Indiana fence laws?

[IndyGunworks]

Hold on. So I don't have to get any permits as long as I build the structure myself?

The IC said home, not structure... I doubt it applies to anything that you will not live in.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

In the city (my the city), anything to be inhabitable, with an overhead component (roof) requires a permit. That would let out decks and fences. Just make sure where the boundary is and keep it inside; you'll be fine.

 

[IndyGunworks]

I might have to revisit this when it comes time to build the garage then... the county is going to want 450 bucks from me, although I am not sure if saving the 450 bucks is worth the hassle.

 

[lovemachine]

The IC said home, not structure... I doubt it applies to anything that you will not live in.

If you wanted to build a garage or even pole barn, and do it all yourself, you don't need a permit at all?

For realz?

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

For the price of a garage, $450 probably isn't too much. I'd pay it, then make them work for it, have them inspect at every step. I might even do stuff wrong on purpose just to make them come out more often.

 

[IndyGunworks]

For the price of a garage, $450 probably isn't too much. I'd pay it, then make them work for it, have them inspect at every step. I might even do stuff wrong on purpose just to make them come out more often.

50 bucks extra for every reinspection.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Wasn't aware of that. That would seriously take up my slack. (Bonus points for recognizing the reference without google, extra for the right picture)

 

[IndyGunworks]

no clue on the reference... I don't watch TV.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

It's not on TV

 

[IndyGunworks]

Then I am not old enough.

 

[Brian Ski]

So you are saying I can build a house on my land without permits? I can only guess what the county would say if I asked them about this.

Got to toss in my 2 cents.... I live in the county. Yes in Indiana you can build your own structures without permits and inspections. My neighbor built a nice pole barn. Not quite with normal building practices. Inspector showed up one day and gave him grief about it. No permit and odd building construction. He was making his own trusses. The neighbor called the head of the building department and complained. The inspector came back and had to apologize. You need to do over half the work yourself. Now I am not sure what you are up against if you try this in city limits...

Now if you built your own house with out permits, the county will push you toward getting permits. It would sure help the resale, and most building departments want a place that is safe and built to code. Plus the banks may not want to lend. Either to build or resale.

As far as the fence goes I would call the building department and find out what they say. Some have limits to how close to the property line you can build. Hate to have to tear it down or move it. Then check with the neighbors... Also make sure you call underground utilities. Who knows what is buried??? Might as well check with you neighbors see what they think. Depends if you are in the city or out in the sticks. I guess in the country you are not going to be complaining about a few feet near the property lines.

A friend just put up a fence, he had a covenant that said what kind of fence and how tall.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Well, whenever I build anything, I build it top grade, as far over spec as possible, because I have to live with it, and I want the best. There wouldn't be any issues with passing an inspection, if I had to. Like I said, my shed could easily support the weight of a car, and for that matter so could the decks. Now, I do a weird thing with the decks; I'll sink piers below the frost line as required, but I don't sink the posts in the concrete. I make pads and put the posts on top of them, so if there's any thermal expansion and contraction, or shrinkage of lumber, they can slide around instead of putting stress into the structure. Just makes sense to me. Anyone else ever heard of this?

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Oh, and I've done the IUPPS thing, as well. The guy marked 4 of the 3 things that were out there, ran one halfway across the yard when my project was clearly whitelined and didn't go way the hell over there, and I hit 2 of the 3 anyway. Probably would have done better if I'd just not called them. YMMV.

 

[Brian Ski]

Now, I do a weird thing with the decks; I'll sink piers below the frost line as required, but I don't sink the posts in the concrete. I make pads and put the posts on top of them, so if there's any thermal expansion and contraction, or shrinkage of lumber, they can slide around instead of putting stress into the structure. Just makes sense to me. Anyone else ever heard of this?

Not for decks but isn't that the way they make pole barns??? Set posts on top of round concrete piers??? If you put the post in concrete the rain water will follow the post and puddle in the center of the concrete and rot the post. Wood is not pressure treated the way it once was. I think they are using different building codes for posts now. Like trying to keep them above ground. Have you checked out Lowes lately?? Their pressure treated wood has a sticker on it that says not to be used for ground contact.

 

[Brian Ski]

Oh, and I've done the IUPPS thing, as well. The guy marked 4 of the 3 things that were out there, ran one halfway across the yard when my project was clearly whitelined and didn't go way the hell over there, and I hit 2 of the 3 anyway. Probably would have done better if I'd just not called them. YMMV.

I had to look up IUPPS... Not called that around here... I guess it covers you if you call. I have city water and I am y out in the county. I cannot get the water guys to come out to mark. They look at my address and ignore the request.

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

Yeah, the old pressure treated lumber used cyanide, but since we were all dropping like flies, they changed it to something weak and useless. Wait, we weren't all dropping like flies. I have some colorful metaphors for them. My front deck is hardly 10 years old and parts of it are rotting and need to be replaced. I'm outraged. The original back deck wasn't structurally dangerous for at least 25 years, and now I'm using it as firewood (the cyanide is gone by now).

 

[Tactically Fat]

If you wanted to build a garage or even pole barn, and do it all yourself, you don't need a permit at all?

For realz?

It all depends on the ordinances / regulations where you live.

The regs where you live may be totally different than your brother's cousin's mother's first college roommate's house 2 miles down the road.

Inside town/city limits will generally have more strict guidelines for permits and what-not than outside those limits.

And the larger the municipality, the stricter still.

 

[Tactically Fat]

I had to look up IUPPS... Not called that around here... I guess it covers you if you call. I have city water and I am y out in the county. I cannot get the water guys to come out to mark. They look at my address and ignore the request.

For some utilities, you have to put in requests individually. Once you get the IUPPS ticket number...call the water company and ask them why they haven't marked anything yet. Tell them you're going to be near their main and if they don't mark it they'll be on the hook for damages. Heh.

I used to work with IUPPS every. darned. week. Once even went through their training on how to submit E-tickets. Then I quit that job.

 

[CountryBoy19]

Oh, and I've done the IUPPS thing, as well. The guy marked 4 of the 3 things that were out there, ran one halfway across the yard when my project was clearly whitelined and didn't go way the hell over there, and I hit 2 of the 3 anyway. Probably would have done better if I'd just not called them. YMMV.

[Threadjack]

Anecdotal story: My dad does drainage work. It's quite common for him to have to have things marked out and avoid them. He was at a job once where they sent a guy from the utility company out to verify the marking and to be on stand-by in case my dad hit the line (telecomms) so they could get it back up quickly, or so that's what my dad thought the guy was there for. As my dad got near the the line he pulled the trencher out and started digging by shovel. The utilities guy walked over and asked what he was doing. Dad told him he was hand-digging to avoid cutting the line. The utilities guy said, "I'll buy you coffee if you just cut through it so I can fix it quick then get out of here." Dad was perplexed for a minute but then it registered to him that he could just cut through quick, the utilities guy could patch it and be done a lot faster than messing with hand digging the next few feet to find it.

Although another time when he did didn't call to have utilities located (because there weren't supposed to be any there) it bit him in the butt. Apparently a long time ago, when this person had their house built the power company cut right across the ag field with the power line even though the maps showed it routed through the side-ditch and lawn. They were installing some drainage tile and heard the pop... yup, just cut the main power from the transformer to the house.

Ok, last one. Didn't happen to my dad, but it supposedly happened to his mentor in the business (the guy he bought the business from) or a friend of that guy. They were doing some drainage in a field that had some huge trans-continental communications bundles parallelling a rail-road that went through. They were over 100 feet from the bundle so never had it marked. They were going along and pulled up large chunks of bundled cable, it had to have several hundred wire pairs... It wasn't 30 minutes before the field was filled with utility vehicles raising a big ruckus... as it turns out, decades before, when installing this cable they must have had some extra cable strung out but it was already off the spool and they couldn't really do anything with it. So they just made a big loop out into the field to use up the extra cable. The cable was outside of the right-of-way/easement but they still tried (unsuccessfully) to pursue damages from the guy that cut it.

First 2 stories are absolutely true, third one, I'm not sure.

end thread-jack...

 

[Mr Evilwrench]

They call it "backhoe fade" when the signal is lost due to someone digging. Mine's all residential, and I kinda wanna keep my services uninterrupted. I was just seriously disimpressed by the guy that marked more things than there were and marked the ones that were there so badly I hit most of them with a simple post hole digger. At least I missed the power