Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling performs the inspection and signs the report, Kaminskiy Care and Repair makes the repairs from our Murphy Avenue office: apartment buildings under SB 721, condominium associations under SB 326.
BBBAccredited BusinessSunnyvale rents more than half of its homes, and the buildings that hold them are mostly two- and three-story wood-frame garden apartments from the 1960s through the 1980s along El Camino Real, Fair Oaks Avenue, Mary Avenue and Wolfe Road, with open stairs, second-floor walkways and balconies that California's balcony law (SB 721, Health and Safety Code 17973) now requires inspected and repaired. The inspection is performed by Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, our sister company, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807), and booked through our Sunnyvale office on Murphy Avenue; the signed report is in your hands inside 45 days; and Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1106209), whose repair crew works out of that office, writes a price for every finding, takes the permit through the City's One-Stop Permit Center and completes the work for the re-inspection. A condominium or townhome association under SB 326 sends us its engineer's report and we do what it lists. Call 408-916-4022 with the building's address.
Garden apartments, condos, townhomes and podium buildings.
If you own a rental building of three or more units in Sunnyvale, Health and Safety Code 17973 asks three things: get every wood-framed balcony, deck, stair and walkway more than six feet above grade inspected by someone the statute qualifies, keep the written report, and finish the repairs it lists inside the deadlines. The inspector counts each kind of element, examines at least 15 percent of each, and reports within 45 days. We book the inspection from Murphy Avenue, deliver the report, then price every finding on its own line, file the permit with the Building Safety Division and close the work out for the re-inspection.
AFTERBEFOREThe SB 721 Inspection
The Written ReportDry Rot & Framing
Waterproofing & Coating
Railings & Guards
Stairs & Walkways
Emergency Shoring
Re-inspection & Close-outEvery line above is a call our Murphy Avenue office has taken. The inspection goes on the calendar within days, each finding gets a written scope and a permit plan inside the statute's deadlines, and anything tagged an immediate threat is closed and shored before the paperwork moves.
Give us the street and a guess at how many balconies, stairs and walkways the building carries. On that call you learn which law applies and get the inspection price in writing.
Tenants hear from us first, the sample is looked at from the walking surface and from underneath, enclosed framing is metered or opened, and a signed report with its repair list reaches you inside 45 days.
Every finding carries its own written price, E-OneStop takes the application inside the 120-day window, the City inspector finals the work, and the closing report goes in your file.
Every job is backed in writing by our workmanship warranty and done by a Kaminskiy-certified, background checked technician.
Not the paint and not the pretty side. The inspector wants the wood that carries a balcony or a walkway back into the building and the layers that keep rain off it: joist ends and the ledger hidden behind stucco, the stringer feet of an open stair where they sit on the landing, the deck membrane, its flashing, the scuppers and the bolts that hold the guardrail. Sunnyvale coatings fail from the sun first, under a dry season that runs from May into October, and then the November storms push water through the cracks into the framing. A moisture meter, a borescope or an opened soffit stands in where the wood cannot be seen; the statute says so.
Rental buildings of three or more units answer to SB 721, Health and Safety Code 17973: first inspection by January 1, 2026, then six-year cycles. Condominium projects of three or more units answer to SB 326, Civil Code 5551, and in Sunnyvale that is the townhome and condominium associations along Reed Avenue, Evelyn Terrace and the north side: first inspection by January 1, 2025, then nine-year cycles, by a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect and no one else. Own a fourplex and sit on a condo board, and both calendars are yours.
If the inspector calls an element an immediate threat, tenants are kept off it that day, it is shored where it needs to be, and the Building Safety Division hears about it within 15 days. Every other finding gets two 120-day windows, one to apply for the permit, one from the permit to finish the work. Let the repairs sit 180 days past the report and the inspector has to tell the City; a 30-day notice follows, and then the daily civil penalty.
A joist end, a stringer foot or a post base with rot in it is cut back to clean wood, sistered or replaced, and flashed. A ledger rotted along its length, or most of the joists gone, means the balcony comes down and goes back up on new framing. The waterproofing is always redone across the whole deck, because a patched membrane on a west-facing Sunnyvale balcony is the leak the inspector finds six years from now.
More than half of Sunnyvale's sixty-one thousand homes are rented, and most of the apartments that hold them are two- and three-story wood-frame garden buildings from the 1960s through the 1980s along the El Camino Real, Fair Oaks, Mary Avenue and Wolfe Road corridors, with condominium associations on the north side and new podium buildings around the Caltrain station and at Lawrence Station. The corridor decides what the inspection finds.
Two-story stucco garden complexes built from the early 1960s into the 1970s around courtyards, pools and carports, with open wood stairs and second-floor walkways serving every unit and small balconies off the living rooms. These buildings have the most elements to count in the city and the most feet on them. The courtyard sprinklers keep the stringer feet and the walkway post bases wet all year, the summer sun on the south and west faces checks the deck coating, the November rain follows the checks into the ledger, and the adobe clay under the footings heaves a post out of plumb between a wet winter and a dry August. The common findings are stringers soft at the landing, walkway coating worn to the plywood at the unit doors, and rot at the balcony joist ends behind stucco that looks fine from the pool.
The 1970s and 1980s condominium and townhome associations, many built as two-story clusters with wood balconies, private stairs and raised entry walks under redwoods and mature street trees that keep the north faces damp into spring. A condominium project here is under SB 326, so the association's engineer or architect does the inspection on the nine-year cycle; the board brings us the report and we rebuild the rotted post bases, the stair treads and the balcony framing it lists, phased so residents keep their doors. A rental building being converted to condominiums is inspected before the first close of escrow, and on the small lots a fourplex is inside SB 721 while a duplex is outside it.
The newest stock sits around the Caltrain station and at Lawrence Station: wood-framed floors over concrete podiums with balconies on liquid-applied membranes, leased to a workforce that moves every two or three years with the campuses on Wolfe Road and in Moffett Park. The framing is young, so the failures are at the details, a threshold flashed short, a sealant joint opened by the sun, a deck drain that ponds against the stucco, and a building whose permit was issued on or after January 1, 2019 is inspected within six years of its certificate of occupancy rather than by the 2026 date. A concrete high-rise is outside the law's wood test. The same office covers the garden apartments of Mountain View and Santa Clara, the Cupertino buildings whose Building Division publishes its own notice on the law, and the San Jose stock under that city's exterior elevated elements program, each at its own permit counter and on the same state clock.
Count the rental units under one roof: three or more and SB 721 applies, with the first inspection due by January 1, 2026 and the next every six years. A condominium project of three or more units, the associations on Reed Avenue, Evelyn Terrace and the north side among them, sits under SB 326 instead: due by January 1, 2025, then every nine years, with a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect doing the inspecting. A duplex escapes both laws and rots on the same schedule. Not sure what you own? The address tells us on the call.
First the inspector lists every kind of exterior elevated element the building has, then looks at no less than 15 percent of each kind: the surface people walk on and its coating, the flashing at the wall, the guardrail and whatever anchors it, and the framing below, read with a moisture meter or opened at the soffit when stucco covers it. The report says what condition each inspected element is in, how long it should last, whether something needs more investigation, and whether anything is an immediate threat to the people standing on it.
Health and Safety Code 17973 names four kinds of inspector: a licensed architect; a licensed civil or structural engineer; a general contractor with an A, B or C-5 license held at least five years with multistory wood-frame experience; or a certified building inspector or building official. Whoever it is may not be on the City's payroll for the job. In Sunnyvale 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).
One flat number for the inspection of the whole building, given on the call once we know how many elements there are, how many kinds, and whether the framing is open to view or buried in stucco; a twelve-unit court on Mary Avenue and a two-hundred-unit garden complex on Wolfe Road do not cost the same. Repairs are priced from the report, one written line per finding, and the owner or the board approves every line before a date goes on the calendar. The number does not grow once we are on the building.
Address, unit count, which law. We count the element kinds from the street view and any drawings you hold and name the inspection price in writing before hanging up.
Notices go to tenants, each sampled element is checked from the deck and from beneath, framing behind stucco is metered or opened, and every element gets a number and a photograph.
Signed, with findings, photographs, a service-life estimate and the repair list, inside 45 days, and the 15-day letter to the Building Safety Division if anything is an immediate threat.
Each finding scoped in writing, the E-OneStop application inside 120 days, shoring first where it is needed, the work inside the permit window, the closing report for the file.
Subdivision (a) of Health and Safety Code 17973 lists the people allowed to inspect: a licensed architect, a licensed civil or structural engineer, a general contractor holding an A, B or C-5 license for five years with multistory wood-frame experience, or a certified building inspector. Subdivision (g) covers the repairs and asks for a qualified, licensed contractor working to the inspector's recommendations, the Building Standards Code and Sunnyvale's rules; it says nothing against the inspecting company's group doing that work. The statute wants the owner to hire the inspecting company directly, so in Sunnyvale you contract the inspection with Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, booked through our Murphy Avenue office, and the repairs on a separate contract with Kaminskiy Care and Repair. Take the report to another contractor if you like; it was written to stand alone.
The local enforcement agency is the City of Sunnyvale's Community Development Department, Building Safety Division, at the One-Stop Permit Center on the second floor of City Hall, 456 West Olive Avenue, with applications filed through the City's E-OneStop online services. Sunnyvale's own sheet of work that needs no building permit stops at cosmetic work, and the state code's ordinary-repair exemption ends at a structural beam or a load-bearing support, so a balcony, stair or walkway repair that touches a ledger, a joist, a stringer or a guardrail takes a building permit. A like-for-like repair that leaves the exterior as it was is the simple scope the Permit Center reviews at an over-the-counter plan-check appointment; a rebuilt cantilever, a changed guardrail or anything that alters the face of a multifamily building goes through full plan check and Planning Division review. Work filed now is built to the 2025 California Building Code. Sunnyvale, unlike Cupertino and San Jose next door, publishes no SB 721 page or form of its own: the report lives in your records, and only an element tagged an immediate threat goes to the Building Safety Division, within 15 days.
January 1, 2026 was the first deadline; AB 2579 pushed it there from January 1, 2025, and from here the cycle is six years, except that a building permitted on or after January 1, 2019 is inspected within six years of its certificate of occupancy. A report with findings starts two clocks: 120 days to apply for the permit, 120 days from the permit to finish. Repairs still open 180 days after the report bring a notice from the inspector to the City and a 30-day notice to the owner, and after that the owner owes a civil penalty of one hundred to five hundred dollars per day until the work is done, with a building safety lien available to the City to collect it. Two cycles of reports stay in the file and go to the buyer when the building sells.
Downtown, on Murphy Avenue. The repair crew starts its day at 100 South Murphy Avenue, a few minutes from any apartment corridor in Sunnyvale, and the inspection is scheduled from the same desk, so a Sunnyvale building is usually on the calendar within days and a board has its scope the week the report lands. Call 408-916-4022, text a photo of the letter or the balcony, or send the form.
Can't find your answer? Call 408-916-4022 and ask us anything.
Call 408-916-4022An inspection California requires on rental buildings with three or more units, of what the statute calls exterior elevated elements: the balconies, decks, porches, stairways, walkways and entry structures that stand more than six feet above the ground and lean on wood for support, railings and waterproofing included. The inspector sorts the elements by kind, examines at least 15 percent of each kind, and hands the owner a signed report with photographs within 45 days. The first inspection was due January 1, 2026; the next is six years later.
Four kinds of professional, under Health and Safety Code 17973: a licensed architect; a licensed civil or structural engineer; a general contractor holding an A, B or C-5 license for at least five years with experience constructing multistory wood-frame buildings; or an individual certified as a building inspector or building official. None of them may work for the City on the job. In Sunnyvale the inspection is performed by Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, our sister company, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807), booked through our Murphy Avenue office; Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1106209) does the repairs.
In our case two companies in one group: Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling holds the inspection contract and signs the report, and Kaminskiy Care and Repair holds a separate contract for the repairs. Nothing in the statute stops that; what it demands is a qualified, licensed contractor doing the work to the inspector's recommendations and the building code. Every finding in the report comes with photographs and a baseline narrative, so you are free to bid the repairs out, and the report means the same thing in another contractor's hands.
A flat number for the building, named on the call from three things: how many elements, how many kinds, and whether the framing is open underneath or sealed behind stucco. An eight-unit court off Fair Oaks and a two-hundred-unit garden complex on Wolfe Road are different quotes. Repairs come priced line by line from the report, in writing, before anything is scheduled. Call 408-916-4022 with the address and the inspection price is yours in minutes.
Book now and keep the booking confirmation. The statute's daily penalty is aimed at repairs left undone after a report, not at a late first inspection, and the Building Safety Division gains nothing by chasing an owner who is already moving. Should the inspection find an immediate threat, that element is closed and shored on the visit and reported to the City within 15 days; the rest of the findings run on the ordinary 120-day permit clock.
For a condominium project, yes: the association carries the SB 326 inspection and, under most CC&Rs, the repair of the load-bearing framing and waterproofing it maintains, with exclusive-use balconies divided however the governing documents say. The inspection itself is the licensed structural or civil engineer's or the architect's; we take the report from the board, price the repairs, do them in phases so residents keep their stairs and front doors, and document everything for the reserve study.
With the office on Murphy Avenue, an inspection is normally on the calendar within days of the call, and the report arrives well short of the 45 days the law allows. The repairs keep to the statute's calendar: a written scope for each finding, the permit application inside 120 days of the report, the work inside 120 days of the permit. An immediate threat is closed off and shored the day it is found, before anything else.
All of Sunnyvale, the Heritage District, Washington Park, Ponderosa Park, Raynor, Lakewood, San Miguel, Fair Oaks, Birdland and Cherry Chase included, and the neighbors: Mountain View, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Los Altos, San Jose and Palo Alto. Call 408-916-4022 with the building's address and we confirm it on the spot.
Give us the address, the unit count and whether a report exists yet; we come back with a price and a date. Calling is quicker: 408-916-4022.
A licensed inspection, a signed report inside 45 days and every repair it lists, booked from Murphy Avenue in Sunnyvale.
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.
