Residential Permitting & Inspections
- Expedited building permits & site maps
- Home & Roof Inspection
- Property & Contractor Consulting
Planning On Home Improvements?
The High Price of "No Permit"
Skipping permits creates a legal cloud over your property, leading to denied insurance claims if issues arise. You face heavy fines, "stop-work" orders that double costs, and a home that is often unsellable because lenders won't finance unpermitted additions.
The Exhaustive Path to Permit Approval:
- Zoning & Feasibility Audit: Verify setbacks, easements, and lot coverage ratios.
- Professional Site Plan Generation: Produce a "To Scale" map of all existing and proposed structures.
- Engineered Construction Documents: File full blueprints, including elevations and structural sections.
- Structural Calculations: Submit "Wet Stamped" engineering to prove seismic and wind safety.
- Title 24 Energy Compliance: Provide complex calculations for insulation and window efficiency.
- The "Plan Check" Gauntlet: Submit to the Building Department and await a list of required "Redline" corrections.
- Departmental Clearances: Obtain sign-offs from Fire, Health, and Public Works departments.
- Fee Assessment & Impact Fees: Pay permit, plan check, and local school/park development fees.
- The Inspection Lifecycle: Coordinate 5–10 mandatory site visits at every stage of construction.
- Final Certificate of Occupancy: Secure the final signature to legally protect your investment.
Why an Inspection Must Come First
Protect Your Investment and Your Sanity
The importance of an independent inspection cannot be overstated. By hiring a third-party expert before engaging contractors or insurance adjusters, you secure a position of strength and clarity.
- Objective Scope of Work: Avoid "bid inflation." An independent report provides the precise, unbiased facts you need to ensure all contractor quotes are based on the same reality.
- Identifying "Hidden" Issues: Detect structural rot or electrical hazards before they become expensive "change orders" halfway through your project.
- Leveraging Insurance Claims: Don't settle for a "patch-and-paint" estimate. Use a professional report as evidence to demand a settlement that covers true code compliance.
- Total Quality Control: Municipal inspectors check for the bare minimum. An independent inspector works for you, ensuring the craftsmanship meets elite industry standards from start to finish.
Why Kern Skies?
Kern Skies is the safer, faster, and more accurate way to get your project approved.
Kern Skies replaces manual guesswork providing the technical data you need without a hidden sales agenda.
- The "Birds-Eye" Necessity: A permit isn't just about a room; it’s about how that room interacts with your entire lot. We capture a comprehensive "To Scale" view of setbacks, lot coverage, and utility clearances that fits perfectly into AutoCAD or SolarAPP+ for instant digital approval.
- Sub-Inch Precision: Tape measures sag and fail around obstacles. We use Photogrammetry to create a georeferenced "Digital Twin" with centimeter-level accuracy, ensuring your property lines are recorded as a fact, not a guess.
- The Inspector’s Scope: Most door-knockers are just selling your information as a lead. Unlike "free" contractor estimates designed to close a sale, we provide an independent technical audit. We have no interest in inflating your costs—we provide the ICC-certified "Source of Truth" you need to hold everyone else accountable.
The Professional Edge
While we still perform rigorous physical inspections—including attic crawls and ladder-work to verify structural integrity—our drone technology adds a layer of comprehensive safety. By capturing high-risk roof data from the air first, we ensure every inch of your property is documented while minimizing the risk of a fall.
SERVICES
For The Homeowner
Your Technical Back-Office & Building Manager
Think of Kern Skies as your Project Safeguard. In the traditional construction model, the contractor holds all the cards—they pull the permit, they control the timeline, and they own the data.
If they disappear or underperform, your project is held hostage. We break that cycle. By securing your permit independently through our certified team of Inspectors and Permit Technicians, you effectively take control of your property’s future.
We provide the up-to-code plans, aerial data, and digital material take-offs that the pros use, but we put them in your hands first. This starts the 180-day legal shot clock on your terms, giving you the leverage to hire—or fire—any crew with total confidence.
Plus, with our expedited service options, we move your project from field to file while the competition is still stuck in the paperwork pile.
How We Partner With You
- Project Management & Consulting: We don't just give you a map; we give you the play-by-play. We act as your professional building manager, guiding you through the technical requirements of your repair or upgrade.
- 3rd Party Home & Roof Inspections: Get an unbiased, expert look at your property. We provide the "ground truth" through high-precision aerial intelligence and physical site audits so you know exactly what needs to be fixed before you spend a dime.
- Your Personal Permit Runner: Skip the lines and the "correction notice" loops. We handle the building department administration and file the paperwork to ensure your project is 100% legal and recorded.
- The DIY Power Move: For homeowners who want to do the work themselves, we provide the professional-grade
- AutoCAD deliverables and permit coordination usually reserved for large companies.
Why It Matters
Whether you are fixing a roof or installing solar, having an independent expert means:
- Contractor Accountability: You have the "as-built" data to ensure the work is done right.
- Property Value: Every repair is documented and permitted, protecting your resale price.
- Insurance Peace of Mind: You have the paperwork to prove your home is up to code if you ever need to file a claim.
For The Contractor
In an industry where "time is money," a single measurement error can bankrupt your margins. Kern Skies is the secret weapon for local crews who are tired of losing weeks to city paperwork and manual site walks.
We are fully proficient in SolarAPP+ and Accela, allowing us to bypass the friction of manual reviews and trigger instant digital approvals for qualifying projects.
By delivering up-to-code plans and deliverables for AutoCAD, we move your crew from the bid to the roof 14 days faster than the competition.
We also utilize professional estimator software ensuring you can bid with 100% honesty and execute with 100% accuracy.
Professional Solutions for Solar, Roofing, and Skilled Trades
- The "Bid-Loss" Delay: Stop dropping everything for a manual site walk. We provide high-precision aerial site audits and use expert estimator software so you can bid accurately from your office and beat the competition to the contract.
- The Profit-Eating "Go-Back": No more sending an estimator back to a house because a measurement was missed or a roof pitch was guessed. Our "Zero Go-Back" digital take-offs ensure your material orders are 100% accurate the first time.
- The AutoCAD Bottleneck: We deliver up-to-code plans and deliverables for AutoCAD that are ready for immediate city submission, eliminating the wait for expensive third-party designers.
- The SolarAPP+ & Accela Advantage: We specialize in SolarAPP+ and Accela workflows. For eligible residential projects, this means automated code-compliance checks and instant permit issuance, moving you to installation while others are stuck in the review pile.
- The "Truck Roll" Overhead: Drastically reduce fuel, labor, and vehicle wear-and-tear. Use our expedited "Field-to-File" system to handle the technical data collection so your crews only roll when it's time to build.
- The Permit Runner & Building Manager: Hand off the paperwork. We act as your technical back-office, handling filings, clearing Correction Notices, and ordering inspections so you can focus on production and sales.
- The Solar Setback Trap: Avoid costly rework caused by ignored fire-code setbacks. We provide the "ground truth" data on every roof, ensuring your solar layouts are compliant and optimized before the first panel is mounted.