Virtual Inspections

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Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
some cities here are dong facetime inspections. huntington beach is one of them.
i emailed the lighting certification in to the inspector.

acrobat pro is still the go to app for all this. i had a standalone
i'd used for three years after adobe quit supporting it, the last
verson of OSX killed it, and i had to start paying $15 a month
for something i owned. i use it 'cause there isn't an adequate
substitute. but adobe still sucks.
 

tshea

Senior Member
Location
Wisconsin
We are doing virtual inspections. Part of the process is trust and communication with the inspector. We take pictures and email to inspector. If he wants more, we have to go back and get some more pictures. So far we have taken enough to pass the inspection.
 

tom baker

First Chief Moderator
Staff member
Very popular here in WA, started before the covid 19 issues. Make an appointment, 15 min slot, often same day. You have a tablet or phone with internet, shoot video and the inspector watches. I've not done it so don't know how they verify where you are at.
 

texie

Senior Member
Location
Fort Collins, Colorado
Occupation
Electrician, Contractor, Inspector
Very popular here in WA, started before the covid 19 issues. Make an appointment, 15 min slot, often same day. You have a tablet or phone with internet, shoot video and the inspector watches. I've not done it so don't know how they verify where you are at.
I think this is something that will become the norm for many routine inspections. All covid 19 did was accelerate the idea.
 

James L

Senior Member
Location
Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
Occupation
Electrician
I had a virtual inspection last year, in May I think
Lawrence, Kansas - Jayhawks country

Started a video call outside the house. Panned to the address to verify. Went into the house and down the hall to the bathroom.

There wasn't much to see, just a gfci and fan/light combo.
 

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
I just finished a job with the university of Florida; they did the majority of my inspections virtually. It was via Zoom, and I’d walk around with a tablet showing whatever they asked to see.

I’ll be honest I didn’t mind it, primarily because the inspection times were set at specific times instead of me waiting around for an AM or PM inspection.

The most difficult part of the job was pretending to care about UF athletics.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
You can bet that if you ever get caught "pulling one over", you won't be allowed to use that service again, losing the convenience of better scheduling opportunities as well. I'd guess this mostly is used for rough in inspection activity and most projects will still have an in person final inspection, well larger projects for certain.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I will say they no longer have in person licensing testing here, all on line now Not certain on details of how it works. Think using some software that is used all over the country for various licensing testing and not just electrical licensing testing.
 

Bluegrass Boy

Senior Member
Location
Texas
Occupation
Commercial/ Industrial/ Maintenance Electrician
Well, when I first started reading through this thread I was thinking, oh no, it will be like when you call you credit card company or any customer service line , and you hear them typing, probably your question, ( someone that doesn’t know the answer) and their english is almost entirely not understandable. 😑
 

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
some cities here are dong facetime inspections. huntington beach is one of them.
i emailed the lighting certification in to the inspector.

acrobat pro is still the go to app for all this. i had a standalone
i'd used for three years after adobe quit supporting it, the last
verson of OSX killed it, and i had to start paying $15 a month
for something i owned. i use it 'cause there isn't an adequate
substitute.
but adobe still sucks.
Bluebeam is your friend. Pay once, use forever. The really expensive version is $600, but worth the price. You could create a PDF from scratch if you wanted to.
 

infinity

Moderator
Staff member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Journeyman Electrician
I like the idea for certain types of inspections. Does an inspector really need to drive to a site to look at the rough-in on a bathroom? Besides the contractor has all of the liability if something happens down the road so if the inspector missed something during the virtual inspection it's still on the contractor.
 

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
Bluebeam is your friend. Pay once, use forever. The really expensive version is $600, but worth the price. You could create a PDF from scratch if you wanted to.

I have Bluebeam on my PC at the office I use for remote work, but they’ve stopped making a Mac version. You can run it in Parallels on an intel machine, but Randy is using an M1 Mac now that wouldn’t support it as far as I know.

I’m using Adobe DC on my Mac and it’s not a great experience. Crashes often, and slow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
I have Bluebeam on my PC at the office I use for remote work, but they’ve stopped making a Mac version. You can run it in Parallels on an intel machine, but Randy is using an M1 Mac now that wouldn’t support it as far as I know.

I’m using Adobe DC on my Mac and it’s not a great experience. Crashes often, and slow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Well, poo, I didn't know they'd stopped supporting Mac. I took a quick look at Parallels and it looks like they are working on an M1 version, but I don't know if Randy is running Parallels and they're not saying when that will happen. They have released a version of 16 under their Technical Preview Program that will do Windows, but I don't know if it's worth adopting the bleeding edge just to get a PDF program.
 

brantmacga

Señor Member
Location
Georgia
Occupation
Former Child
Well, poo, I didn't know they'd stopped supporting Mac. I took a quick look at Parallels and it looks like they are working on an M1 version, but I don't know if Randy is running Parallels and they're not saying when that will happen. They have released a version of 16 under their Technical Preview Program that will do Windows, but I don't know if it's worth adopting the bleeding edge just to get a PDF program.

The M1 version of parallels runs windows for ARM, something a consumer cannot buy. You have to sign up for a developer account to get it. I don’t think Microsoft has said anything as of now about releasing a consumer version, but since they’re also working on their own new ARM based CPU’s, maybe that will change soon.


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Fulthrotl

~Autocorrect is My Worst Enema.~
I have Bluebeam on my PC at the office I use for remote work, but they’ve stopped making a Mac version. You can run it in Parallels on an intel machine, but Randy is using an M1 Mac now that wouldn’t support it as far as I know.

I’m using Adobe DC on my Mac and it’s not a great experience. Crashes often, and slow.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

the flavor of acrobat pro DC is what i'm using, and it works very well. it's running on the emulator.

the only thing i've found buggy is snagit. sometimes, from some content, if i capture something,
and copy it, and go to paste it in facebook, running on chrome, it'll freeze the whole system. not
all the time, but it seems to be based on what is being scraped off the screen.

the logical solution is to quit using facebook. i'm about there.

everything i'm using the computer for is working very well, and is stupid fast. not to mention
if you get ORBI pro and use it with the M1, the limit is your net provider speed.

on my neighbors porch, across the street, i get around 500MB. inside the house, i'm topping at
about 800MB, but that is the limit of my "1GB" internet. they lied. who knew?

carbon copy cloner flies. i can back up the entire laptop, both drives, about 1.7 TB in under 30 min.

streaming video, it runs all day on half a battery. all day.

i'm keeping my old macbook pro, as i have a standalone copy of autocad on it, and i need it from time
to time. that is the only thing i'm missing.

i found leather skins for all the apple stuff, nice stuff, from ANDAR.

i'm portable, and when i get stir crazy, head for the beach with my stuff, and work from there, or the shop.

and it's 88 degrees here today. except for all the ambulance sirens taking people to hospitals that don't
have any open beds, and the homeless people everywhere, it's lovely.
 
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