Jesse James DeConto, Staff Writer
CHAPEL HILL - Andrew Dykers' home could fit four times inside a typical 2,000-square-foot home, but there's no room for it in state or local building codes.
So it has sat empty for nearly three months, and he has had to rent an apartment instead.
The problem is defining the building. It's a log cabin on wheels. It's an RV with solid-pine paneling, stainless-steel appliances and a hot tub. It's a custom-built trailer on concrete piers.
Dykers, a 35-year-old musician planning to attend N.C. Central law school next fall, had it built in upstate New York and installed at a mobile home park off Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in August. Two months later, the town revoked his building permit because the building lacked the necessary certification, effectively evicting him from his home.
Dykers is fighting city hall, and so far he's losing. Town officials have tried to work with him, but they feel bound by the law.
"I have to succeed," he said. "I have to live in my home."
By law, mobile homes have to be certified by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. This typically happens in the factories where they're built. Dykers' wasn't because his small-scale, custom builders, Adirondack Kabins, can't afford HUD certification.
Other types of factory-built homes have to be certified by the North Carolina Modular Construction Program. But, again, Dykers' builders don't do enough business in North Carolina to warrant getting the necessary certification from several states away.
"It just happens to be something that's not really regulated," said Kristin Milam, a spokeswoman for the N.C. Department of Insurance, which has tried to help Dykers.
Dykers spent months designing the interior, complete with a laundry room, a sleeping loft, a ceramic-tiled bathroom, quartz countertops, built-in wardrobes and dresser, and a screened porch.
The builders advertise the structure as an RV, but its exterior frame is 40-square-feet too big for that classification, and its permanent setting and 100-amp electric service push it further outside the norm.
State and local officials have spent many hours trying to solve Dykers' problem. It now appears he'll need to hire a third-party inspector to sign off on the safety of the home.
The $1,800 cost for the inspection is a sticking point right now. He thinks the town ought to inspect his home, as they would any other single-family home.
But Town Manager Roger Stancil said town inspectors can't inspect it as a single-family house without tearing open walls and floors to see the wiring and plumbing. Dykers is better off hiring a third-party inspector who would inspect it as a modular home, Stancil said.
Dykers has already spent about $2,100 renting a basement apartment while he tries to legalize his trailer. All this to try to save some money.
jesse.deconto@newsobserver.com or 932-8760
