lundi 20 janvier 2014

Trouble with county during an expansion.

7 years ago I started a mushroom inoculate and supply mail order company.



5 years ago I started playing with growing rare mushrooms to the US and supplying them to high end restaurants in limited supply.



9 months ago I bought a 160,000 sq foot 5 story light industrial building. Built out 60,000 sq foot for my mushroom production, 10,000 sq foot for the mail order supply, 2,000 commercial kitchen to dry mushrooms to expand my product line, 2,000 sq foot lab, and 4,000 sq foot of offices.



8 months ago we added a 4,000 sq foot addition to mix and sterilize the substrate that we use because it can be dusty or a bit smelly. Did not want this in our main building.



3 months ago we had our custom made substrate mixing and sterilizing line installed. Everything permitted, stamped, and installed, but the county inspectors will not sign off so we can run the line. Every time it is inspected they find a possible code issue and I spend more money chasing down something that dose not exist. If I have the plumber on site the inspector finds an electrical issue. At one point we were even made to have a machinery safety inspector come out and nothing was found, but it is out of the scope of the counties inspection office and is an OSHA issue



We are still using the old substrate mixing equipment at my old location and driving it 38 miles to our new location. It takes 3 workers a week (120 man hours) to make the same amount of substrate as the new line should be able to put out with 2 workers in a day (16 man hours).



I have only been able to think of 3 reasons to why were getting the run around from the inspector.

The inspectors sun work for us for about 3 days through a temp agency before we let him go.

The county was not 100% behind us moving into the building because of the sq feet to worker ratio.

The county dose not like that I use a temp agency for the first 60 days of employment before we hire.



We are slightly over our projected employment numbers from our time line, but were now limited to where we can no longer expand. I did not make any “deals” with the county so I don't think the county is trying to hold something over me. Currently were only able to use 40,000 sq feet of our production floor and I'm ready to build out the other 60,000 sq foot of production floor.



I want to give the inspectors and the county the benefit of the doubt, but I’m about done playing there games. The electrician and the plumber are asking me to make a complaint at the state level.



Has anyone ever had a similar issue or have any advice?





via Small-Business-Forum.net http://ift.tt/KyFpPb

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