Kaminskiy Care and Repair prices every finding on your SB 721 or SB 326 report, files the permit on the City's portal and completes the repairs for the final, from Quail Court. No report yet? Our sister company, Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, performs the inspection.
BBBAccredited BusinessWalnut Creek has more condominiums and apartments than houses, and nearly every wood-framed balcony, deck, exterior stair and walkway on a building of three or more units now answers to a California inspection law: SB 721 (Health and Safety Code 17973) for rental buildings, SB 326 (Civil Code 5551) for the condominium mutuals and associations. Once the report is written, the findings are our work. Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1120648) prices each one on its own line, files the permit on the City's online portal inside the 120-day window, rebuilds the joist ends and ledgers, lays the new membranes, re-sets the guardrails and closes the file for the re-inspection, from any licensed inspector's report. If a rental building has no report yet, our sister company Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807), performs the SB 721 inspection under its own contract with you and signs the report inside 45 days. A Rossmoor mutual or a downtown condominium board brings us its engineer's SB 326 report and we do the work it lists. The repair crew runs from the Quail Court office in Walnut Creek, ten minutes from any building in town.
Walk-ups, garden complexes, mutuals and podium buildings.
Own a rental building of three or more units in Walnut Creek and the balcony law asks three things of you: a qualified inspection of every wood-framed element more than six feet up, a written report you keep, and the repairs it lists done inside the statute's deadlines. The repairs are ours. Every finding is priced on its own line, permitted through the City's online portal inside 120 days, rebuilt in treated lumber with new flashing and a full membrane, and photographed for the re-inspection, so one file answers the lender, the insurer and the next buyer. The inspection, when a building still needs one, is performed by our sister company Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, which holds the license class and the years the statute asks of an inspecting contractor.
AFTERBEFORE
Dry Rot & Framing
Waterproofing & Coating
Railings & Guards
Stairs & Walkways
Emergency Shoring
The Permit on the City Portal
Re-inspection & Close-outRental Building Not Inspected Yet?Every line above is a building we have seen in Walnut Creek. Findings get a written scope and a permit filing inside the deadlines, anything tagged an immediate threat is closed off and shored first, and a rental building with no report yet gets the inspection booked with our sister company.
Text or email the SB 721 or SB 326 report with the address. No report yet on a rental building? Tell us the street and roughly how many balconies, stairs and walkways it carries, and we arrange the inspection with Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling.
Each finding priced on its own line after a site walk, the application filed on the City's portal inside the 120-day window, and an immediate threat closed off and shored before anything else.
Joists, ledgers, membranes and rails rebuilt inside the permit window, every element photographed, the permit finaled by the City, and the closing report for your records and the next escrow.
Every job is backed in writing by our workmanship warranty and done by a Kaminskiy-certified, background checked technician.
A Walnut Creek report usually comes back with the same handful of lines: elevated moisture at the ledger behind the stucco, deterioration at the joist ends, a membrane checked through by thirty summers of valley heat, a scupper that drains against the wall, a guardrail anchor that has lost its wood. Each is a repair we price line by line. The service-life column is the schedule: an element given a year or two is rebuilt first, and on a Rossmoor mutual the engineer's numbering becomes our scope numbering so the board can read the two side by side.
SB 721 is Health and Safety Code 17973 and covers rental buildings of three or more units: first inspection due January 1, 2026, then every six years. SB 326 is Civil Code 5551 and covers condominium projects of three or more units, which in Walnut Creek means the mutuals in Rossmoor and the associations downtown and along Ygnacio Valley Road: first inspection due January 1, 2025, then every nine years, by a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect. A landlord who also sits on a condo board answers to both.
An element called an immediate threat is closed to residents the day it is found, shored if needed, and reported to the Building Division within 15 days. Everything else runs on two 120-day windows: the permit application within 120 days of the report, the repairs within 120 days of the permit. If the work is still open 180 days after the report, the inspector tells the City, and 30 days after that notice a daily civil penalty begins.
Rot confined to a joist end, a post base or a run of ledger is cut back to sound wood, sistered or replaced, and flashed. Rot across the ledger or through most of the joists means the balcony comes off and goes back on new framing. In either case the waterproofing is redone edge to edge, because a patched membrane on a south-facing Walnut Creek balcony is the leak the next inspection finds.
Nearly half of Walnut Creek's thirty-four thousand homes are condominiums or apartments, most of them built between the early 1960s and the late 1980s in two- and three-story wood-frame stucco buildings, and the newest ones went up around the BART stations in the last few years. The street decides what the report finds and what the repair looks like.
Walk-up apartment and condominium buildings from the 1960s through the 1980s with cantilevered balconies over the parking, now standing beside the podium buildings of the last fifteen years. The south and west balconies take the full valley sun, the coating checks, and the November rain follows the checks into the balcony-to-wall joint; the finding is rot at the joist ends behind stucco that still looks sound from the sidewalk. A condominium association here is under SB 326 and hands us its engineer's report; a rental building is under SB 721 and we inspect it ourselves.
The garden complexes of the 1960s and 1970s, with open stairs and second-floor walkways serving every unit, carry the most elements to count and the most foot traffic of any building type in town. Irrigation keeps the stair bases wet year round, blocked scuppers pond water on the walkway coatings, and stringers rot where they meet the landing. The newest stock is on a different clock: the 358 apartments of the Transit Village's first phase at Walnut Creek BART, finished in 2023, and the buildings around the Pleasant Hill station are inspected within six years of their certificate of occupancy, not by the 2026 date.
Rossmoor's six thousand six hundred homes, built from 1963 onward and run as condominium and cooperative mutuals under the Golden Rain Foundation, are about forty percent garden-style duplexes to four-plexes and the rest mid- and high-rise buildings, with wood entry stairs, raised walkways and balconies under oaks that keep them damp into May. The mutual inspects under SB 326 with its engineer or architect; the board brings us the report and we rebuild the soft treads, the rotted post bases and the railings it lists, phased so residents keep their access. Saranap addresses are unincorporated county land, so their permits go to Contra Costa County in Martinez rather than the City.
A rental building with three or more units under one roof is under SB 721; the first inspection was due January 1, 2026 and the cycle is six years. A condominium project with three or more units, which covers the Rossmoor mutuals and the condo associations on Ygnacio Valley Road and downtown, is under SB 326; its first inspection was due January 1, 2025, the cycle is nine years, and the inspector must be a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect. A duplex is outside both, though its balcony rots the same way. Send the address and we tell you on the call.
Each finding is opened at the soffit or from below, the rot cut back to sound wood, and the joist end, ledger or rim board sistered or replaced in treated lumber with new hangers and flashing. The deck coating is stripped, the substrate dried, and a new membrane and drip edge laid edge to edge with the slope corrected so January rain leaves the deck; a patch is the next leak. Guardrails that moved, sat low or anchored into rot are re-set into the new framing or replaced to the current code height. Every element is numbered and photographed before, during and after, and the photos become the closing report.
Health and Safety Code 17973 requires that a qualified, licensed contractor do the repairs to the inspector's recommendations and the building code; in Walnut Creek that is Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1120648), working from any licensed inspector's or engineer's report. The inspection itself is open to four kinds of professional: 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 building multistory wood-frame structures, or a certified building inspector or building official, none of them on the City's payroll for the job. Our sister company Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807), is the inspecting contractor for SB 721, under its own contract with you.
Repairs are priced finding by finding from the report, in writing, before anything is scheduled: a joist end and a membrane patch on one balcony is a short line, a cantilever rebuilt with a new guardrail is a longer one, and the board or the owner sees every line first. Nothing is added at the building, and the report is yours to hand to another contractor. The SB 721 inspection, when a rental building still needs one, is one flat figure from Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, set by how many elements there are, how many types, and whether the framing is open underneath or enclosed in stucco.
We read the findings and the service-life column, confirm SB 721 or SB 326, and book the site walk. No report yet on a rental building? We arrange the inspection with our sister company and start here when it is signed.
Residents get notice, each finding is examined from the deck and from below, enclosed framing is metered or opened at a soffit, and the scope is written line by line against the report's numbering.
A simple-scope application for like-for-like work, plan check where a cantilever is rebuilt or a guardrail changed, the County in Martinez for a Saranap building, and shoring first wherever an element is an immediate threat.
The work inside the permit window, every element photographed, the City's permit final, and the closing report for your file, the reserve study and the next six-year cycle.
Health and Safety Code 17973(a) names the inspectors the law accepts: a licensed architect, a licensed civil or structural engineer, a general contractor with an A, B or C-5 license and five years as a license holder in multistory wood-frame construction, or a certified building inspector. Subdivision (g) says nothing against the inspector doing the repairs; it asks that a qualified and licensed contractor do them, to the inspector's recommendations, the Building Standards Code and the City's rules. The owner contracts the inspection directly with the inspecting company, as the law requires. In Walnut Creek that company is Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, and the repairs are a separate contract with Kaminskiy Care and Repair, so the report stands on its own if you choose to bid the work elsewhere.
Repairs are permitted through the City of Walnut Creek's Community Development Department, Building Division, which takes every application through its online permit portal rather than on paper. The City's published list of work that needs no permit is short (finish work, fences to seven feet, small detached decks) and its bulletin says a structure is otherwise not altered, repaired or replaced without one, so plan on a permit for any balcony, stair or walkway repair that touches framing, a ledger, a guardrail or the waterproofing. A like-for-like repair is the simple-scope kind the Building Division reviews over the counter in a few business days; a rebuilt cantilever or a changed guardrail goes through plan check. Walnut Creek publishes no separate SB 721 form or portal, unlike Oakland and San Ramon; the report stays in your records, and an element tagged an immediate threat is reported to the Building Division, as the local enforcement agency, within 15 days. A Saranap building is in unincorporated Contra Costa County and its permit and any threat report go to the County's Department of Conservation and Development in Martinez.
The first SB 721 inspection was due January 1, 2026; AB 2579 gave owners that extra year from the original 2025 date, and the cycle from here is six years. Once a report lists repairs, the permit application is due within 120 days and the work within 120 days of the permit. If it is still undone 180 days after the report, the inspector notifies the City, a 30-day notice goes to the owner, and after that a civil penalty of one hundred to five hundred dollars per day runs until the repairs are complete, with a building safety lien available to the City behind it. The owner keeps two cycles of reports and hands them to the buyer when the building sells.
Ten minutes from any building in town. The East Bay office on Quail Court is where the repair crew starts the day, so a report with findings gets its site walk fast and a Rossmoor board gets its scope the week the engineer's report arrives. Call 925-302-5955, text a photo of the report or the balcony, or send the form. The numbers since 2023: 627 repair visits, 225 Walnut Creek homes.
Can't find your answer? Call 925-302-5955 and ask us anything.
Call 925-302-5955Send the report with the address. We walk the building against the findings, price each one on its own line, and file the permit on the City's portal inside the 120 days the statute allows; the repairs then run inside 120 days of the permit, an immediate threat is closed and shored first, and the closing report with a photo of every element goes in your records for the re-inspection and the next escrow.
Yes, and on the condominium side we always do: an SB 326 report can only come from a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect. The statute asks that a qualified, licensed contractor make the repairs to the inspector's recommendations; it does not tie you to whoever wrote the report. Our scope follows the report's own numbering.
Line by line from the report, in writing, before any date is set: a joist end and a membrane patch on one balcony is a short line, a cantilever rebuilt with a new guardrail is a longer one, and the board or the owner approves the lines first. Call 925-302-5955 with the report and the address and the written scope follows the site walk.
Our sister company does: Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling, a B general building contractor since 2008 (CSLB #922807), counts the element types, opens or meters a sample of at least 15 percent of each and signs the report with photos inside 45 days, under its own contract with you, as the statute requires. Kaminskiy Care and Repair (CSLB #1120648) then prices and completes the repairs. Book it through the Quail Court office at 925-302-5955.
Two companies in one group do: Kaminskiy Design & Remodeling inspects and signs the report under its own contract with you, and Kaminskiy Care and Repair contracts the repairs separately. The statute does not forbid the inspector from repairing; it requires that a qualified, licensed contractor do the work to the inspector's recommendations and the building code. Because the report lists every finding with photographs and a baseline narrative, you are free to put the repairs out to bid, and the report is just as good in another contractor's hands.
Book the inspection and keep the booking in writing. The daily penalty in the law is for repairs left undone after a report, not for a late first inspection, and the Building Division has no reason to pursue an owner who is already moving. If the inspection turns up an immediate threat, that element is closed and shored that day and reported to the City within 15 days; every other finding goes onto the normal 120-day permit clock.
In a condominium project the association is responsible for the SB 326 inspection, and under most CC&Rs for repairing the load-bearing framing and waterproofing it maintains, with exclusive-use balconies split as the governing documents say. In Rossmoor that is the mutual. Its inspection must be done by a licensed structural or civil engineer or an architect; the board hands us the report and we price and complete the repairs, phased so residents keep their stairs and walkways, and documented for the reserve study.
It is the inspection California requires every six years of the exterior elevated elements on rental buildings with three or more units: the balconies, decks, porches, stairways, walkways and entry structures that stand more than six feet above grade and depend on wood for their support, with their railings and waterproofing. The inspector identifies each element type, examines at least 15 percent of each, and delivers a signed written report with photographs within 45 days. The first one was due January 1, 2026.
Send the address and the report if the building has one; if a rental building has none yet, say so and we arrange the inspection. We call back with a scope and a date. The phone is still faster: 925-302-5955.
Every repair on the report, permitted on the City portal and closed out, from one Walnut Creek crew on Quail Court. No report yet? Our sister company performs the inspection.
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.
