Two counties. Does my permit change?
The East Bay is not one jurisdiction. Eleven of these cities sit in Alameda County and thirteen in Contra Costa. Each city runs its own counter on top of that. Drawings accepted at one desk do not carry to the next. Confirm the parcel first.
Somebody answers and a van leaves. Looking is on us. CSLB #1131134 · IICRC #70194273
How many counters is that?
Twenty-four cities, two counties, and one unincorporated pocket.
Each one publishes its own exemption list, its own forms and its own queue.
Castro Valley is the pocket, and its permits come from the county.
Which counter your address answers to is the first thing anybody should confirm.
Does the county line change rules?
What does a permit actually gate?
The closing of the wall, not the drying of it.
Extraction and equipment run the night it happens, everywhere on this list.
Plan check arrives only when the loss took structure or the layout changes.
The same wall going back in the same place usually needs no drawings.
How do I know if I need one?
Ask before the saw, and ask the counter itself.
Some cities publish a square-foot figure for patching. Most on this list publish nothing.
Silence is not permission. It means the question has to be asked out loud.
A figure repeated in contractor forums is not an ordinance anywhere here.
Does the house year change it?
It changes what has to be sampled, not who signs.
The lead and asbestos lines are state and federal, so a county line does not move them.
What moves is which office issues a demolition permit afterward.
In a pre-war house that permit waits on a laboratory result.
Who reads my drawings?
Sometimes a firm with clients in other towns.
Not every city staffs its own building department in house.
Which means your queue can belong to a company rather than to a town.
Worth knowing before somebody quotes you a number of weeks.
Can anybody promise a date?
Not honestly, in a town that publishes no time.
A first review is not an approval, because corrections come back.
You answer them, send it back, and the waiting restarts from zero.
What we can tell you is what got filed, on what date, and where it sits.
What does the drying half cost?
Drying is metered and starts at $61 an hour.
One rate card carries every figure.
Reconstruction is the opposite: one written total before board goes up.
No figure for that half belongs on a web page, and none appears.
What settles the schedule?
The counter, and nobody wearing our shirt.
Pulling the permit, answering the list and attending the visit are ours.
Whether it passes is decided by the person the jurisdiction sends.
Two counties raise plenty more, and the guides work through it.
When do you not file for me?
On work under the exempt line you do not need us at the counter.
An owner may pull their own on either side of the county line. We step in once plan check applies, where a marked-up drawing eats weeks.
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Which counter your address answers to comes before any schedule. (341) 220-0032.
Sewage, storm damage, mold, fire and smoke, water, and the reconstruction that follows them, for Oakland and the twenty-four East Bay cities around it. Any hour, any day. Se habla español.