Guides and straight answers
The things homeowners here get told wrong, corrected, with the source next to each one.
None of this is written to sell you a job. It is written because we kept answering the same questions on the phone, and because a lot of what is published about permits, lead paint and Alabama rental law is out of date — in a couple of cases by more than a decade. Every number on these pages links to the authority it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Start here
After a storm: what to check
Ceilings and the roofline first, because a ceiling stain is the earliest visible sign that water got in somewhere above it. Covers what needs a permit before you start putting it back, and why the repair you can see is rarely the repair you need.
Wet drywall: dry it or replace it
The honest version of the 24-to-48-hour rule, including the part restoration companies leave out: the EPA says mold growth will not always occur after 48 hours. Hour 60 is not automatically a tear-out, and being told it is should make you ask why.
Why decks fail in Alabama
Roughly 53 inches of rain a year, high humidity, and the highest termite probability zone on the IRC map. Decks here fail at the ledger and the posts long before the boards look bad, which is why a board-level quote is often quoting the wrong job.
Which jobs need a permit
Taken from the city’s own permit table, not from general advice about Alabama. The one that catches people: a deck REPAIR needs a permit, and so does roofing, while painting, carpet, trim and siding replacement do not.
What a permit actually costs
Residential valuation divided by 1,000, times $3.50 — about $14 on a $4,000 job, processed in 24 to 48 hours. Commercial is $12.21 per $1,000. The fee is almost never the real reason work goes unpermitted, and unpermitted work usually surfaces later, at sale.
What older houses cost to repair
The extra cost lands on work that disturbs paint in a pre-1978 home, not on every job in it. Useful before you buy: split the jobs that disturb paint from the ones that do not, because only the first group moves the price.
Older homes and the lead paint rules
What the federal rules mean for painting and drywall work in a pre-1978 house, including the six-square-foot exemption and the 30-day trap inside it — separate jobs in the same room within a month count as one. Alabama runs its own program rather than the federal one.
Testing a slab before flooring goes down
Why flooring fails on a slab that looked dry, what ASTM F2170 actually measures, and the number a lot of flooring sites misreport. Worth reading before anyone quotes you for a floor over concrete.
Alabama’s deposit deadline is 60 days, not 35
Most Alabama rental guides still print the repealed 35-day rule. The statute says 60, and says the landlord owes double if they miss it. Written for landlords and tenants dealing with turnover repairs, with the source.
If you would rather just ask
Describe the job and we will tell you what we know, including when the answer is that you do not need us. One call, one contractor, somebody actually answers.
Tell us about the job
Ask us anything on these pages, or about a job.
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Send the form whenever suits you — outside those hours it lands in the same inbox and we pick it up when we open. Water or damage should not wait on the form: call, any day.
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