The guys and gals at The Maricopa County Planning and Zoning office (PZ) are a thorn in the side of many a builder. They are, however, the savior of many many more.

If you don't believe me, just take a drive through the County and you will see many structures that have obviously been built without a building permit.

This is not to say that formidable structures cannot be built without going through legal channels, but if you are going to do it the right way anyway, and you just want to save a couple of bucks, trust me you want to go through the channels.

Long before there were regulatory agencies, there was The Old World. They way they built things, some of their buildings have lasted over two thousand years. Then again, some of them fell down the week after they were built.

These were not built though without plans. Here are some of the ancient building plans, and a few of the more modern building techniques, as they tried to retrofit new technology into structures than had never conceived of such a thing as elek-tri-sity.

Enjoy!

No, this is not Istanbul. This is actually India... from whence you receive your technical support. These have been around the Internet a few times, and it sets the stage for all of the next photos, that I DID take.

CLICK HERE for the entire picture, then (if necessary) click on the photo that appears to scroll the entire frightening scene.

I think that this is a coaxial cable, but I think I can recognize a standard voltage (which by the way, is 220 Volts here) cable going off to the right.

This one I do recognize as a high voltage line. PZ specifies that electrical wires need to be secured six inches from the terminus, and every couple of feet in between. If you split the difference between the two wires, you would have about that. Oh... PZ would not like it if your wires were just hanging out in the elements like these are.

As I mentioned above, some of the problems are in the retrofit for newer technology, such as the video surveilance system at Topkapi Palace.

While the first three photos were in India, this pole and what you might call a junction box (if you were being generous) were at Topkapi.

Closer to home, the scaffold shown to the right was right next to where we HAD to walk to get into town. Not that bad, you say? take a closer look. Plumbing is also regulated by PZ. There is a reason for that, though. Here are some examples of what has been done without a building permit inspection. Here in a lovely seaside villa, they wanted to run a gas line for the stove. Window or eave in the way? NO PROBLEM. Under the sink, the adventure continues. In Turkey (and unfortunately in Spain) sink traps are nearly unheard of. This is the typical installation process for kitchen and bathroom drains.      Reviewing the Method - Installation Complete

You probably know the story of the Tower of Babel? At Ayasofya they are either doing extensive renovation, or building (as Led Zepplin sang) a Stairway to Heaven

Need to run both electrical and plumbing? One hole suits all.

More photos: Electrical box - At least it's decorative - State of the art circuit breakers - More breakers - It's sort of like conduit - More scaffolding - Stairs, another option -

There was a display at Hagia Sophia (Ayasofia) that caught my attention. If you've ever used an extension ladder, you will find this interesting also. It is a mobile extension ladder used for the restoration and cleaning of the building. It was refurbished nearly 100 years ago, but the ladder itself is nearly 200 years old.

They actually DID use plans though, when originally building some of these structures. From our reading, they were often carved into wood or stone. These drawings are after the fact but you can marvel at their engineering expertise.