Hello all,
First let me say hi! Great forum and I have been reading for some time, this is my first post. I've read some forums here that are similar to my issue, but I wanted to post ours and see if anyone could help. Let me post my scenario if I may...hopefully some of you can provide me with some hope!
My wife and I currently live in the mountains of Georgia in a great little house. We are about in the middle stages of trying to "convert" our house into a b&b. We've jumped through a number of hoops already only to encounter more road blocks..
We understand the risks, costs all and all that goes with trying to run a b&b. This b&b will not be funding our lives, it is more for a little spare income here and there, but we are doing it more for the hospitality end of the spectrum. We think our house is something special and the area around it, and provides a nice experience for people to visit. Our house has 4 bedrooms, but we will only be renting out 1 bedroom to start with.
So anyways, on to the business aspect. First, we already have a LLC formed to run the business under. We have visited the various county offices and applied for all the necessary business and other permits required by the county. Everything seemed to be going great and we were about be handed our permits until the county official mentioned that she didn't know if the house fell under the fire jurisdiction. So we said ok, we'll meet with the fire chief, not a problem at all, he was actually very nice but now It seems now we have completely opened a pandora's box of issues!!
My wife and I have a number of questions, and the county office provides little to no help, it seems every answer we get; some other official will contradict that statement. So maybe some of you can shed some light based on your experiences. Maybe i'm not asking the right questions to the county? The people at the offices are very nice, the fire chief even picks up his cell phone when I call him, but no one can give me a straight 100% answer.
Our house is a relatively new house, built in 2006 and built remarkably to code at that time. The HVAC is exceptional, fire alarms in every room, large windows for access outside, etc etc.
To rent out 1 room, the fire chief first said we should be fine as long as we aren't renting out 2 rooms. Then he said we could rent out 2 rooms as long as we had under 4 people staying with us at any time, as long as we have a fire alarm and the windows open to an exit, which they do. Now he is saying we need to outfit the entire house with spinkler system as we fall under the national lodging/boarding system. We have a well, and I've researched that the cost of this would be astronomical considering we are only renting out 1 room!! The room is on the main floor, and the main floor has direct access outdoors.
I've asked the chief to see the code myself, and he directed me to the NFPA page where they want 90 dollars to buy the code book! Shouldn't this document of public safety be...well....made to the Public for free? Do we really fall under the International Building Codes jurisdiction??
This is the ONLY document the county can provide me with concerning b&b's..
http://health.state.ga.us/pdfs/environmental/tourist/touristrules.pdf
The other questions that come to our mind, we have been to a number of B&B's throughout the state, and 0% of them have had sprinkler systems, nor have they had 2 door exits in any room. Are we missing something here?
We feel very frustrated and lost as their seem to be no clear cut documents about running a b&b in our state according to law, as in other states I have seen.
Sorry if this post was a big wall of text, but any help or direction would be appreciated. I turned to this forum to get some perspective from people who may have been in this position before, I am sure their have been!
A big thank you to you all!
First let me say hi! Great forum and I have been reading for some time, this is my first post. I've read some forums here that are similar to my issue, but I wanted to post ours and see if anyone could help. Let me post my scenario if I may...hopefully some of you can provide me with some hope!
My wife and I currently live in the mountains of Georgia in a great little house. We are about in the middle stages of trying to "convert" our house into a b&b. We've jumped through a number of hoops already only to encounter more road blocks..
We understand the risks, costs all and all that goes with trying to run a b&b. This b&b will not be funding our lives, it is more for a little spare income here and there, but we are doing it more for the hospitality end of the spectrum. We think our house is something special and the area around it, and provides a nice experience for people to visit. Our house has 4 bedrooms, but we will only be renting out 1 bedroom to start with.
So anyways, on to the business aspect. First, we already have a LLC formed to run the business under. We have visited the various county offices and applied for all the necessary business and other permits required by the county. Everything seemed to be going great and we were about be handed our permits until the county official mentioned that she didn't know if the house fell under the fire jurisdiction. So we said ok, we'll meet with the fire chief, not a problem at all, he was actually very nice but now It seems now we have completely opened a pandora's box of issues!!
My wife and I have a number of questions, and the county office provides little to no help, it seems every answer we get; some other official will contradict that statement. So maybe some of you can shed some light based on your experiences. Maybe i'm not asking the right questions to the county? The people at the offices are very nice, the fire chief even picks up his cell phone when I call him, but no one can give me a straight 100% answer.
Our house is a relatively new house, built in 2006 and built remarkably to code at that time. The HVAC is exceptional, fire alarms in every room, large windows for access outside, etc etc.
To rent out 1 room, the fire chief first said we should be fine as long as we aren't renting out 2 rooms. Then he said we could rent out 2 rooms as long as we had under 4 people staying with us at any time, as long as we have a fire alarm and the windows open to an exit, which they do. Now he is saying we need to outfit the entire house with spinkler system as we fall under the national lodging/boarding system. We have a well, and I've researched that the cost of this would be astronomical considering we are only renting out 1 room!! The room is on the main floor, and the main floor has direct access outdoors.
I've asked the chief to see the code myself, and he directed me to the NFPA page where they want 90 dollars to buy the code book! Shouldn't this document of public safety be...well....made to the Public for free? Do we really fall under the International Building Codes jurisdiction??
This is the ONLY document the county can provide me with concerning b&b's..
http://health.state.ga.us/pdfs/environmental/tourist/touristrules.pdf
The other questions that come to our mind, we have been to a number of B&B's throughout the state, and 0% of them have had sprinkler systems, nor have they had 2 door exits in any room. Are we missing something here?
We feel very frustrated and lost as their seem to be no clear cut documents about running a b&b in our state according to law, as in other states I have seen.
Sorry if this post was a big wall of text, but any help or direction would be appreciated. I turned to this forum to get some perspective from people who may have been in this position before, I am sure their have been!
A big thank you to you all!