Today I talked to the building inspector for White County, Georgia to see what he thought about tiny houses. He didn’t try to rush me off the phone, nor was he ecstatic that I want to build one in HIS county. Apparently he’s had some other people interested in this idea of a “tiny home” so he knew what I was getting at with all of my questions.
Basically what I learned was that I can build a tiny home but it’s going to have to adhere to the 2012 IRC Building Codes, which is pretty standard across the board. That set of building codes do not include the appendix for tiny homes that the city of Atlanta just adopted in January 2018.
One upside is that he said he “wouldn’t fight me” on anything over 200 square feet--I plan to build within the 400-500 square foot range so that’s fine. However, he did say he would “run me out of the county” for trying to build a tiny house on a chassis AKA a trailer, which would constitute being a “recreational vehicle” so I would have to build on a permanent foundation.
1) If I want to use a compost toilet then I will have to get approval from the Department of Health before I can get a permit to build
2) Only one property per acre (pretty standard)
3) I can build my tiny home in areas with R-1 residential zoning, but if the land has been zoned anything else I can file for a re-zoning permit (not sure how easy it would be to get approved to re-zone land for a tiny home though)
4) If I’m building a loft space instead of a bedroom, then I will have to build a standard size house window into the egress of the loft in case I need to bail due to fire or other emergency
All in all, it is something of progress because I was expecting more push-back than I received.
2087
vaporwave
ellievsbear
