Hey all! Excited to be a part of the community 
I’m remodeling a house in Boulder and the city is holding up our permits because of my awesome R1 roaster.
Our Architect told the city about the roaster and originally they wondered if it was for commercial use, but are still asking for what I’ve attached below, even for a hobby sized roaster.
Any advice would be appreciated. Ridiculous in my opinion given we only roast 48oz or so a month.
You just tell them, “now…it’s personal”…problem solved
Boy, am I lucky being where I am. But, if I were there, I’d go around and ask the neighbours if they have experienced discomfort. The most likely answer is a no. When that is established, I’d ask them to make it official with some sort of signed petition or whatever the procedure is. Of course, I’d also say that there isn’t much smoke or odour because I’m roasting light (irrelevant if you’re not). I would also tell them what type of filtration I use and ask them to come with measuring devices and dare to say there’s some impact outside. People should be good and they do come through on occasion, but if you run into one begrudged individual, it can turn into hell. When I applied for commercial use of my bullet, I understood that it wasn’t really a problem of emissions, neighbours or whatnot. The main problem is that these people are incompetent and do not know what you’re talking about. If you could make a cartoon of what goes on in their heads when they read “coffee roaster”, it would probably look like some Wile E Coyote contraption that could blow up at any time, and produces extraordinary amounts of smoke. What about grilling? Do you go to get a special permit when you buy a small home use grill? Do you need special permits to fry something or roast something in the owen? Does coffee generate more unpleasant odours than meat? What about if you were to roast your coffee in the owen or in a frying pan over a stove? What then? Doesn’t smoke and odour come out all the same? I mean, I don’t live there, so it might be true, although I don’t think it is. Who knows? I would, however, ask them all these questions. It seems easy to explain, but these people are like robots and are very stuck in their ways. Bureaucracy is the death of humanity. So, my advice is to approach this armed with lots of patience. You will have to explain the thing over and over again, just like some poor innocent fellow who got arrested and the cops are convinced he’s the culprit.
Don’t know if it’ll help any but at least you’ll know you’re not alone:
I’ll say this much, when I roast and the exhaust is sucked out via my range hood in my kitchen, I can say that the smell isn’t as noticeable outside as it is inside my house, I roast to just before SC. Second, my neighbors smell more of my grilling meat on my grill (gas grill) than of my coffee roasting. That said I do have a HVAC filter attached to filter out “stuff” so that my range hood fan doesn’t get all the crud. Just my 2 cents.
I would second @braca19452f9m suggestion of asking your neighbors (after giving them a bag of coffee 
) if they smell anything.
I would “sell” the roaster to a friend, complete with sales receipt and say you no longer own the machine so the objection is moot.
Seems odd there’s no similar concern about cooking smells from other foods (!)… especially from a BBQ.
Bruce
