White County Inspector: New Structure More Timely

One year into taking over codes inspection from the state, White County Building Codes Inspector Brett Nash said there have been some challenges.

Nash said he had to write the county’s building codes from scratch because no codes existed at either a city or county level. Nash said the other issue he faced was people trying to continue to go through the state to schedule inspections and getting permits after the transition was official.

“Trying to get them weened off that was a little bit of a challenge,” Nash said. “But mostly everybody kind of went along with it and has came along with the transaction and the transition of doing it with us whether it be online or coming into our office and buying them.”

Nash said the biggest difference between the county and state doing inspections and issuing permits, is the state would only be in the area two days a week. Nash said with the county running codes, sometimes builders can get an inspection scheduled same day.

“Availability, having to answer my phone as much as I can to answer questions about an inspection that was conducted,” Nash said. “Transparency, being here and being available to homeowners and contractors five days a week.”

Nash said the county is only handling residential building codes. There are currently no county commercial building codes. Nash said building codes serve multiple important purposes to the community.

“At the end of the day, we want to make sure the life and safety aspects are met,” Nash said. “We want to make sure the taxpayers of White County get what they paid for from their contractor or whoever they paid to build their home.”

Nash took over the codes role from the state last winter.