VIDEO: One of Few in the State: Lowndes County Building Inspection Department

LOWNDES COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – If you’re building a home or a commercial facility, your building will have to pass an inspection.

Lowndes County is one of the few counties in the state to have a county inspector.

The county inspector sets guidelines for the building code.

County leaders say this universal system ensures most buildings are safe and will last a long time.

Electric, plumbing, and framing are a few of the points building inspectors look for during building projects, and the inspectors cover every aspect.

“We make sure that they’ve got the right amount of steel that the slabs are designed to what they should be, according to the prints. We look at structures as far as if the structure of the house has the integrity it should have,” said Director of the Lowndes County Building Inspection Department, Charles Culpepper.

For Lowndes County, the process is a little different because there is a department of building inspectors.

One look at a map can show you why the department is needed.

“Lowndes County has a tremendous amount of flood zones and flood areas. You know, of course, we have two or three rivers that go through Lowndes County, so it’s a big problem sometimes. So we can address it and do the best we can,” described Culpepper.

The department was created in 1992, and employees say, so far, the work speaks for itself.

“4-County has told me, sometime back, that their fires, as far as having fires in houses and problems they’ve had, have dropped dramatically since the county started doing inspecting. A lot of our contractor, especially the good ones, they tell us ‘We appreciate the work you do.’ Sometimes it’s like other jobs. You don’t get a lot of praise for it, but, you know, if you do your job right as an inspector you can see the results,” said Culpepper.

The department inspects both residential buildings and commercial buildings..