Allen County, Indiana Building Department

Allen County, Indiana

county

200 East Berry Street, Suite 180, Fort Wayne, IN 46802

Required

Required

THE COUNTY PERMITS INSIDE FORT WAYNE, WHICH IS THE FIRST THING TO GET RIGHT. Applications go to the Allen County Building Department, online through the Accela Citizen Access portal at https://aca-prod.accela.com/ACFW or in person at 200 East Berry Street, Suite 180, Fort Wayne, 260-449-7131, open Monday to Friday 7am to 5pm. Allen County Code Title 6, Article 1 makes the Building Commissioner responsible for administering and enforcing the building codes "in unincorporated Allen County and in all incorporated cities and towns that have adopted the Allen County building code," and for the City of Fort Wayne the County and the City publish a joint process confirming it: a permit application for a Fort Wayne property is filed with the County, and Fort Wayne Historic Preservation reviews it for a Certificate of Appropriateness only where the property sits in a local historic district. That routing took effect on November 7, 2025. Where it applies, the County cannot issue the permit until Historic Preservation has approved, instant permits are not available, and questions about historic preservation go to City preservation staff on 260-427-2160 rather than to the Building Department. Mechanical, electrical and plumbing trade permits are outside that routing. Permits are issued only to licensed or registered applicants, with one homeowner exception: an owner who owns and occupies a single or two-family residence may take out a self-permit to do the work personally, provided no sub-contractors are hired and the property is not commercial, and that self-permit carries the same fees and inspections as any other. The County does no plan review of its own; plan review for projects that need it is done by the State, and a Construction Design Release number must be supplied at permit submission where one is required. A permit is valid for one year, work must start within sixty days, and a permit on which work stops for sixty days expires unless the Commissioner grants an extension, which must be requested at least thirty days before expiry. The permit has to be posted so that it is visible from the nearest roadway. Fee figures are published in two places and they differ: the Title 6 Article 10 Fee Schedule carries a flat residential Roofing and Siding permit at 60 dollars, while the Building Department Rules and Regulations price the same permit at 50 cents per 100 square feet of gross surface area with a 40 dollar minimum. Both are published by the County and neither is presented here as superseding the other; confirm the figure when you apply.

STATE CODE, ADOPTED BY THE COUNTY BY A REFERENCE THAT FLOATS. There is no Allen County roofing code to look up. One- and two-family dwellings here are built to the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates the 2018 International Residential Code for One and Two Family Dwellings (first printing August 2017) and applies statewide. It was filed November 26, 2019 and formally readopted November 18, 2025. The County publishes the same thing on its own Building Department page, under the heading Current Codes Used in Allen County: "Indiana Residential Code: (675-IAC-14-4.4) Based on: 2018 International Residential Code (1st printing) with Indiana Amendments, Effective December 26, 2019." Allen County Code Title 6, Article 2, Chapter 5 adopts the state rules by reference and says in terms that the adoption tracks later changes: the building rules of the Indiana Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission set out in the listed Articles of Title 675 of the Indiana Administrative Code, Article 14 among them, "are hereby incorporated by reference in this ordinance and shall include later amendments to those Articles as the same are published in the Indiana Register or the Indiana Administrative Code with effective dates as fixed therein." Indiana law puts that beyond argument for every local adoption in the state: IC 22-13-2-3(b) provides that a reference to the commission rules by citation to the Indiana Administrative Code "shall be construed to include all amendments as of the date that the reference is written and any later amendments to that provision, unless accompanied by a reference to a specific edition or supplement." So there is no county edition year to track, and the edition on an Allen County job is whatever the state rule says on the day. The County also writes the state ceiling into its own code: Article 2, Chapter 4 provides that where the county code conflicts with, or is more stringent than, the rules of the Commission, "the rules of the Commission shall govern," and Article 5 repeats the same sentence.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT CITY-SET, and unconditional. Indiana localities cannot vary this: IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance that conflicts with or is more stringent or more detailed than the commission's rules. The operative text is published first-hand by the Indiana State Building Commissioner, on Indiana Department of Homeland Security letterhead, in the Ice and Water Shield Update memo of 2020-02-25 (revised), which reproduces 2018 IRC R905.2.8.5 in full: "A drip edge shall be provided at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs. Adjacent segments of drip edge shall be overlapped not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall extend not less than ¼ inch (6.4 mm) below the roof sheathing and extend up back onto the roof deck not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall be mechanically fastened to the rood deck at not more than 12 inches (305 mm) o.c. with fasteners as specified in Section R905.2.5 Underlayment shall be installed over the drip edge along eaves and under the drip edge along rake edges." Note the memo reproduces a typo in the enacted text it quotes ("rood deck" for "roof deck"); the reading is not in doubt. 675 IAC 14-4.4 amends R905.2.8 only by deleting the word "approved" (14-4.4-86) and does not touch R905.2.8.5, so the model text governs as written. About drip edge

Required — REQUIRED IN ALLEN COUNTY, AND IN INDIANA THIS IS A COUNTY-BY-COUNTY ANSWER RATHER THAN A STATE ONE. Indiana throws out the model climatic table and substitutes its own: 675 IAC 14-4.4-5 directs "Delete TABLE R301.2(1) and the corresponding footnotes and substitute to read as follows," and the substituted table then runs one row for each of the 92 counties. The Allen County row, numbered 02, reads Yes in the column headed "Ice Shield Underlayment Required." Allen is one of only 27 Indiana counties that answer Yes, all of them in the northern tier; the other 65 answer No. A rule of thumb carried up from central or southern Indiana is therefore wrong here, and so is any assumption that Indiana has one statewide answer. The rest of the Allen County row: wind speed 115 mph, Seismic Design Category A, ground snow 20 psf, frost depth 36 inches, winter design temperature 1 degree Fahrenheit, decay Slight to Moderate, termite Moderate to Heavy, weathering Severe, air freezing index 2000, mean annual temperature 49.9 degrees Fahrenheit. What the ice barrier has to be made of, and how far up the slope it has to run, is base International Residential Code content that Indiana does not modify. The state rule was read in full and carries no ice barrier language of its own, so take the specification from the adopted 2018 edition rather than from a neighbouring state. Allen County adds nothing either: Title 6 and the Building Department Rules and Regulations were read in full and contain no ice barrier or underlayment provision. About ice & water barrier

Not required — NO MID-ROOF OR DECK STAGE IS PUBLISHED, BUT A PERMITTED REROOF IS STILL INSPECTED. The Building Department Rules and Regulations, Chapter 5, leave staging to the Commissioner: the schedule of inspections "as promulgated by the Commissioner shall be made available to all licensees/registrants and permit holders at the Building Department office," and it is the permit holder who must call when the work reaches a stage at which an inspection is customarily required. The schedule the Department actually publishes was read in full, its Building, Electrical, Plumbing and HVAC sections alike, and it carries three building stages only: concrete, framing and final. No tear-off, roof-deck, in-progress or mid-roof stage appears anywhere in it. The only mention of a roof is a condition on the framing inspection, which is called "after all framing, bracing, fire-stopping, windows, doors, and roof are in place" and is a new-construction stage rather than a reroofing one. Do not read that as no inspection at all. The County publishes that its inspectors visit the structure during construction and upon completion, its fee schedules both carry a residential re-inspection fee, and its own permit guidance says the inspector will tell you approximately how many inspections a project needs. Inspections are attempted within twenty-four hours of the request, Saturdays, Sundays and holidays excluded. Ask which stages your roofing permit carries when it is issued, on 260-449-7131.

Not required — NO IMPACT-RESISTANCE OR HAIL-RATING MANDATE APPLIES IN ALLEN COUNTY, AT EITHER LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT. The state rule that governs roofing here, the 2020 Indiana Residential Code at 675 IAC 14-4.4, was read in full and contains no UL 2218 requirement, no Class 4 or Class IV impact rating and no FM 4473 reference; its only amendments to the roof assemblies chapter delete single words from three asphalt-shingle attachment and flashing sections and delete one sentence from the rooftop photovoltaic section, and none of them concerns impact resistance. On the county side, Allen County Code Title 6 was read in full, article by article, together with the Building Department Rules and Regulations, and no UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473 requirement appears anywhere in them. Allen County could not impose one in any case: IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a local ordinance that is more stringent or more detailed than the state building rules. Impact-resistant shingles are an insurer-driven upgrade in this market, not a code obligation, and an insurance discount is never a code mandate. One caution when reading paperwork on an Allen County job: a Class A, B or C designation, or a reference to ASTM E108 or UL 790, is a FIRE rating and says nothing about hail, and ASTM D3161 or D7158 is a WIND rating. Only UL 2218 or FM 4473 answers impact.

ONE DOLLAR, AND THAT IS NOT A TYPO. Allen County Code Title 6, Article 2, Chapter 7 provides that "A permit shall be obtained before beginning construction, addition, alteration or repair of any building or structure, the cost of such construction, addition, alteration or repair of which exceeds One Dollar ($1.00), using forms furnished by the Building Commissioner." There is no square-footage floor, no damage-value test and no scale below which a reroof falls out, so every residential and commercial roofing job is over the bar. The Building Department says the same thing in plain words on its homeowner page, which lists "Re-roofing" first among its examples of projects needing permits. The one carve-out sits at the end of the same chapter: "Maintenance and service work, as defined herein, shall not require permits." Read the definitions before relying on it, because the County puts storm damage on the permit-bearing side of the line. Article 2 defines Maintenance as "The act of keeping a structure or its systems operating properly and as originally designed, generally routine or preventative in nature" and Service Work as "Short term work to maintain a building or its systems for continued use as originally designed (typically routine or preventative in nature), the full scope of which may not be known when contracted." Repair, which is permit-bearing, is defined as "To restore a structure or its systems, damage by fire, storm, accident or other outside force, to original condition or intended use." A hail or wind job is a repair on that definition. The Residential Permit Guide sorts the same question by picture: it asks whether the work involves any mechanical, electrical, plumbing, HVAC or structural alteration, and puts Roofing and Siding in the permit required box on the yes side, leaving only fences and painting in the box that reads "You do not need a permit from the Allen County Building Department." Patching a handful of blown-off shingles is the sort of thing the maintenance carve-out is aimed at; a tear-off is not. Ask the Building Department at 260-449-7131 where a particular repair falls rather than assuming.

115 MPH, AND IT IS THE ONE ROOFING NUMBER THAT IS THE SAME EVERYWHERE IN INDIANA. Indiana deletes the model climatic table and substitutes its own at 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, county by county. The Allen County row, numbered 02, gives 115 under the column headed "Wind Speed (MPH)", and every one of the 92 county rows gives the same figure. The rest of the Allen County row is not portable and should not be carried across county lines: Seismic Design Category A, ground snow 20 psf, frost depth 36 inches, winter design temperature 1 degree Fahrenheit, decay Slight to Moderate, termite Moderate to Heavy, weathering Severe, ice shield underlayment required Yes, air freezing index 2000, mean annual temperature 49.9 degrees Fahrenheit. The wind column heading carries a footnote marker whose text is not reproduced here, so if a calculation turns on whether 115 mph is a nominal or an ultimate design speed, settle that with the Building Department on 260-449-7131 rather than converting the figure yourself. Allen County adds nothing of its own: Title 6 and the Building Department Rules and Regulations were read in full and contain no wind provision.

NO COUNTY RULE AND NO STATE AMENDMENT, SO THE BASE CODE GOVERNS UNMODIFIED. Roofing in Allen County runs on the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, 675 IAC 14-4.4, which incorporates the 2018 International Residential Code. That rule was read in full, all 245 sections. It contains no amendment to the International Residential Code reroofing section, Section R908, which does not appear in it at any point, and its only amendments anywhere in the roof assemblies chapter delete the word "approved" from two asphalt-shingle attachment and flashing sections, delete the word "printed" from a third, and delete one sentence from the rooftop photovoltaic section. Nothing in the state rule addresses layer limits, overlays or recovering an existing roof. On the county side, Allen County Code Title 6 was read in full, every article of it, together with the Building Department Rules and Regulations, and no provision in any of them addresses roof layers, overlays or recovering; the only roofing content the County writes for itself is a permit fee line and a contractor licence class. Allen County could not add a layer rule in any event, because IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from adopting an ordinance that conflicts with or includes more stringent or more detailed requirements than the state building rules, and the County repeats that limit in its own code. So the answer on an Allen County job is the base International Residential Code rule on recovering an existing roof, in the 2018 edition, unchanged by Indiana and unchanged by the County. Read that rule out of the adopted edition, and confirm it with the Building Department at 260-449-7131, rather than carrying an overlay allowance across from another state.

7% statewide. Indiana levies a single state sales tax rate with no county or municipal add-on, so there is no Allen County or Fort Wayne figure to add on top. The county-level taxes Indiana does levy are an income tax, an innkeeper tax and a food-and-beverage tax, none of which reaches roofing materials, and the Department of Revenue says so on the very page that enumerates its county taxes: "The sales tax for the entire State of Indiana is 7%." How the tax falls on a roofing job depends on the shape of the contract rather than on the roof. Under a lump-sum contract the roofer pays the 7% on materials as the consumer and charges the homeowner no sales tax. Under a time-and-material contract, one that states the cost of materials and the cost of labor separately, the roofer buys the materials for resale and collects the 7% from the homeowner on the material portion, with separately stated installation labor not included in the taxable amount. Roofing is named by the Department of Revenue in its own definition of a contractor, so there is no question that a roofer falls inside this treatment.