Ontario building permits have an expiry date. Check your permit. After the expiry date, you can apply for a conditional building permit. Conditional permits give you another six months where I am in Markham, Ontario.

As noted above, check with your municipality directly. Three years living in an unfinished shell. No wonder the inspectors are cracking down.

Thanks PineBaron for your help. We were just made aware that we need an inspection every 12 months. We just had one today, and it was just under the 12 month guideline. The head inspector is not friendly or open to the extenuating circumstances that we told him about. He said we could appeal the order.

Thanks worthy. There is no expiry date in the City where we live. I do know some Ontario Cities have that. To clarify, what we are living in is well beyond a shell. The addition is just a shell (with some insulation). In the rest of the house, we have plumbing, kitchen, electrical and some drywall. We also have heating in the new and old area with partial insulation or we would have frozen pipes.

Carol

Ultimately - not having drywall in a house means that fire can spread rapidly from one room to the next, not allowing a smoke alarm to do you any good and not giving you time to get out or the smoke inhalation killing you, etc. Most fires start from inside - so the exterior cladding does nothing for you.

I realize this is hard for you - but this is a HUGE safety issue. It's stuff like this that when there is a disaster and people die everyone says "how the heck could the city / county allow people to be living in a house LIKE THIS for SO LONG???"

Max that LOC, do whatever you need to do in the short term to resolve this. You will recover from this.

You are seriously lucky that nothing bad has happened.

Thank you jannicone for your honesty, and advice. Cottages have wood interiors, as do chalets, etc. What kind of fire retardant do they put on the wood to reduce the risk of fires? Not that we would use that chemical, but just wondering on the difference. Hopefully, once we get the drywall on (and inspected by the City), we will be allowed to pace the rest of the construction as we can afford it.

Carol

"Cottages have wood interiors, as do chalets, etc"

It is not exposed studs and insulation however.

Thanks, millworkman. We only have poly covering the insulation.

Carol

And if you don't smoke, have new electrical, the chance of a housefire is very low. Around here - lightening strikes cause the most. New houses and not a lot of smokers here - at least that can afford houses.

Sure drywall is a flame retardant. You are still much safer in your bare walls than in a car.

House fires kill! But just not that many people. Last I checked, it was 50 fold more that died in car accidents. Just saying.

That is reassuring, David. Thank you. I certainly don't want anything to happen to our family (not to mention the new home). No one smokes here for sure. We also have new electrical. Our boiler that provides heat for the in-floor heat, is in a cement-coated closet, with a metal door. We do have a high-velocity AC/forced air unit, but generally only use it for AC vs heat given the infloor. We have an electric stove, that is never unattended, with drywall behind it (old part of house). We don't use curling irons, and never leave an iron unattended. We don't use candles. We have many smoke detectors, CO detectors, and our vehicles are parked in the driveway. We also have a fire extinguisher.

I fully understand that the city would like the permit closed and off their to-do list. I don't see that we are any more at risk of fire than we were last year.

Carol

Engaging in a debate with the city as to the relative safety of automobiles vs. your unfinished house may not be the best approach. Finish the wiring and put up drywall with the first rough coat to seal the gaps between boards.

Thanks, worthy. We will try to comply with the city, but it just may not all happen in the 6 week time frame they are asking for.

Hi, we're also on a long build schedule in Ontario 4th year in on an extended build.
We've had partial occupancy for little over 18 months. Stipulations we had to complete was cover all exposed spray foam insulation, automatic door closure for the suite and air seal the doors and have working smoke detectors for the building.
The rest of the build was exposed studs until a few months ago.

Hi Peter. That is very interesting information. Glad you found a way to completely finish one suite to live in. Did you have to cover all explosed spray foam insulation throughout the project, or just in the suite? Did the suite have drywall?

We have always had certificate of occupancy, since we had it on the house before beginning the large addition/renovation project. Living conditions were quite poor for a while (i.e. home was freezing cold), but not so bad now (we have working heating and AC).

The pressure to finish to drywall stage by the end of Sept is killing us. We have a five page list of jobs to do to get it all done by the deadline. Booking sub contractors is a challenge in the peak of building, and we had not planned on all of the labour costs we are forced to pay to meet the order and timeline imposed. There are many jobs we have to deal with ourselves (decisions to make, moving/clearing out our belongings, jobs that are 90% done that we prefer to complete ourselves vs pay for a labour charges at this stage).

Carol

Just waving Hi Carol. :) Sounds like you are getting there but I hope you find away around the stress of the imposed deadline. DIY is hard and slow while doing life with kids.

Thanks, Autumn. Nice to read a comment and encouragement from you. DIY sucks and was not part of our plan until DH lost his job.

Carol

Hi Carol, yes we had to fully cover all exposed foam in the house, basement, garage and our balconies.
The suite was fully contained with own sub panel and converted the pantry into a galley kitchen.
We're on a rural build so when on site during the open frame construction we used a 70's trailer for accommodation. Winters were fun.
We've had a few dead lines self imposed such as me getting the electrical done for electrical pre inspection for dry wall installation and now I've two more tile floors to lay before hardwood floors go in next month.

We gave ourselves 5 years to build this, we should be a few months under that.

Thanks, Peter for your reply.

Sounds like you are DIY most of this build. Good for you for putting the sweat equity into the home.

To fully cover the foam, did you have drywall and tape, or just attach the drywall boards. We are hoping if we hang the boards (get drywallers to do that), we can come back later and tape then paint ourselves.

Yes, Ontario winters in a trailer would be fun!

Carol

We taped the garage as we used it and I wanted it safe, the rest we only just taped and finished in the last few months.
Yes we're both enjoy the DIY, shame work gets in the way...

As for wintering out in a trailer it fun shovelling snow to the portaloo.