Fayette County, Georgia - Department of Building Safety

Fayette County, Georgia

county

Fayetteville, GA

Not required

Required

Fayette County runs permitting and inspections through an online portal rather than a counter queue. The Department of Building Safety is at 140 Stonewall Avenue West, Suite 201, Fayetteville, GA 30214, on 770-305-5403, with the front office at [email protected]; inspectors take telephone calls between 8:00 and 8:30 in the morning and between 4:30 and 5:00 in the afternoon. Applications, inspection requests and cancellations all go through a SagesGov account, and the County says plainly that it "cannot accept inspection requests left on individual staff voicemails." Inspection requests submitted before 4 p.m. are scheduled for the next business day, and a cancellation must be in before 9 a.m. on the scheduled day. Inspections have to be taken in order, and the County warns that a "red alert" when scheduling means the sequence is wrong. A permit is valid for 180 days from issue and auto-renews for a further 180 days with each passed inspection; a one-time extension can be requested by email before the permit expires. Where the department has put a condition on the file it appears under the Holds tab of the permit, and unresolved holds delay the job. The Department also warns that "ANY WORK CONCEALED BEFORE THE NECESSARY INSPECTION HAS BEEN APPROVED WILL REQUIRE AN ENGINEERS EVALUATION SIGN-OFF OR TO BE PROPERLY EXPOSED FOR THE INSPECTION." Residential re-roofing carries a $100.00 permit fee where a permit is needed at all; re-inspection fees start at $100 for a not-ready call and run $50, $75 and $100 for successive recalls, escalating by $50 thereafter. The Department of Building Safety issues permits in unincorporated Fayette County and in the towns of Brooks and Woolsey; work inside Fayetteville, Peachtree City or Tyrone goes to those cities.

STATE-SET, LOCALLY ENFORCED, WITH THE COUNTY'S OWN ADMINISTRATIVE CHAPTER ON TOP. 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. Fayette County enforces it. Code section 102-22 provides that eleven named codes, "as amended from time to time by the state, are hereby adopted as the construction codes for the county, except for those administrative and enforcement sections where are provided for herein", the sixth being the "International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings (ICC)". 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 published a notice saying so: the Department of Building Safety states that it "will adopt all codes per the DCA on January 1, 2026", circulating the Department of Community Affairs memorandum of December 1, 2025 that records the DCA Board's vote to adopt the 2024 International Residential, Building, Fuel Gas, Mechanical, Plumbing and Swimming Pool and Spa Codes with Georgia Amendments and the 2026 Georgia Amendments to the 2023 National Electrical Code, all effective January 1, 2026. THE EXCEPTION IS THE PART A ROOFER ACTUALLY MEETS. Chapter 102 of the Code of Fayette County substitutes the County's own administrative provisions for the codes' Chapter 1, article by article, with Article IV carrying the Procedures for the Administration of the Residential One- and Two-Family Dwelling Code. So the permit requirement, the exemption list, the fees and the inspection stages for a house in Fayette County are county text, not model-code text, and they are quoted in the fields that turn on them. APPENDIX U IS NOT ADOPTED, AND FAYETTE COUNTY ANSWERS THAT QUESTION WITH A DEFAULT-OFF RULE INSIDE ITS OWN RESIDENTIAL ARTICLE. Section 102-466, headed "Appendices" and sitting in the same article that administers the residential code, reads in its entirety: "Provisions in the appendices shall not apply unless specifically referenced herein or in the adopting ordinance." Section 102-22 then adopts ten codes by name and references no appendix of the Residential Code at all. The Department of Community Affairs lists the Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix - Appendix U - among the permissive codes a local government may take up by ordinance or resolution, and no Fayette County instrument opened for this record references it, so its enhanced roof-deck sealing and shingle fastening do not apply here. The energy code is off-cycle from the rest at the 2015 International Energy Conservation Code with Georgia supplements, which is the state position. The Code of Fayette County is codified through Ordinance No. 2026-01, enacted January 22, 2026.

Required — STATE-GOVERNED, NOT LOCALLY SET, and it applies in Fayette County exactly as it applies everywhere else in Georgia. 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 here whether or not the County chooses to enforce it locally, and the Department of Community Affairs states that the mandatory codes are applicable to all construction whether or not they are locally enforced. The mandatory residential standard today is the International Residential Code, 2024 Edition, with Georgia Amendments 2026. Fayette County enforces it by floating reference: Code section 102-22 provides that the codes it lists, "as amended from time to time by the state, are hereby adopted as the construction codes for the county, except for those administrative and enforcement sections where are provided for herein", the sixth of the eleven being the "International Residential Code for One- and Two-Family Dwellings (ICC)." So the County moved to the 2024 editions when the State did, without an ordinance of its own. THE GEORGIA AMENDMENT PACKET DOES NOT TOUCH THE ROOFING CHAPTER. The 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. THE COUNTY'S OWN INSTRUMENT WAS OPENED IN FULL FOR THIS ENTRY. Chapter 102, Buildings and Building Regulations, of the Code of Fayette County was crawled from the codifier's own interface on September 6, 2026, all fifteen articles and all 758 documents of it, 537,145 characters, from Article I in general and Article II administration and enforcement through Article III procedures for administration of the building code, Article IV procedures for the administration of the residential one- and two-family dwelling code, Articles V to X for the mechanical, plumbing, electrical, fuel gas, property maintenance and existing building codes, Article XI abatement of nuisances, Article XII registration of vacant or foreclosed real property, Article XIII the swimming pool and spa code, Article XIV the energy conservation code and Article XV abandoned mobile and manufactured homes. Anchored searches over that text return zero hits for "drip", zero for "R905" and zero for "shingle". The two hits for the phrase "chapter 9" are both construction-document requirements for fire protection systems, each requiring shop drawings for a fire protection system to contain all the information required by the referenced installation standards in chapter 9, the second naming that chapter as "chapter 9 of the International Building Code". Both are references to Chapter 9 of the International Building Code, which is the fire protection systems chapter, and neither is an amendment to Chapter 9 of the Residential Code, which is Roof Assemblies. Chapter 102 amends no section of Chapter 9 of the Residential Code. Of its fifteen occurrences of a word beginning "roof", most are inspection-stage descriptions and exterior-envelope plan requirements; the two that speak to roofing work are the permit exemption at section 102-487(1)n, quoted below, and an energy provision in Article XIV, section 102-2385.3, which exempts from the energy requirements "Reroofing for roofs where neither the sheathing nor the insulation is exposed" and requires roofs without insulation in the cavity, where the sheathing or insulation is exposed during reroofing, to be insulated either above or below the sheathing. Neither touches Chapter 9. APPENDIX U IS NOT ENFORCED HERE, AND THE COUNTY'S OWN APPENDICES CLAUSE IS WHAT ANSWERS IT. Section 102-466, headed "Appendices" and sitting in the same article that administers the residential code, reads in its entirety: "Provisions in the appendices shall not apply unless specifically referenced herein or in the adopting ordinance." Section 102-22 references no appendix of the Residential Code, and the only code appendix Chapter 102 adopts by name anywhere is a mechanical one, "Appendix C Design and Installation of Residential Flexible Ductwork Systems", at Article V. Appendix U, the Disaster Resilient Building Code IRC Appendix, is adopted by the State as optional and is listed by the Department of Community Affairs among the permissive codes a local government must adopt before it can enforce it. Its own section AU101.3.1 limits it to new development and to substantial improvements to existing development. THE PERMIT EXEMPTION IS REAL AND IT DOES NOT CHANGE THE ANSWER. Section 102-487, "Work exempt from permit", exempts at item (1)n "Roofing repairs and replacement, provided the new roofing material is identical to the existing roofing material, and the repair or replacement of structural sheathing (e.g. plywood, OSB, etc.) does not exceed 128 square feet", printed with the metric equivalent alongside, and adds that "This exemption does not apply to the supporting structural system or components (e.g. trusses, rafters, ceiling joists, etc.)." So an ordinary like-for-like Fayette County reroof is not inspected by the County. The exemption removes the inspection, not the requirement, and the same section says so in its own words: "Exemption from permit requirements of the residential code shall not be deemed to grant authorization for any work to be done in any manner in violation of the provisions of the residential Code or any other laws or ordinances of this jurisdiction." That is also what O.C.G.A. 8-2-25(a) says. The operative ICC text of R905.2.8.5 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 Fayette County unamended. About drip edge

Not required — Fayette County has answered this one for itself, which most Georgia jurisdictions have not. The Residential Code leaves its table of climatic and geographic design criteria to be filled in by the adopting jurisdiction, and the County's Department of Building Safety publishes a completed table headed "Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria - Fayette County Georgia". Its row for ice barrier underlayment gives the answer "No". That entry is what switches the Code's ice-barrier provision on or off, so no ice barrier or ice-and-water-shield membrane is required by code on a Fayette County roof. The Georgia State Amendments to the 2024 International Residential Code make no change to the Code's roofing chapter and so do not disturb it. Two practical caveats that are not code requirements: a shingle manufacturer's own instructions may still call for an eave membrane as a condition of its warranty, and the County's table says nothing about what a particular roof needs at a valley, a low slope or a north-facing eave. Confirm the current table with the Department of Building Safety on 770-305-5403 before relying on it for a design. About ice & water barrier

Not required — NOT A STANDING REQUIREMENT IN FAYETTE COUNTY, BUT THE COUNTY DOES HAVE A ROOF DRY-IN INSPECTION IN ITS SYSTEM, SO CHECK YOUR OWN PERMIT BEFORE YOU COVER THE FELT. Start with the enacted rule. Chapter 102, Article IV, Division 5 of the Code of Fayette County is the County's own inspection law for one- and two-family dwellings, substituted for the residential code's administrative chapter, and section 102-579, headed "Types of inspections", sets out the stages: an on-site construction inspection, a foundation inspection, a rough inspection of the plumbing, mechanical, gas and electrical systems, a floodplain inspection, a "Frame and masonry inspection" that is "made after the roof, masonry, all framing, firestopping, draftstopping and bracing are in place", a fire-resistance-rated construction inspection, a lot and foundation survey, and a final inspection. None of them is a roof-covering stage; the roof enters that list only as something that has to be finished before the framing stage is called. Section 102-579(f) then keeps the door open: "In addition to the called inspections above, the building official may make or require any other inspections to ascertain compliance with the residential code and other laws enforced by the building official." The Department's published residential inspection list carries the same answer - its stages run from the temporary pole through footings, slabs, the rough trades, framing ("Work Complete, roof shingled, doors and windows installed"), insulation, the finals and the building final, with no roofing stop - and the Department's checklists of common inspection items cover the slab and footing, rough electrical, mechanical, release and final electrical, plumbing, framing and the final building certificate of occupancy inspection, and there is no roofing checklist among them. NOW THE PART THAT CATCHES ROOFERS OUT. The County's master inspection-type sheet, the one headed "Minimum Required Inspections" that lists every inspection with its telephone IVR number and a blank column for whether it is required on a given permit, does carry a roof dry-in stage: "Deck/Felt/Flashing" is IVR 174 and "Deck/Felt/Flashing - Partial" is IVR 175, with a revision pair at 176 and 177. That is the deck, the underlayment and the flashing looked at before the covering goes on, and it exists as a live inspection code even though nothing the County publishes makes it automatic. Which inspections your job actually needs is set on the permit itself, so open the Inspections tab of your SAGES permit when it is issued and read the list attached to it; if Deck/Felt/Flashing is on it, the felt has to be approved before the shingles go down. Two County rules make that expensive to get wrong: section 102-582 provides that "Work shall not be done beyond the point indicated in each successive inspection without first obtaining the approval of the building official", and section 102-583 provides that where work has been covered without the necessary approval "a special investigation shall be made before subsequent inspections are approved. The work shall be uncovered to allow an inspection." The Department says the same thing on its own paperwork: "ANY WORK CONCEALED BEFORE THE NECESSARY INSPECTION HAS BEEN APPROVED WILL REQUIRE AN ENGINEERS EVALUATION SIGN-OFF OR TO BE PROPERLY EXPOSED FOR THE INSPECTION." One last thing that decides the question for most jobs: a like-for-like reroof that swaps 128 square feet of decking or less needs no Fayette County permit at all, and an unpermitted job is never inspected. The inspection question only arises once the covering type changes, more than 128 square feet of sheathing is replaced, or the supporting structure is touched.

Not required — No impact-resistant or hail-rated roof covering is required in Fayette County. Neither the Georgia State Amendments packet to the 2024 International Residential Code nor Fayette County's own building chapter 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; Fayette County adopts the technical codes as the state amends them and substitutes county text only for their administrative provisions, and the County's published climatic and geographic design criteria table carries no impact or hail entry. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction is not adopted here - section 102-466 switches the appendices off unless a provision is specifically referenced - and its 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 Atlanta hail belt, but that is an insurance matter and not a code requirement here.

READ THIS BEFORE QUOTING A FAYETTE COUNTY REROOF: THE EXEMPTION IS REAL, IT IS ENACTED, AND IT HAS TWO CONDITIONS THAT BOTH HAVE TO HOLD. Fayette County Code section 102-487, headed "Work exempt from permit" and sitting in Division 2 of the article that administers the residential code, lists at item (1)(n) under the heading "Building": "Roofing repairs and replacement, provided the new roofing material is identical to the existing roofing material, and the repair or replacement of structural sheathing (e.g. plywood, OSB, etc.) does not exceed 128 square feet (11.9 m²). This exemption does not apply to the supporting structural system or components (e.g. trusses, rafters, ceiling joists, etc.)." The County's fee schedule says the same thing from the money side, under the heading "Residential Re-Roofing Fees" at $100.00: "Only required if new roofing material is not identical to the existing roofing material and / or the repair or replacement of structural sheathing (e.g. plywood, OSB, etc.) exceeds 128 square feet (11.9 m²)." WHAT THAT MEANS ON A JOB. A like-for-like strip-and-replace - architectural shingles for architectural shingles - with 128 square feet or less of decking swapped out needs no Fayette County permit, at any price. Change the covering type, say shingles to standing-seam metal or to tile, and the exemption is gone even if you touch no decking. Replace more than 128 square feet of plywood or OSB and it is gone even if the covering matches. And touching the rafters, trusses or ceiling joists is outside the exemption in every case. THE EXEMPTION IS NOT A LICENCE TO BUILD DIFFERENTLY. The same section opens: "Exemption from permit requirements of the residential code shall not be deemed to grant authorization for any work to be done in any manner in violation of the provisions of the residential Code or any other laws or ordinances of this jurisdiction. All work exempt from a permit shall comply with chapter 110, pertaining to zoning." Two neighbouring exemptions in the same list are worth knowing because they come up on the same job: item (1)(o) exempts siding applied over existing siding but "does not apply to the removal of structural panel sheathing", and item (1)(r) exempts "Rain gutters and associated appurtenances". On the commercial side there is no equivalent exemption and the fee schedule prices re-roofing by structure size, from $200.00 up to 10,000 square feet to $1,000.00 above 40,000 square feet. Where a permit is needed, the County warns that working without one costs double: "In Fayette County if work is discovered taking place without a permit double permit fees will be applied to the project at the time the permit fees are paid."

115 MILES PER HOUR, AND FAYETTE COUNTY STATES THE BASIS, WHICH IS THE PART THAT MATTERS. The County's Department of Building Safety publishes a completed table headed "Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria - Fayette County Georgia", and its wind row reads "115 (3 second gust)". Stating the averaging basis on the face of the table is unusually helpful and removes the ambiguity that has caused trouble elsewhere: a three-second gust figure is not interchangeable with a fastest-mile figure or with an ultimate design wind speed, and this record does not convert between them. The same table gives a seismic design category of "B (Site Class D)", a ground snow load of 5 pounds per square foot, moderate weathering, a frost line depth of 5 inches, very heavy termite exposure, a winter design temperature of 22 degrees Fahrenheit, an air freezing index of 67 degree-days, a mean annual temperature of 62.2 degrees Fahrenheit, and flood hazard dates of June 12, 1983, March 18, 1996 and September 26, 2008. The Georgia State Amendments to the 2024 International Residential Code carry only one wind figure in the mandatory chapters and it is not a design value: an exception to the foundation-anchorage section that applies where the basic wind speed does not exceed 115 miles per hour and the seismic design category is A or B. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, whose Chapter AU4 offers an adopting jurisdiction a choice of minimum wind speeds, is not adopted in Fayette County. Confirm the design wind speed and exposure category with the Department of Building Safety on 770-305-5403 before designing to a number.

Set by the state code, not by Fayette County. 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. On the local side, Fayette County's building chapter substitutes county text only for the codes' ADMINISTRATIVE provisions - permits, fees, inspections, appeals and enforcement - and adopts the technical codes themselves as the state amends them. Its residential administrative article was read in full, and the only place it speaks to roofing at all is the permit exemption at section 102-487(1)(n), which turns on whether the new covering matches the old and on how much sheathing is replaced. It says nothing about how many layers of covering may remain in place. No Fayette County ordinance limits the number of roof-covering layers. Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction is not adopted here - section 102-466 provides that provisions in the appendices do not apply unless specifically referenced - so nothing in that appendix bears on the question either.

THE DECK IS WHERE FAYETTE COUNTY DRAWS ITS PERMIT LINE, SO MEASURE IT BEFORE YOU START. On the technical side the answer is the state's: 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 Fayette County writes no roof-deck or sheathing specification of its own. What the County does write is a quantity that decides whether the job is permitted at all. Section 102-487(1)(n) exempts roofing repairs and replacement only where, among other conditions, "the repair or replacement of structural sheathing (e.g. plywood, OSB, etc.) does not exceed 128 square feet (11.9 m²)", and adds that "This exemption does not apply to the supporting structural system or components (e.g. trusses, rafters, ceiling joists, etc.)." So on a Fayette County reroof, replacing up to 128 square feet of decking keeps an otherwise like-for-like job outside the permit system, and the 129th square foot puts it inside. Section 102-487(1)(o) draws the same kind of line on the walls: siding over existing siding is exempt, but that exemption "does not apply to the removal of structural panel sheathing." Appendix U Disaster Resilient Construction, which carries the enhanced roof-deck sealing provisions, is not adopted in Fayette County - section 102-466 provides that "Provisions in the appendices shall not apply unless specifically referenced herein or in the adopting ordinance", and no Fayette County instrument references it - so those provisions do not apply here.

7% in Fayette County. The Georgia Department of Revenue's rate chart in force for July 1 through September 30, 2026 lists jurisdiction code 056 "Fayette" 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 Fayette row is unchanged at 7% in it, so the figure holds through that reissue. Fayette is not one of the Georgia counties the chart splits by city, so the same 7% applies in Fayetteville, Peachtree City, Tyrone, Brooks and Woolsey 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.