CHECKED BY A BUILDING OFFICIAL — BEFORE YOU SUBMIT

PASS PLAN REVIEW THE FIRST TIME

$149

Submit a plan set with problems in it and the building department will find them — on their schedule. A correction letter, a redraw, a resubmittal, and weeks added to a project that hasn't broken ground. Send the set here first and you get that correction list before the city writes it: every item a plans examiner would flag, the code section behind it, and what fixes it on the drawing.

Written by an ICC-Certified Building Official who reviews permit sets from the other side of the counter.

HOW IT WORKS
01
Send your plans
Email the set as a PDF — or a Drive/Dropbox link if it is large — with the city you will submit to and a line about the project. Hand drawings are fine if they are legible.
02
I tell you whether I can take it
Within one business day. If it falls outside what I can review — my own jurisdiction, or work that genuinely needs an engineer — you hear that instead of a bill. If I can take it, you get a payment link for $149, or a firm quote if the set is bigger than that scope.
03
You get the report
3-5 business days after payment. Sheet by sheet: every item that would draw a correction, the code section behind it, and what fixes it on the drawing — plus anything the counter would reject the set for as incomplete.
SEND YOUR PLANS →

Opens your email with the questions prefilled. Or write review@projectcalc.app directly.
Nothing is charged until you have heard back that I can take it.

Already heard back that it's a $149 job? Pay here and the check starts.

What a plans examiner actually does with your set

Plan review is two passes. The first is a completeness check, often done at the counter before your set is even accepted: is there a site plan, are the drawings dimensioned, are member sizes and spans called out, is there enough on paper to review at all? A set that fails this one doesn't get corrections — it gets handed back, and you start over. The second pass is the code review: the examiner works through the drawings looking for the places where what you drew and what the adopted code requires disagree, and every disagreement becomes a numbered item on a correction letter.

That letter is the expensive part. Not the permit fee — the cycle. Each round of corrections means revising the drawings, resubmitting, and going back into the review queue, and on a busy counter each round is measured in weeks. Most correction letters on residential projects are full of findable problems: a guard drawn too short, a stair that doesn't work out, a beam with no size on it, a detail the examiner needs and cannot find. Findable problems can be found early, which is the entire service.

Why the edition matters more than usual right now

Jurisdictions are mid-changeover between the 2021 and 2024 International Residential Code, and the 2024 edition renumbered whole chapters— guards moved from R312 to R321, and R310 now means smoke alarms in the 2024 book when it meant emergency escape openings in the 2021. A plan note citing the wrong edition points your examiner at a completely different subject, so the first thing this check establishes is which book your city is actually enforcing — and every section in your report is numbered the way that edition prints it.

What this is, and what it isn't

This is code consulting: an experienced read of your drawings against the published code, in writing, so you can fix things while they are still lines on paper. It is nota design professional's stamp, not sealed engineering, and not an approval — only your building department can approve plans, and this check doesn't bind their review. Where something genuinely needs an engineer, the report tells you that before the city does.

Common questions

What exactly do I get back?
A PDF written the way a plans examiner writes a correction letter, because that is the document it exists to prevent. Sheet by sheet: each item that would draw a correction, what the requirement actually means in plain English, the code section behind it — numbered the way YOUR adopted edition prints it — and what specifically fixes it on the drawing. Plus the completeness check: anything a permit counter would reject the set for before review even starts, from a missing site plan to an unlabeled detail, and the questions worth asking your department before you submit.
Does this mean my plans are approved?
No — only your building department can approve plans, and no private reviewer can promise what they will do. What this does is find the corrections before they do, so your first submittal reads like a second one. You still might get comments: local amendments, zoning overlays, and examiner discretion are real. The difference is you will have far fewer, and for anything that does come back you will already have the code language to respond with.
What does the $149 cover, and what gets quoted instead?
$149 is for a single-structure residential project: a deck, detached garage, shed or accessory building, basement finish, interior remodel, or a modest addition. A full new-dwelling set, a project with multiple buildings, or anything commercial is more hours than that price honestly buys, so those get a firm quote in the screening reply — before you pay anything — instead of a quietly thinner review.
Do you review plans in your own jurisdiction?
No. I hold an ICC Certified Building Official credential and work in code enforcement, so reviewing projects in the jurisdiction I serve would be a conflict of interest. Send the set and I will tell you up front if your project falls in an area I have to decline — before you pay anything.
Is this engineering, or an official plan review?
Neither. This is code consulting: an experienced read of your drawings against the published code. It is not a design professional’s stamp, not sealed calculations, and it does not substitute for or bind your building department’s own review. Where something genuinely needs an engineer — an oversized beam, unusual loads, questionable soil — the report says so plainly, which is itself worth knowing before you submit.
How fast, and how do I pay?
Send the plans first. Within one business day you get a yes or no on whether I can take it — and either a payment link for $149 or, for a bigger set, a firm quote. The report follows within 3-5 business days of payment. No payment is taken before the set is screened, so there is nothing to refund on a job I cannot help with.
Do you check zoning, setbacks, and HOA rules?
The review is a building-code review — structural provisions, egress, stairs and guards, energy basics, the things a plans examiner reads drawings for. Where the set makes an obvious zoning-shaped problem visible, a structure drawn on a property line for instance, the report flags it, but setbacks, lot coverage, easements, and HOA covenants are local questions the report cannot settle. The completeness section tells you which of those answers to bring to the counter.
My drawings are hand-drawn. Is that a problem?
Not by itself — most departments accept legible hand drawings for residential work, and plenty of permitted decks were drawn at a kitchen table. What matters is whether the set shows what the examiner needs: dimensions, member sizes, spans, connections, footing details. If yours is missing something a department would bounce it for, that is exactly what the completeness check is for.
SEND YOUR PLANS →

Brent J. — ICC-Certified Building Official · Founder of ProjectCalc

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