West Virginia Building Permit Guides

West Virginia offers its local governments one building code or none. The State Fire Commission sets the West Virginia State Building Code by legislative rule at 87 CSR 4. It takes in the 2018 international building, residential, existing building, mechanical, plumbing, fuel gas, property maintenance and swimming pool and spa codes, the 2020 National Electrical Code, the 2015 energy code for homes and ASHRAE 90.1-2013 for commercial buildings. A county may adopt it by order, and a municipality by ordinance. If it does, it must tell the State Fire Marshal, use certified building code officials, inspectors and plans examiners, and enforce the code itself under West Virginia Code 7-1-3n and 8-12-13. What it may not do is adopt a different building code. Older local building codes are void, and a county or city that wants one must use the State Building Code.

Where a county or municipality has adopted the code, the adopted code draws the exemption line and the local jurisdiction completes the discretionary provisions. Ordinary repairs generally need no permit; construction, alteration, repair, demolition and any change of occupancy generally do. The appendices are not part of the code and are enforceable only where the local jurisdiction has separately adopted them, so an appendix requirement assumed from the model book may not apply here at all.

Adoption, certification and what the state still holds

Adoption is a deliberate act with obligations attached. A jurisdiction adopting the State Building Code tells the State Fire Marshal, completes the discretionary provisions and any appendices it wants by order or ordinance, and staffs enforcement with building code officials, inspectors and plans examiners certified under the State Fire Marshal’s rule, 103 CSR 6. Counties and municipalities may share that capacity by agreement with one another. Where a local ordinance is more stringent than the State Building Code it governs, and the State Fire Commission determines the relative priority in any question.

Establishing whether the code applies at all

The first question on a West Virginia project is whether the jurisdiction has adopted the State Building Code. Adoption is optional and varies from place to place, so a rural parcel may carry no general building permit requirement at all. That does not mean nothing applies. Floodplain permits, on-site sewage permits through the health department, the state electrician licence and, for buildings other than one- and two-family homes, the State Fire Code can all reach a site where no building code does. The position is confirmed with the county or municipality rather than assumed.

West Virginia licenses contractors at state level through the West Virginia Contractor Licensing Board, under the Contractor Licensing Act (West Virginia Code 30-42); the Division of Labor runs the board’s licensing office and enforcement. Its classes are general building, general engineering, residential, multifamily, electrical, plumbing, piping, heating, ventilating and cooling, and specialty. A licence is needed for jobs costing $5,000 or more for residential work, or $25,000 or more for commercial work, and it is valid throughout the state. Electricians also need a licence from the State Fire Marshal, and plumbers and HVAC technicians need one from the Division of Labor. A county or municipality may not demand an extra contractor, electrician, plumber or HVAC licence, or any other proof of competence, from someone who holds the state licence. The permit office must see the contractor’s state licence, or a signed statement that no licence is needed, before it issues a permit.

Trade work is permitted separately where the jurisdiction enforces the code, and carried out by contractors holding the state licence their classification requires.