Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling inspects, Kaminskiy Care and Repair fixes what the report finds: apartment buildings under SB 721, condominium associations under SB 326.
BBBAccredited BusinessKaminskiy Care and Repair inspects and repairs the exterior elevated elements that California's balcony law, SB 721 (Health and Safety Code 17973), requires on Irvine apartment buildings with three or more units: the wood-framed balconies, decks, open walkways and exterior stairs that serve the garden apartments of Woodbridge and Westpark, the rental belt around UCI and the podium buildings of the Irvine Business Complex. Our sister company Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807), performs the inspection and signs the report, and you have it inside the 45 days the statute allows. Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1106209) then prices each finding in writing, files the permit with the City of Irvine and finishes the repairs for the close-out. A condominium association under SB 326 brings us the engineer's report and we do the work. Our Orange County office is in Irvine, on Michelson Drive.
Garden apartments, podium buildings, condo associations.
For an Irvine apartment owner the statute comes down to three obligations: a qualified inspection of every wood-supported balcony, deck, walkway and stair that stands more than six feet off the ground, a written report that stays in the building's file for two inspection cycles, and repairs finished inside the deadlines the report starts. Kaminskiy covers all three under one roof. We count the element types on the building, inspect at least 15 percent of each, hand you the report with photos inside 45 days, then write a price per finding, file the permit with the City of Irvine and do the work for the close-out inspection.
AFTERBEFOREThe SB 721 Inspection
The Signed ReportRotted Joists & Ledgers
Deck Coatings & Flashing
Guardrails & Handrails
Open Walkways & Stairs
Immediate-Threat Shoring
Close-out & RecordsEach of these is a call our Irvine office takes every week. The inspection goes on the calendar within days, a report with findings gets a written price per item and a permit plan before the clock runs down, and an immediate threat is shored before anything else.
Tell us the street, the unit count and whether anyone has inspected before. We confirm which law applies and quote the inspection in writing on the call.
Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling inspects a sample of every element type and signs the report, with photos and the repair list, inside the 45 days.
Kaminskiy Care and Repair prices every finding in writing, files the permit with the City of Irvine inside 120 days, does the work and documents it for the final.
Every job is backed in writing by our workmanship warranty and done by a Kaminskiy-certified, background checked technician.
The paint and the stucco tell the inspector very little. What matters is the wood that carries the load into the building (the joists, the ledger, the rim board, the stair stringers and the post bases) and the membrane, flashing and sealant that keep water off that wood. On an Irvine stucco walk-up the joist ends and the ledger are sealed behind a soffit, so the statute allows the inspector to open a section, use a moisture meter or a borescope, and read what the courtyard view hides.
A rental building with three or more units, which is most of the garden apartments and podium buildings in Irvine, is under SB 721: first inspection due January 1, 2026, then every six years. A condominium project with three or more units is under SB 326 (Civil Code 5551) instead: due January 1, 2025, then every nine years, with the inspection itself reserved for a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect. Woodbridge, University Park, Westpark and the Great Park villages hold both kinds of building, often across the street from each other.
The report starts the first one: the owner applies to the City of Irvine for the repair permit within 120 days. The permit starts the second: the repairs are complete within 120 days of its issue. An element tagged an immediate threat skips the queue, is closed off at once and is reported to the City's Community Development Department within 15 days. Let the repairs run 180 days late and the inspector must notify the City; 30 days after that notice the daily penalty begins.
A single soft joist end or a rotted post base is cut back to sound wood and sistered or replaced. Rot that runs the length of the ledger, or through most of the joists, means the balcony comes off and is framed again. Either way the waterproofing is redone edge to edge, because a patched membrane on an Irvine deck is where the next leak starts, and the close-out inspection expects a complete system.
Irvine is a planned city, and its apartment stock came in waves: the stucco garden apartments and stacked flats of the first villages in the 1970s and 1980s, the student and workforce rentals around the University of California campus, and the podium and wrap buildings of the last two decades in the Irvine Business Complex and the Great Park villages. A handful of very large owners hold whole communities, and nearly every condominium answers to an association. Which wave your building belongs to decides what the inspection finds.
Two- and three-story wood-frame stucco buildings set around courtyards, greenbelts and the Woodbridge lakes, with open stairs, exterior walkways and cantilevered balconies now forty to fifty years old. The water that does the damage here is rarely rain. Forty years of landscape irrigation has soaked stair bases, post bottoms and walkway edges, and the ledger behind the stucco has quietly gone soft where the balcony meets the wall. The usual finding is rot at the joist ends and the ledger; the usual repair is new joist ends, a new ledger and flashing, a fresh membrane and guardrails re-set into solid wood. Many of these streets are condominium associations under SB 326, and we repair from the engineer's report.
The densest rentals in the city serve the University of California campus, and they turn over every summer. That means the exterior stairs and corridor walkways carry more feet than any balcony, the handrails loosen first, and the coating on a landing wears through to the plywood before anyone reports it. The marine layer rolls in here most mornings from May through July and the afternoon breeze dries it, so coatings crack along the seams and the stair stringers rot at the bottom. The inspection on these buildings is planned around the academic calendar and tenant access, and an owner with several communities gets one scope for all of them.
Wood-frame floors over concrete podiums, wrap buildings around parking structures and stacked flats with balconies on a liquid-applied membrane. The framing is young, so the failures are at the details: a door threshold flashed short, a sealant joint the Santa Ana winds have opened, a scupper that ponds water against the stucco. A building whose permit was issued on or after January 1, 2019 runs on its own clock, an inspection within six years of its certificate of occupancy, and a good share of the Great Park and Business Complex stock falls inside that window. The condominium flats here are under SB 326; the rental buildings are under SB 721.
Count the units and look at the deed. A building with three or more rental units is under SB 721 (Health and Safety Code 17973): the first inspection was due January 1, 2026 and it repeats every six years. A condominium project with three or more units is under SB 326 (Civil Code 5551): due January 1, 2025, every nine years, and inspected by a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect. A duplex is under neither law, though the rot does not read the statute. Own an apartment community that was once a condominium map, or the other way round, and the answer turns on how the units are held today; send us the address and we settle it on the call.
The inspector lists every type of exterior elevated element on the building, then examines at least 15 percent of each type by direct visual inspection or a comparable method: the walking surface, the coating and flashing, the guardrail and its anchors, and the framing beneath, read with a moisture meter, a borescope or by opening the soffit where it is enclosed. The report records the current condition of each element, its expected remaining service life, whether more inspection is needed, and which elements, if any, are an immediate threat to the people using them.
Health and Safety Code 17973 names four kinds of inspector: a licensed architect, a licensed civil or structural engineer, a general contractor holding an A, B or C-5 license with at least five years as a license holder constructing multistory wood-frame buildings, or an individual certified as a building inspector or building official. The inspector may not be employed by the City while performing the inspection. In Irvine the inspection is performed by Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, our sister company, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807), and the repairs by Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1106209).
The inspection is one price for the building, quoted on the call from the number of elements, the number of element types and how the framing can be reached, and confirmed in writing before we schedule. Repairs are priced per finding, from the report, each on its own line: a sistered joist end is one line, a re-sloped and recoated walkway is another, a rebuilt cantilever with a new guardrail is a larger one. You see every line before any work is booked, and you may put the repairs out to bid with our report if you prefer.
We check which law applies, count the element types from the street view and any plans you have, and put the inspection price in writing the same call.
Tenants are notified in advance. The sample is inspected from the deck and from underneath, enclosed framing is metered or opened at a soffit, every element is photographed, and the building is left as we found it.
Signed by Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, with photos, findings, service-life estimates and a repair list, plus the 15-day notice to the City if any element is an immediate threat. It usually lands well before the deadline.
A written price per finding, the permit application to the City of Irvine within 120 days of the report, shoring where it is needed first, the repairs within the permit window, and a close-out letter with photos for your records and your lender.
Health and Safety Code 17973(a) lists the qualified inspectors: a licensed architect, a licensed civil or structural engineer, a general contractor holding an A, B or C-5 license with five years' experience as a license holder in multistory wood-frame construction, or a certified building inspector. Subdivision (g) requires the repairs to be made by a qualified and licensed contractor, following the inspector's recommendations, the Building Standards Code and the City's rules; nothing in the section stops the inspecting company's group from doing them. The owner contracts with the inspecting company directly, as the statute requires. In Irvine that is Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling for the inspection and the report, with the repairs contracted separately to Kaminskiy Care and Repair, so the report stands on its own if you take it elsewhere.
The local enforcement agency is the City of Irvine's Community Development Department, Building and Safety Division, at 1 Civic Center Plaza. The City's own list of work that needs no permit stops at platforms and walks not more than 30 inches above grade, and an SB 721 element is by definition more than six feet up, so a balcony, stair or walkway repair takes a building permit. Irvine's online no-plan-check permit list (water heaters, HVAC changeouts, re-roofs, minor residential work) does not name balcony repairs, so the repair is filed as a standard plan-check permit with the inspector's report and the repair detail attached; a rebuilt cantilever or a changed guardrail needs drawings. Applications filed since January 1, 2026 build to the 2025 California Building Standards Code with Irvine's amendments. The City publishes no separate SB 721 page or portal; the report stays in the owner's records, and an immediate threat is reported to Building and Safety within 15 days.
The first inspection was due January 1, 2026 (AB 2579 moved it back a year from January 1, 2025) and it repeats every six years, with a building permitted on or after January 1, 2019 inspected within six years of its certificate of occupancy. After a report, the permit application is due within 120 days and the repairs within 120 days of the permit. If the repairs are still open 180 days after the report, the inspector notifies the City, and 30 days after that notice a civil penalty of one hundred to five hundred dollars per day runs until the work is done, with a building safety lien available to the City behind it. The report is kept for two inspection cycles and disclosed to a buyer when the building sells.
Based in Irvine, on Michelson Drive. The Orange County crew starts its day on Michelson Drive by the 405, so an Irvine inspection is usually on the calendar within days and a repair crew is minutes from the Business Complex, Woodbridge and the campus rentals. Call 714-844-1582, text a photo of the balcony or the notice, or send the form. Since 2023 the crew has made 192 repair visits to 130 Irvine homes.
Can't find your answer? Call 714-844-1582 and ask us anything.
Call 714-844-1582It is the inspection California requires of the exterior elevated elements on an apartment building with three or more units: balconies, decks, porches, stairways, walkways and entry structures that stand more than six feet above grade and rely substantially on wood for support, together with their railings and waterproofing. A qualified inspector identifies every element type, examines at least 15 percent of each, and signs a written report with photos within 45 days. The first inspection was due January 1, 2026 and it repeats every six years.
Health and Safety Code 17973 allows four: a licensed architect, a licensed civil or structural engineer, a general contractor holding an A, B or C-5 license with at least five years as a license holder constructing multistory wood-frame buildings, or an individual certified as a building inspector or building official. The inspector may not be an employee of the City while inspecting. In Irvine the inspection is performed by Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, our sister company, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807); Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1106209) does the repairs.
Two companies in one group do it: Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling performs the inspection and signs the report; Kaminskiy Care and Repair contracts the repairs separately. The statute requires the repairs to be done by a qualified and licensed contractor to the inspector's recommendations and the Building Standards Code; it does not bar the inspector's group from being that contractor. Every finding in our report carries a photo and a description, so the report is usable on its own, and you are free to bid the repairs to anyone.
One price for the building, set on the call by the number of elements, how many types there are and how the framing can be reached: a fourplex in Northwood and a 200-unit podium building in the Business Complex are very different numbers. Repairs are priced per finding from the report, in writing, before anything is scheduled. Call 714-844-1582 with the address and the unit count and we quote the inspection while you are on the line.
Book the inspection now and keep the booking confirmation. The daily penalty in the statute attaches to repairs left undone after a report, not to the inspection date itself, and an owner who can show the City a scheduled inspection is in a far better place than one who is still deciding. If the inspection finds an immediate threat, that element is closed and shored the same visit and reported to the City within 15 days; everything else goes onto the 120-day permit clock.
In a condominium project the association is responsible for the SB 326 inspection and, under most governing documents, for the load-bearing framing and the waterproofing it maintains as common area, with exclusive-use balconies divided as the CC&Rs say. The inspection itself must be performed by a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect. We take that report and do the repairs, building by building so residents keep their stairs and walkways, and documented for the reserve study.
The inspection is usually on the calendar within days of the call, and the signed report is in your file well inside the 45 days the law allows. Repairs run on the statute's two clocks: a written price per finding, the permit application to the City of Irvine within 120 days of the report, and the work within 120 days of the permit. An immediate-threat element is closed off and shored the day it is found.
Every Irvine village from our office on Michelson Drive, including Woodbridge, Westpark, Northwood, University Park, Turtle Rock, Quail Hill, University Town Center, the Irvine Business Complex, Woodbury, Portola Springs and the Great Park, plus Tustin, Lake Forest, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach and the rest of Orange County. Call 714-844-1582 with the building's address and we confirm it on the call.
Send the address, the unit count and whether a report already exists, and we call back with a price and a date. Calling is faster: 714-844-1582.
A qualified inspection, a signed report inside 45 days, and every repair it lists, from the Kaminskiy team based in Irvine.
We answer in under three rings, 24/7.No price games. You get a clear written quote before any work begins, backed by our workmanship warranty.
