Coweta County, Georgia - Building Permits & Inspections Division

Coweta County, Georgia

county

Newnan, GA

Required

Required

The Building Permits and Inspections Division is at 22 East Broad Street, Newnan, GA 30263, on 770-254-2660, and applications can be made online through the County's permitting portal. The County states that the Division "utilizes the services of SAFEbuilt to conduct inspections and review plans related to the proper construction and maintenance of buildings in Coweta County", so the inspector who arrives on site may work for a private firm under contract; the permit and the authority remain the County's. A residential re-roof permit costs $150.00 under the fee schedule at Code section 14-2, which groups it with siding and windows; a commercial or industrial re-roof is charged at $0.06 per square foot of building being re-roofed with a $175.00 minimum. General building permit fees are calculated from the International Code Council Building Valuation Data at $4.00 per $1,000.00 of calculated construction cost, and include plan review and building inspections. Under Item 105.6 work requiring a permit must not commence until the permit card is posted, and under Item 105.11 the person doing the work must notify the building official when the work is ready for each required inspection. Item 105.9 bars covering reinforcing steel or structural frame work without a written release, and Item 105.8 requires a release before work proceeds past any inspection point. Inspection requests are made by telephoning the inspection line printed on the permit card and leaving the information the recording asks for. The County publishes homeowner guides for re-roofing, accessory structures, home additions, decks, pole barns, basements, patio covers and swimming pools, along with a homeowner affidavit, a subcontractor affidavit and a State of Georgia authorized permit agent form.

STATE-SET, LOCALLY ENFORCED, WITH A SHORT LIST OF LOCAL ADDITIONS THAT DO NOT TOUCH ROOFING. Georgia has no local code adoption to look up. The International Residential Code, 2024 Edition, with Georgia Amendments 2026 is a mandatory state minimum standard code adopted by the Department of Community Affairs and effective January 1, 2026, and under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) it binds any structure built in Georgia whether or not the local government chooses to enforce it locally. Compliance is therefore statewide and automatic; what is local is enforcement. Coweta County enforces it and says so by reference rather than by edition: Code section 14-1, Item 101.3.9 provides that "The provisions of the International Residential Code for One and Two Family Dwellings, as adopted and amended by the state Department of Community Affairs, shall apply to the construction, addition, prefabrication, alteration, repair, use, occupancy and maintenance of detached one and two family dwellings not more than three stories in height, and their accessory structures", with parallel items for the Building, Electrical, Fuel Gas, Mechanical, Plumbing, Fire, Energy, Swimming Pool and Spa and Property Maintenance Codes. That is a floating adoption, so the County moved to the 2024 editions on January 1, 2026 without passing an ordinance of its own, and it publishes the Department of Community Affairs notice of those codes on its own building page. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED, AND COWETA ANSWERS THE QUESTION TWICE OVER. First by a default-off rule: Item 101.3.12 provides that "To be enforceable, the appendices included in the technical codes must be referenced in the code text or specifically adopted." Second by an enumeration: section 14-31, "Adopted additions to the International Building Code", lists what the County takes code by code, and for the International Residential Code its only appendix is item (4)(b), "Appendix E. Housing used as Dwellings, 2000 Edition of International Residential Code." Appendix U is not among them, so its enhanced roof-deck sealing and shingle fastening do not apply here. LOCAL ADDITIONS A ROOFER SHOULD KNOW ABOUT, AND ONE TO READ CAREFULLY. Section 14-31(4) bars framing at centres greater than 16 inches, with eight exceptions of which the first is "Engineered factory-built roof trusses". Section 14-31(4)(d) adds a water-resistive barrier requirement of one layer of No. 15 asphalt felt complying with ASTM D 226 Type 1 or another approved barrier - but read its own words before applying it to a roof: it is applied "over sheathing of all exterior walls", and its Attachment A is a siding table. IT IS A WALL RULE, NOT A ROOF-DECK RULE. Chapter 14 of the Code of Coweta County, read in full across all five articles, contains no amendment to the Residential Code's roofing chapter. The Code is codified through Ordinance No. 009-26, enacted April 21, 2026.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT COUNTY-SET, and Coweta County's own guide says so plainly on its face. The International Residential Code is one of the codes Georgia designates as a mandatory state minimum standard, so under O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) it binds construction in Coweta County whether or not the County elects to enforce it locally, and the County's Code says the same from the local side: section 14-1, Item 101.3.9, provides that "The provisions of the International Residential Code for One and Two Family Dwellings, as adopted and amended by the state Department of Community Affairs, shall apply to the construction, addition, prefabrication, alteration, repair, use, occupancy and maintenance of detached one and two family dwellings not more than three stories in height, and their accessory structures." The Georgia Department of Community Affairs amendment packet for the 2024 IRC carries no amendment to Chapter 9, Roof Assemblies: the packet's 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. Coweta County's own building instrument was re-opened in full for this entry, not taken from an earlier report: Chapter 14, Buildings and Building Regulations, all 37 documents and 96,950 characters of it, Articles I through V, searched on anchored terms with zero hits for "drip", zero for "R905", zero for "Chapter 9" and zero for "shingle". Coweta is one of the few Georgia counties that does amend the Residential Code, so this is a read rather than an assumption: section 14-31(4) bars centre framing greater than sixteen inches on centre with eight named exceptions, requires a water-resistive barrier over the sheathing of all exterior walls, substitutes its own Attachment A siding table for the Code's, and takes up Appendix E. Every one of those is a wall or framing provision. Measured across the whole chapter, the only Residential Code section numbers it touches at all are R703, R703.2, R703.7, R703.10.1 and R703.10.2, which are exterior wall covering; not one R9-hundred number appears anywhere in Chapter 14. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED. Item 101.3.12 provides that "To be enforceable, the appendices included in the technical codes must be referenced in the code text or specifically adopted", and the only Residential Code appendix section 14-31 specifically adopts is Appendix E; the County's former local amendments to Appendix G, swimming pools, were repealed by Ordinance No. 004-17 of February 7, 2017. The Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix is nowhere in the chapter, 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 Coweta County unamended. This one is normally inspected: the Chapter 14 fee schedule prices a "Residential Re-Roof, Siding or Windows" permit at 150 dollars and a commercial re-roof at six cents a square foot with a 175 dollar minimum, so the requirement and the inspection travel together here. Corroboration, offered as corroboration and not as the source that carries this field: the County publishes a homeowner guide, "2024 IRC Residential Re-Roof", on its own DocumentCenter, which states "Drip edge is required around entire perimeter of roof" and tells the permit holder to call for a final roof inspection. Read that for what it is worth and no more. It is stamped "Document Published by SAFEbuilt, January 2026", it is a shared regional vendor template rather than a Coweta instrument, it never names Coweta County anywhere in its three pages, and it still refers the reader to "city staff" in a county document. Under this project's standing rule a first-party-published vendor template is the jurisdiction's voice but not its law, so it corroborates the County's enforcement practice here and the field rests on the Code. About drip edge

Not required — A MID-ROOF INSPECTION IS NOT AUTOMATIC IN COWETA COUNTY, BUT IT IS NOT RULED OUT EITHER, AND A FINAL ROOF INSPECTION IS. This is one of the few Georgia jurisdictions that says anything at all about roofing inspections, so read the whole answer. The ordinance list is where the requirement is set: Code section 14-1, Item 105.7 obliges the building official to make the listed inspections "and such other inspections as necessary", and the building list has four stages and no roofing stage - a foundation inspection, a concrete slab or under-floor inspection, a frame inspection "made after the roof, framing, fire blocking and bracing are in place", 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. On top of that, the County serves a homeowner guide, 2024 IRC Residential Re-Roof, stamped "Document Published by SAFEbuilt, January 2026" and authored by the private firm the County engages to inspect for it. Asked "Will my roof be inspected?", it answers: "Yes, the permit holder must call for a Final Roof inspection. There may be a mid-roof inspection required, please consult the Building Department when you receive your permit." Its section on tile, metal and special roofs adds that "A mid roof inspection may be required." So plan for a final roof inspection on every permitted reroof, ask at the counter when the permit is issued whether a mid-roof inspection applies to your job, and do not conceal work that has not been released - Item 105.9 bars covering structural frame work without a written release, and Item 105.11 puts the duty to call for inspections on the person doing the work. Inspections are requested by calling the line printed on the permit card.

Not required — No impact-resistant or hail-rated roof covering is required in Coweta County. Neither the Georgia State Amendments packet to the 2024 International Residential Code nor Chapter 14 of the Code of Coweta 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 the County's building chapter, read in full across all five articles, adds to the Residential Code only an appendix, a framing-centres rule with eight exceptions, and an exterior wall water-resistive barrier. Coweta County has not adopted Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose roofing content is about fastening and water barriers rather than impact in any event. The County's own re-roofing guide addresses wind resistance for asphalt shingles and says nothing about impact or hail rating. An insurer may still offer a premium credit for an impact-rated shingle, but that is an insurance matter and not a code requirement here.

A REROOF NEEDS A PERMIT IN COWETA COUNTY, AND THE COUNTY SAYS SO FROM THREE DIRECTIONS. The ordinance puts the duty broadly and then lists what escapes it. Code section 14-1, Item 104.1.1 requires any owner, authorized agent or contractor "who desires to construct, enlarge, alter, repair, move, demolish, or change the occupancy of a building or structure" to "first make application to the building official and obtain the required permit for the work", and the exceptions that follow are eight items long: accessory buildings under 200 square feet, nonstructural concrete work such as driveways and sidewalks, fences not associated with pools, small retaining walls under four feet used for landscaping, patios, swings and similar playground equipment, certain pre-fabricated swimming pools, and "Painting, papering, tiling, carpeting and similar finish work." Roofing is not on that list. Second, the fee schedule at section 14-2 prices the permit: "Residential Re-Roof, Siding or Windows $150.00", and "Commercial/Industrial Re-Roof $0.06 per square foot of building being re-roofed; minimum $175.00". Third, the County publishes a homeowner guide, 2024 IRC Residential Re-Roof, whose opening question is "Why do I need a permit to re-roof my house?" and whose answer is that the permit lets the building department inspect for hazards and unsafe construction. THE ONE OPENING, AND IT IS DISCRETIONARY RATHER THAN MEASURED. Item 104.1.4 provides that "Ordinary minor repairs may be made with the approval of the building official without a permit, provided that such repairs shall not violate any of the provisions of the technical codes." Note that this is not a self-executing threshold: it turns on the building official's approval, and Coweta publishes no dollar figure or square-foot allowance that would tell a roofer in advance where a patch stops being a minor repair. Ring the Building Permits and Inspections Division on 770-254-2660 before assuming a small repair is outside the system. The guide confirms an owner may do the work: asked "May I, as the owner, do the re-roof myself?", the County's guide answers "Yes." A permit expires if the work is not commenced within six months, is suspended or abandoned for six months, or is not completed within twelve months, under Item 104.1.7.

THE COUNTY PUBLISHES AN ANSWER, AND YOU SHOULD KNOW WHERE IT COMES FROM BEFORE YOU RELY ON IT. Coweta County serves a homeowner guide from its own website, titled 2024 IRC Residential Re-Roof and stamped "Document Published by SAFEbuilt, January 2026" - SAFEbuilt being the private firm the County engages to conduct its inspections and review its plans. Asked "How many layers of roofing are allowed?", that guide answers: "No more than two (2) layers are allowed upon completion of installation". THAT IS THE COUNTY'S VOICE, NOT THE COUNTY'S ENACTED LAW, and it is a contractor-authored handout of the kind that is written for a whole service region rather than for one county, so treat it as guidance that yields to any conflicting instrument. THE OPERATIVE RULE IS THE STATE CODE'S. 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 that Code's own re-covering and re-roofing provisions apply as published and Georgia adds no layer cap of its own. On the local side, Chapter 14 of the Code of Coweta County was read in full across all five articles and contains no amendment to the Residential Code's roofing chapter and no layer limit of any kind; the County's only additions to the Residential Code are an appendix, a framing-centres rule and a wall water-resistive barrier. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction is not adopted here. So: no Coweta County ordinance limits the number of roof-covering layers, and the County's published guide tells homeowners the answer is two. Confirm with the Building Permits and Inspections Division on 770-254-2660 before planning a recover.

Set by the state code, with county guidance on top that is worth reading for what it is. On the technical side 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, and Chapter 14 of the Code of Coweta County, read in full, writes no roof-deck or sheathing specification. WATCH OUT FOR THE ONE THAT LOOKS LIKE A ROOF RULE AND IS NOT. Section 14-31(4)(d) requires "One layer of No. 15 asphalt felt, free from holes and breaks, complying with ASTM D 226 for Type 1 felt or other approved water-resistive barrier" to be "applied over sheathing of all exterior walls", horizontally, lapped not less than 2 inches, with 6-inch laps at joints. That is an EXTERIOR WALL requirement with a siding attachment table behind it, not a roof-deck requirement, and reading it onto a roof would invent a rule the County has not made. What the County does publish about roof decks is in its homeowner guide, 2024 IRC Residential Re-Roof, stamped "Document Published by SAFEbuilt, January 2026" - a handout the County serves from its own site, authored by the private firm that inspects for it, and therefore guidance rather than enacted law. Its preparation checklist for complete tear-offs reads: "The roof sheathing must provide a rigid surface" and "Repair or replace all boards or sheathing which are warped, cracked or delaminated between supports." Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which carries the enhanced deck-sealing provisions, is not adopted in Coweta County.

8% in Coweta County. The Georgia Department of Revenue's rate chart in force for July 1 through September 30, 2026 lists jurisdiction code 038 "Coweta" at 8%, combining the 4% Georgia state rate with the local components the chart marks LOST, Educational, SPLOST and PTRLOST. The Department of Revenue has already published the chart taking effect on October 1, 2026 and the Coweta row is unchanged at 8% in it, so the figure holds through that reissue. Coweta is not one of the Georgia counties the chart splits by city, so the same 8% applies in Newnan, Senoia, Grantville, Moreland, Sharpsburg, Turin and Haralson 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.