Bartow County, Georgia - Community Development Department, Building Inspections Division

Bartow County, Georgia

county

Cartersville, GA

Not required

Required

Permits are issued by the Community Development Department at 135 West Cherokee Avenue, Suite 124, Cartersville, GA 30120, between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., on 770-387-5067. The building official is Joe Norton, Jr., CBO, of Charles Abbott & Associates, on 470-653-9134 - the County contracts the building-official function out while the Building Inspections Division remains the County's own. Residential development building permits and all commercial permits must be submitted by email to [email protected], and plan submittals go to [email protected]. Inspections are booked through the Division's online scheduling form rather than by telephone. The Department accepts most major debit and credit cards with a service charge of 2.5% or a $1.50 minimum. Under Code section 18-169 a permit must be posted, and section 18-285 requires work to be left exposed until it has been inspected. Section 18-169 also provides that where a permit is not properly posted no scheduled inspection will be carried out. Chapter 18 carries its enforcement machinery in Divisions 11 to 13, whose sections are headed, among others, stop-work orders at 18-387 and permit revocation at 18-390, a fine schedule at 18-421, and a construction board of adjustment and appeals at 18-451 through 18-458 that hears appeals and variances. None of that reaches an ordinary reroof, which the County's own handout puts outside the permit requirement altogether.

BARTOW COUNTY DOES NOT ADOPT THE STATE CODES - IT RECITES THAT THEY ALREADY APPLY, AND THAT IS THE GEORGIA POSITION STATED MORE CLEARLY THAN MOST COUNTIES STATE IT. Code section 18-31 reads: "The following standard building codes are in force in each county of this state as a matter of law, pursuant to O.C.G.A. 8-2-25, and are therefore in force in Bartow County", and lists eight, the "International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings (ICC)" among them. That matches the statute: under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) the mandatory state minimum standard codes bind any structure built in Georgia whether or not the local government chooses to enforce them locally, so compliance is statewide and automatic and what is local is enforcement. Bartow County enforces them, and names the editions itself. Its Building Inspections page lists under "Codes Used" the 2024 International Residential Code with Georgia Amendments, the 2024 International Building, Mechanical and Plumbing Codes with Georgia Amendments, the 2024 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code with Georgia Amendments, and the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code with Georgia Amendments. The residential code in force is therefore the 2024 International Residential Code with the Georgia Amendments 2026, mandatory statewide from January 1, 2026, and the energy code is off-cycle from the rest at the 2015 edition, which is the state position. APPENDICES ARE SWITCHED OFF BY DEFAULT HERE, WHICH IS HOW THE APPENDIX U QUESTION IS ANSWERED. Section 18-32 provides that "Enforcement of the standard building codes (1) to (8) listed in section 18-31 shall not include enforcement of appendices to such codes except when: (1) Any provision of an appendix is specifically referenced in the code text; (2) An appendix to a code is specifically included in an administrative ordinance adopted by the county; or (3) An appendix to a code is specifically adopted by the department of community affairs with the approval of the board." The Department of Community Affairs lists the Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix - Appendix U - among the PERMISSIVE codes, which it adopts as optional and which under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(b) a local government must take up by its own ordinance or resolution and forward a copy of to the Department. Chapter 18 of the Code of Bartow County contains no ordinance adopting that appendix, so Appendix U has not been shown to be adopted here and its enhanced roof-deck sealing and shingle fastening do not apply. The building-code chapter dates from an ordinance of January 3, 2007 and the Code of Bartow County is codified through an ordinance of January 7, 2026.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT COUNTY-SET, and Bartow County states the reason for that in its own Code more plainly than most Georgia jurisdictions do. Section 18-31 reads: "The following standard building codes are in force in each county of this state as a matter of law, pursuant to O.C.G.A. 8-2-25, and are therefore in force in Bartow County", and lists eight, the "International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings (ICC)" among them. That is the operation-of-law link the field rests on, recited from the local side: under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) the mandatory state minimum standard codes bind construction in Georgia whether or not the local government chooses to enforce them locally, and the County's Building Inspections page names the editions it enforces, the 2024 International Residential Code with Georgia Amendments among them. The Georgia Department of Community Affairs amendment packet for the 2024 IRC carries no amendment to Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies: its full text is archived in this project and was measured rather than skimmed, at zero occurrences of any R9-hundred section number and zero of the phrase "Chapter 9". So the Chapter 9 drip-edge provision at Section R905.2.8.5 stands as written for Georgia. Bartow County's own building instrument was re-opened in full for this entry, not taken from an earlier report: Chapter 18, Building Code, of the Code of Bartow County, all 162 documents and 183,831 characters of it, Articles I through IV including the thirteen divisions of Article II, from section 18-1 through the County's International Property Maintenance Code amendments, searched on anchored terms with zero hits for "drip", zero for "R905", zero for "Chapter 9" and zero for "shingle". Nothing in the chapter amends a roof-covering provision. The nearest thing to a local roofing rule is section 18-128, which makes it unlawful "to use roof or wall covering material that has not been approved by the applicable building code as exterior covering material", allowing tarpaulins, plastic sheeting or OSB only as a temporary repair for 60 days after damage with one 60-day extension for cause; that defers to the applicable code rather than changing it. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED, and Bartow switches appendices off by default: section 18-32 provides that enforcement of the eight codes "shall not include enforcement of appendices to such codes" unless the appendix is referenced in the code text, specifically included in a county administrative ordinance, or adopted by the Department of Community Affairs with the approval of the board. The only appendix the chapter itself takes up is Appendix A, the Boarding Standard, adopted within the County's International Property Maintenance Code amendments, and the only appendix it references is Appendix G for swimming pool fencing. Neither is the Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix, so its enhanced deck sealing and shingle fastening do not apply here. The operative ICC text of R905.2.8.5, which sets the extent, lap and fastening specifics, sits behind the ICC paywall; this record does not restate it and does not rely on any third-party republication of it. What is recorded is the sourced fact that the requirement is in force in Bartow County unamended. One practical warning for a roofer: the County's own "Do I Need A Permit" handout lists "Replace or repair roofing, or installing a new roof over existing roofing" under "Work NOT requiring a building permit", so an ordinary Bartow re-roof is not inspected by the County. The handout answers the obvious next question itself, in the County's own words: "regardless of whether a permit is required, the project must meet all adopted construction codes adopted by the State of Georgia and Bartow County requirements." The exemption removes the inspection, not the requirement, which is also what O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) says. About drip edge

Not required — No mid-roof, dry-in or in-progress roofing inspection is required, and on an ordinary reroof there is no county inspection at all, because no permit is required. Where a permit is needed for other work, Code section 18-283(b) sets out the typical order of inspections trade by trade, and the building list has four stages and no roofing stage: a foundation inspection "To be made after trenches are excavated and forms erected", a rough-in or frame inspection "To be made after the roof, all framing, fireblocking and bracing are in place, all concealing wiring, all pipes, chimneys, ducts and vents are complete", an insulation inspection made after the rough-in approvals and before interior wall covering, and a final inspection "To be made after the building is completed and ready for occupancy." The electrical, plumbing and mechanical rough-ins are each likewise made only after the roof is in place, so the roof is a precondition of other stages rather than a stage of its own. Section 18-283(a) lets the building official make "such other inspections as necessary" and accept reports of recognised inspection services whose qualifications satisfy him, except that water and sewer line connections may be inspected only by a Bartow County official. Section 18-285 requires work to be left exposed until inspected.

Not required — No impact-resistant or hail-rated roof covering is required in Bartow County. Neither the Georgia State Amendments packet to the 2024 International Residential Code nor Chapter 18 of the Code of Bartow County contains any UL 2218, Class 4, Class IV or FM 4473 impact requirement. The Georgia packet does not amend the Code's roofing chapter at all, and Bartow County's building chapter contains no technical roofing provision - it does not adopt the codes but recites that they apply by operation of law, and adds administration, permits, inspections and enforcement. Bartow County has not been shown to have adopted Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose roofing content is about fastening and water barriers rather than impact in any event. An insurer may still offer a premium credit for an impact-rated shingle in the north Georgia hail belt, but that is an insurance matter and not a code requirement here.

BARTOW COUNTY SAYS IT IN ONE LINE, AND THE OVERLAY IS COVERED TOO. The County's Community Development handout "Do I Need A Permit For My Project?" carries a heading "Work NOT requiring a building permit", and under it, in a list of fifteen items, is: "Replace or repair roofing, or installing a new roof over existing roofing." Two neighbouring items in the same list matter on the same job - "Install gutters and downspouts" and "Replace or repair siding not required to be fire-resistive" are also outside the permit requirement. So a Bartow County reroof, whether a tear-off and replacement or a recover laid over the existing covering, needs no county building permit, at any price and at any size, and the County states no dollar or square-foot threshold on the item. THE TWO QUALIFICATIONS THE HANDOUT PUTS ON ITSELF. First, the exemption is from the permit only, not from the code: the heading paragraph reads "Some minor repairs and maintenance on one and two family dwellings do not require a building permit; however, regardless of whether a permit is required, the project must meet all adopted construction codes adopted by the State of Georgia and Bartow County requirements." Second, the handout says of itself that "This information is not all-inclusive, so please check with Community Development staff to discuss the scope of your project", and the Division's number is 770-387-5067. WHAT THE ORDINANCE SIDE SAYS, SO A ROOFER CAN SEE THE WHOLE PICTURE. Chapter 18's own exemption section, 18-162, does not mention roofing at all - its nine items are small accessory buildings under 400 square feet, agricultural structures and a series of portable or replacement mechanical items - and section 18-163 adds that "Ordinary minor repairs may be made without a permit, provided that such repairs shall not violate any of the provisions of the standard building codes." The handout is the Department's own published answer on how it applies that scheme to roofing, and it is the more specific of the two. Where a permit IS needed for other work on the same project, section 18-173 requires a contractor to give the County a state licence number before the permit issues.

Set by the state code, not by Bartow County - but note that the County's own permit handout treats a recover as ordinary work. The residential code in force is the 2024 International Residential Code with the Georgia Amendments 2026, and the Georgia amendment packet makes no change to the Code's roofing chapter, so the base International Residential Code reroofing and roof-recover provisions apply as published and Georgia adds no layer cap of its own. Bartow County's Code does not adopt the state codes so much as recite that they apply, and Chapter 18 writes no technical roofing provision of any kind: it deals with adoption, the building department, permits, fees, inspections, certificates, utilities, enforcement, fines and the construction board of adjustment and appeals. No Bartow County ordinance limits the number of roof-covering layers. What the County does publish is that "installing a new roof over existing roofing" is work not requiring a building permit, which settles the permit question for a recover but leaves the underlying code question where the state left it - the base International Residential Code's own limits on when a roof may be recovered rather than torn off still apply to the work. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction has not been shown to be adopted here, and section 18-32 makes appendices unenforceable unless specifically taken up.

Set by the state code, not by Bartow County. The Georgia amendment packet to the 2024 International Residential Code makes no change to the Code's roofing chapter, so the base International Residential Code provisions on the deck beneath a roof covering apply as published. Chapter 18 of the Code of Bartow County writes no roof-deck or sheathing specification of its own, and its section list carries no technical roofing provision at all. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which carries the enhanced deck-sealing provisions, has not been shown to be adopted here, and section 18-32 switches appendices off unless one of three named conditions is met. One local point a roofer should know: unlike several neighbouring counties, Bartow does not make sheathing replacement the trigger for a permit - its handout puts "Replace or repair roofing, or installing a new roof over existing roofing" outside the permit requirement without attaching any decking allowance to it. That means no county inspection of the deck on a reroof, so the deck is the contractor's responsibility alone.

7% in Bartow County. The Georgia Department of Revenue's rate chart in force for July 1 through September 30, 2026 lists jurisdiction code 008 "Bartow" at 7%, combining the 4% Georgia state rate with the local components the chart marks LOST, Educational and SPLOST. The Department of Revenue has already published the chart taking effect on October 1, 2026 and the Bartow row is unchanged at 7% in it, so the figure holds through that reissue. Bartow is not one of the Georgia counties the chart splits by city, so the same 7% applies in Cartersville, Adairsville, Emerson, Euharlee, Kingston, Taylorsville and White as in the unincorporated county. For the roofer, Ga. Comp. R. & Regs. r. 560-12-2-.26(1) makes anyone who contracts to furnish materials and perform services improving real property "the consumer of all tangible personal property used or consumed in performing such contract" and who "shall pay the tax thereon at the time of purchase, use, storage or consumption in this State, whichever occurs first" - so the tax on the shingles is the contractor's, paid at the supplier, and not a line the homeowner is charged as a resale item. The same rule requires every contractor improving real property in Georgia to file for a Certificate of Registration on Form CRF-002 before its first construction activity in the state, which is a tax registration and not a contractor credential.