Grant County Area Plan Department

Grant County, Indiana

county

401 S. Adams Street, 4th Floor, Marion, IN 46953

Required

Required

WHERE, AND WHICH OFFICE. The Area Plan Department is at 401 S. Adams Street, 4th Floor, Marion, IN 46953, on (765) 668-4765, fax (765) 651-0892, email [email protected]. The office is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and takes permits 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., Monday to Friday. Todd Glancy is Executive Director and Randy Berryhill is Building Inspector. Check the address first: the office covers unincorporated Grant County and the towns of Fairmount, Jonesboro, Matthews, Sweetser, Upland and Van Buren, while Marion and Gas City issue their own permits, and the City of Marion's building department is on (765) 662-9931. Inside one of the six towns, section 153.475(H) applies: "A permit for any structure or use, for which a municipal construction authorization (town approval) is required, shall not be issued until the authorization has been issued." ROOF PERMITS BY PHONE. The office's guidance says: "You can get permits for roofs and electrical hookups over the phone." Phone requests are paid by credit or debit card only, and for a contractor pulling the permit "we will need a copy of the contract, or a letter from the owner, approving the contractor to pull the permit before we issue the permit." Permits can also be filed and paid online through GeoPermits. INSPECTIONS AND FINES. Owner and contractor are both responsible for calling for required inspections. The office asks for 24 hours' notice and generally inspects the following working day between 9:30 AM and 3:30 PM. Appendix A charges $65 per occurrence, to a maximum of $250, for failure to call for an inspection, and $85 for each residential re-inspection.

THE COUNTY ADOPTS NO EDITION OF ITS OWN; ITS ADOPTION IS EXPRESSLY FLOATING. Section 153.148(A) of the Grant County Code, Adoption of rules by reference, reads: "Building rules of the State Fire Prevention and Building Safety Commission, as set out in the following articles of Title 675 of the Indiana Administrative Code are hereby incorporated by reference in this chapter, and shall include later amendments to those articles as the same are published in the State Administrative Code with the effective dates as fixed therein". Its list includes Article 14, One and Two Family Dwelling Codes, naming the International Residential Code and its amendments. The section was last amended by Ordinance 14-07, passed November 13, 2007, and the County publishes the whole of Title XV, including this building subchapter, as a current PDF on its own Area Plan page. WHAT ARTICLE 14 CURRENTLY REACHES. The Indiana residential rule is 675 IAC 14-4.4, the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, which incorporates the 2018 International Residential Code. The County says the same in its own words: "On December 26th, 2019, Indiana adopted the 2018 International Residential Code (IRC), which can be found as the 2020 Indiana Residential Code (IRC)". The State Building Commissioner's memo of February 25, 2020 adds: "The 2020 Indiana Residential Code is in full force and effect statewide." The County writes no roofing amendment to it anywhere in its building subchapter, sections 153.145 to 153.166.

Required — REQUIRED, AND THE COUNTY SAYS SO. The Area Plan Department's own guidance, asked whether drip edge is required on roofs, answers: "Yes, drip edge is required on roofs." The requirement is the state's. The Indiana State Building Commissioner's memo on ice/water shield and drip edge reproduces section R905.2.8.5 of the 2020 Indiana Residential Code as adopted, and its first sentence reads: "A drip edge shall be provided at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs." The rest of the section, reproduced in the memo, sets the overlap, extension and fastening of the drip edge and the order of underlayment at eaves and rakes. 675 IAC 14-4.4 amends the asphalt-shingle flashing section above it only by deleting the word "approved" and makes no change to the drip-edge section, and the County's building subchapter has no drip-edge provision of its own. About drip edge

Not required — NOT REQUIRED BY THE TABLE HERE, AND THE COUNTY SAYS THE SAME, WITH ONE CONDITION. The Indiana Residential Code's Table R301.2(1), as amended by 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, runs county by county, and the Grant County row prints No in the ice shield underlayment column. The Area Plan Department's own guidance agrees: "According to Indiana code, in Grant County ice protection is NOT required; unless the shingle material's manufacturing instructions calls for it (which supersedes Indiana code)." The State Building Commissioner's memo explains how that works: "Note that the table lists specific Indiana counties in which the use of ice/water shield is required", and elsewhere the membrane is required "only when the roofing manufacturer's written installation instructions require it". Read the shingle manufacturer's instructions for the assembly being installed before deciding the membrane is optional on a Grant County job. About ice & water barrier

Not required — NOT REQUIRED. Neither the County's building subchapter, which adopts the state rules by reference with no technical amendment, nor any other part of Title XV of the Grant County Code contains a UL 2218 or Class 4 impact requirement; where the title uses the word impact at all it is about land use, flooding, wind turbines and towers. The state rule the County adopts, 675 IAC 14-4.4, makes no impact-resistance amendment to the roofing chapter, and IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars the County from an ordinance more stringent than the commission's rules. Impact-resistant shingles are an insurance and warranty decision in Grant County, not a code requirement.

NO FLOOR, AND THE COUNTY'S OWN GUIDANCE AND FEE SCHEDULE PUT A REROOF INSIDE IT. Section 153.150 of the Grant County Code, Building permit required, reads in full: "Construction is prohibited unless in conformity with a valid building permit obtained from the County Area Plan Commission prior to commencement of construction." The building subchapter takes its definition of construction from state law, and item (4) of that definition is "Work undertaken to alter, remodel, rehabilitate or add to any part of a Class 1 or Class 2 structure". Neither states a dollar or square-footage threshold. The Area Plan Department's own permit guidance lists the questions that mean a permit is needed, and one of them is "Is the work replacing or repairing a roof?" The fee schedule carries a Roofing line of its own, $32 for residential work and $58 for agriculture, commercial and industrial work, under Appendix A as amended effective October 20, 2025 by Ordinance 15-2025, and the residential application form has a ROOF box. ONE THING THAT DOES NOT APPLY TO A ROOF. Section 153.475(K) reads: "A building permit, pool permit or sign permit cannot be issued unless an improvement location permit has been issued (roofing permits do not require ILPs unless in conjunction with a new structure)." So a reroof on an existing house is a roofing permit alone. The County's flood-damage-prevention definitions leave re-roofing out of floodplain development; that is a floodplain rule and does not remove the building permit. THE COST OF GUESSING WRONG. Appendix A sets an early bird fine, for starting construction before the permit issues, of "2 times the cost of the permit issued".

THE FIGURES ARE THE STATE'S COUNTY-INDEXED TABLE, NOT A GRANT COUNTY ENACTMENT. Table R301.2(1) of the Indiana Residential Code, as amended by 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, gives the Grant County row as wind speed 115 mph, seismic design category A, ground snow load 20 psf, frost depth 30 inches, winter design temperature 2 degrees Fahrenheit, decay slight to moderate, termite moderate to heavy, weathering severe, ice shield underlayment required No, air freezing index 1500 or less, and mean annual temperature 50.3 degrees. The County publishes no design criteria of its own, and IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars it from varying these locally.

TWO LAYERS MAXIMUM, SET BY THE STATE CODE; GRANT COUNTY WRITES NO LAYER RULE OF ITS OWN. The County's building subchapter, sections 153.145 to 153.166, adopts the state rules by reference and otherwise deals with permits, applications, inspections, the contractor registry, entry, stop-work orders, occupancy certificates and unsafe buildings; it contains no technical roof-covering provision at all. The rest of Title XV was searched for the terms that would carry a recover or tear-off rule and contains none: its only mention of re-roofing is in the floodplain definitions. On the state side, 675 IAC 14-4.4's only amendments to the roof assemblies chapter delete the last sentence of the rooftop photovoltaic section, delete the word "approved" from two asphalt-shingle attachment and flashing sections and delete the word "printed" from a third; it makes no amendment to the reroofing section. Nor could the County add one: IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city, town or county from an ordinance "that conflicts with or includes more stringent or detailed requirements than the commission's rules". So the answer on a Grant County job is the reroofing section of the 2018 International Residential Code as Indiana adopted it, unchanged. Base-code rule, read at 2018 International Residential Code Section R908.3.1.1, Roof recover not allowed: a roof recover "shall not be permitted" where "the existing roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering." One existing layer may be recovered; a second existing layer means a tear-off to the deck. Confirm the existing layer count with the Area Plan office before quoting a recover.

NO LOCAL SHEATHING RULE EXISTS, AND NONE COULD. The County's building subchapter carries no technical roofing content, and Title XV as a whole contains no occurrence of sheathing, decking or underlayment. IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars the County from an ordinance more stringent or more detailed than the commission's rules. The deck side of an asphalt reroof is therefore set by the 2018 International Residential Code as incorporated by 675 IAC 14-4.4, whose roofing-chapter amendments are the four word and sentence deletions described in this record's layer entry, none of which reaches the sheathing provisions.

7.00% in Grant County, the Indiana state sales and use tax rate. The Department of Revenue's county tax information page states: "The sales tax for the entire State of Indiana is 7%." WHO PAYS IT ON A ROOF DEPENDS ON THE CONTRACT. The Department's Sales Tax Information Bulletin #60 explains that a contractor on a time and material contract "is a retail merchant that is selling the construction material that it incorporates into real property" and collects sales tax on the material portion, while a contractor on any other type of contract, such as a lump sum, "must pay sales or use tax on their construction material" and does not collect it from the customer. Read the bulletin, or ask an accountant, before pricing a job either way.