We had always thought we would have to justify ourselves with CCC, so we'd already done some research into what the NTF and subsequent Certificate of Acceptance application really meant. Our strategy went something like this:
- Got some help from a geotech and structural engineer to analyse what we had built and certify it as OK in terms of building code compliance. We were real lucky to find a couple of engineers who were really on board with the "small space" concept, and who found creative ways to make things work for us. We hadn't realised there so much subjectivity in engineering!
- Our friend Esther offered to draw up as-built plans for us, which we happily accepted. Neither of us appreciated the size of the task involved, so it got quite epic for a couple of weeks! An amazing gift really of time and effort from Esther actually, plus Kat.
- Our final stroke of luck came in the form of the CCC building inspector our Certificate of Acceptance application was allocated to - Phil Carr. Phil was unbelievably helpful, and always ready to listen to a reasoned argument. When we finally got to meet Phil it was very obvious that he too was a big "small space" fan.
Hence we are now officially legal :-)
The one argument we didn't win in this process was about the composting toilet - CCC simply would not budge on the requirement for a standard flushing loo. A little disappointing, but again not surprising - as a society we're just not quite there yet. Hence it's back into building mode again :-)
