal to replace your own toilet. A permit is needed and a homeowner has to pass a plumbing test before a permit is given. Of course I would never consider breaking the law.

God bless you. You are saving taxpayers money by avoiding wasting important city time on minor absurdities of building code enforcement.

The city drives around looking for repair trucks, a landlord or anyone else unlicensed will be put in jail........for real.

In out instance the HVAC guy was troubleshooting....and its coming to every city in the country.

Nope it takes money from the city collection fund, its getting almost unreal what the city likes to do is make the fines so extreme that it exceeds the value of the property and they take the property and auction it and all proceeds go to the city.

Heres a good one we were tickets for "trash in driveway" the "trash" was a few paint buckets in the picture that the city provided you could see the painters ladder with the painters feet at the top of the picture.

You guys should be applauding this stuff its a result of a far left city coucil and mayors office.

I cannot fathom how a municipality can prevent a person who owns a structure from making his own repairs on it??? Do they need a license to repair their vehicles as well? Just absurd.

Now a licensed contractor is a different story. Over here, the contractor needs a building permit if he does any work to the structure. But, it's never obtained unless the size of the structure is affected, thereby reflecting a change in the survey.

You, of all people, should be outraged at the government preventing you from working on your own property.

Hey I agree with you guys, Michigan state laws says that you have to pull a permit if the work is worth more than $100 if you are the owner you have to pull a homeowners permit and so on. Police, meter maids and city workers all keep an eye out for work being done on homes.

Our example was a furnace tech doing nothing more than checking the gas lines and doing a yearly monoxide test on the furnace and HW heater, we do it for liability many of the basements are Michigan basements with have dirt walls and floors so humidity is very high and a furnace can rust quickly.

Here's another good one, we were rehabbing a house that had REAL 2x12 floor joists well the plumber back in 1900 or so drilled holes for a drain.....the span was only 8 feet and the clown suggested we replace the joists with STEEL, we won that battle and only had to sister some 2x6's .


What this is a result of is the UAW running the labor market, if they make it difficult for a landlord or homeowner to do their own work or hire unlicensed scabs it helps the skilled union trades.

Brian Carlton

Hats off to you. ;)
As a licenced Gas Technician ( for the past 35 years ), it is refreshing to read the expert ( correct ) advice you're providing.
Keep up the good work ! ;)

[QUOTE=kerry edwards
In Denver, it is illegal to replace your own toilet. A permit is needed and a homeowner has to pass a plumbing test before a permit is given. Of course I would never consider breaking the law.[/QUOTE]

I see you have the same sort of rules we have the difference is they are taking an more active enforcement role, IE jail.......I think its pitiful.

Heres an example

City to toughen housing enforcement

Parking officers will see more responsibility

By JENNIFER PRESTON
State News Staff Writer

Housing code violators may soon see the same type of ticket usually issued for litter or parking violations.

The city of East Lansing, in an attempt to beautify the neighborhoods, wants Parking and Code Enforcement (PACE) officers to enforce housing issues previously looked at by city inspectors only once a year.

Typically, the two housing inspectors who work directly for the city of East Lansing annually inspect every rental house in the city. But the city decided a little more than a year ago they wanted to make the discovery and correction of violations more consistent and frequent.

The East Lansing City Council will likely approve the new housing code next week, which is why the city has not yet charged PACE officers with the duty of identifying exterior housing code violations, said Howard Asch, the city’s code enforcement and neighborhood conservation director.

“We wanted to make sure we got the new code into place and trained our own inspectors before we brought PACE into it,” Asch said. City Manager Ted Staton will most likely assign the code enforcement officers their new duties within the next month, he said.

Asch said the change will make code violation enforcement in the city more efficient, although the officers will only be able to warn the house for violations visible outside from the sidewalk or street.

“It will allow us to find problems and get them taken care of quicker,” he said.

This will provide code enforcement officers more leverage to help get properties up to code faster, Asch said.

“We’re looking for whatever ways we can to improve the appearance of the community and the living conditions for the community,” he said.

Asch said he doesn’t expect there to be much difference from current city inspector practices.

“On some properties that have problems, this may just help add to the list,” Asch said.“I don’t expect there’ll be a lot of situations where PACE officers will be driving around, see a broken window and write a ticket to the resident of the house.”

Asch said the residents and landlords should be given the normal 30 days to fix the problem before a ticket is issued.

Code enforcement officers are now usually found issuing citations for things such as litter and parking violations.

City Councilmember Douglas Jester said the change is not significant.

“There are no new requirements, just slightly better enforcement,” Jester said.

He added that the enforcement will be not just on rental properties, but on owner-occupied houses as well.

City landlords contacted for this story said they have not followed the issue enough to comment.

Thanks, but, I'm no expert. I'm not a licensed professional and I don't claim to know half of what's required to fulfill all the tasks necessary under the license.

But, I have a bit of knowledge, as an engineer and a landlord, which I'm happy to share with others. ;)

You will enjoy this and it relates precisely to what is quoted above:

The village of Patchogue, our local municipality, decided to embark on a similar goal. But, in their case, they wanted to screw the landlords. So, they sent out their code enforcement goons to find every single violation that they could possibly write up.

Cracked window pane.

A crack in some concrete.

Some paint peeling.

Stain on a driveway.



You name it.......they wrote a violation for it. Sometimes they wrote 30 violations for a single dwelling.

When the violator went to court, the Village had the judge in their pocket. The fine was $1,000 per violation. :eek:

The prosecutor would typically offer a deal..........plead guilty to five violations and accept a fine of $5,000. :eek: Many Landlords were totally screwed by this behavior. But, some fought back, using an agency called the "Coalition of Landlords and Tenants". This group knew the law perfectly and could easily fight the tickets as BS.

Finally, the Coalition took the Village to Federal court with the allegation that they targeted ethnic minorities who were living in the tenant occupied housing.

They won the case.

It cost the Village something like $500K when it all came down.

Needless to say, the Village does not attempt to enforce any code violations in an arbitrary manner, anymore.

You can fight back. And you can win. You need more support than you can get with your personal attorney.