Jerome County - Building Safety Department

Jerome County, Idaho

county

300 North Lincoln, Room 200, Jerome, ID 83338

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HOW A JOB IS BOOKED AND INSPECTED. Jerome County takes applications either on paper or through its online Citizen Portal, which offers a Residential Building Permit among six application types; the County's Applications page says "Prefer less paperwork? Electronic submittal is available now in lieu of these forms." Inspections are called in on a dedicated line, 208-324-9115, and the permit form prints "24 HOUR NOTICE REQUIRED FOR INSPECTIONS". The Building Department warns that "When calling in an inspection you may request morning or afternoon; we do not guarantee the time our inspector will be able to be on site", so a crew should not plan a same-day dry-in around a promised slot. The inspections named on the face of the County's own permit form are siting, footings, foundations, mechanical, framing, insulation, sheetrock and final; that list is written for new construction and the County publishes no separate roofing inspection sequence, so confirm with the office which inspections a reroof will draw. The permit form also states that "It shall be the duty of the permit holder or their agent to notify the building official that such work is ready for inspection", and that "Every permit shall become invalid if the work authorized by such permit is suspended or abandoned for a period of 180 days." Starting without the permit is expensive: "Double Fees may be levied whenever construction has begun prior to obtaining a building permit."

THE 2018 EDITIONS, STATED BY THE COUNTY IN TWO OF ITS OWN PUBLICATIONS. The Jerome County Building Department's Design Criteria page lists, under the heading "Adopted Codes", the "2018 International Building Code", the "2018 International Residential Building Code", the "2018 International Existing Building Code", the "2018 International Energy Conservation Code", the "2018 International Mechanical Code" and the "2018 International Fuel Gas Code". The County's own Residential Building Permit Application states the same thing in slightly different words on the page a homeowner reads before applying, under the heading "Current Adopted Codes": "2018 International Residential Code, (IRC) Parts I-VI and IX including appendices A & B with amendments.", "2018 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) With 2012 amendments" and "2019 Idaho Manufactured Home Installation Standard." That application also cites the residential code directly in its own permit terms ("EXPIRATION AS PER THE 2018 IRC R105.5"), which is the County applying the 2018 IRC as its operative document rather than merely naming it. STATE FRAMEWORK. Idaho's residential code is set by the Idaho Building Code Board, not by the county. IDAPA 24.39.30.600.03 adopts the "International Residential Code, 2018 Edition ... Parts I, II, III, and IX of the 2018 Edition for one (1)- and two (2)-family dwellings", effective July 1, 2024, together with a list of state amendments; Idaho Code 39-4116(2) requires a local government that issues building permits and performs code enforcement to adopt the Idaho residential code parts I-III and IX by ordinance, and bars it from adopting provisions of a later IRC edition the Board has not adopted, so a county cannot be ahead of the state. Roofing sits in Part III and is included. Idaho Code 39-4116(6): "Permits shall be governed by the laws in effect at the time the permit application is received." WHAT IS NOT ESTABLISHED, AND IT MATTERS FOR ROOFING. Jerome County does not publish the ordinance by which it adopted these editions, and it does not publish the amendment list its own application refers to when it says "with amendments". Its County Ordinances page lists seventeen ordinances, none of which is a building code. The one local amendment the County does publish is a structural live load rather than a roofing rule: "Table R301.5 is amended to require a minimum uniform live load of 40 PSF in habitable attics and sleeping rooms." So the amendments to the roofing chapter are unknown here rather than shown to be absent, and this record holds the fields that would depend on reading them.

THE COUNTY'S RULE IS A UNIVERSAL ONE WITH A SINGLE PUBLISHED EXEMPTION, AND THE EXEMPTION IS NOT ABOUT ROOFS. The Jerome County Residential Building Permit Application states, in bold at the head of its instruction page: "Jerome County requires a Building Permit before ANY construction can begin. Double Fees may be levied whenever construction has begun prior to obtaining a building permit." The only work that page exempts is listed in a single line under "Current Adopted Codes": "One-story detached accessory structures, provided the floor area is no greater than 200 feet, are exempt from permit." A house is not a detached accessory structure and a reroof is not one either, so that exemption does not reach a roof covering replacement on a dwelling. THE DEPARTMENT PAGE SAYS THE SAME THING FROM THE OTHER DIRECTION. Under the heading "When do you need a permit in Jerome County? (Residential Use Only)" the Building Department lists four items: "Remodels and Additions", "If the structure is over 200 sqft", "If there are utilities installed in the structure, i.e. electricity or plumbing" and "If the structure is permanently affixed to the ground". A dwelling meets the size, utility and permanence tests in every case, so those items do not carve a reroof out either. WHERE A REROOF IS FILED. The County's online portal offers six application types - Residential Building Permit, Commercial Building Permit, Mechanical/HVAC Permit, Manufactured Home, Sign Permit and Agriculture Permit. There is no separate roofing or reroof permit type, so residential roof work is filed on the Residential Building Permit. WHAT IS NOT PUBLISHED, AND WHY THAT SHOULD BE CHECKED BEFORE A SMALL REPAIR. Jerome County publishes no exemption list of its own beyond the accessory structure line above, and it does not publish the adopting ordinance that would carry one. So there is no published County figure - no square footage, no dollar value, no number of shingles - below which a repair is exempt. Ring the Building Department at 208-324-9262 before treating a small patch as exempt rather than reading a threshold into the silence.

THE COUNTY PUBLISHES ITS OWN DESIGN CRITERIA, AND IT DOES NOT PRINT A WIND SPEED BASIS. The Jerome County Building Department's Design Criteria page reads, line by line: "Wind Speed: 115 MPH", "Wind Exposure: C", "Ground Snow Load: 30 PSF", "Seismic Design Category: C", "Presumed Soil Bearing Pressure:1500 PSF without soils investigation", "Frost Depth: 24 inches", "Elevation: 4048 feet above sea level" and "Climate Zone: 5B". Between the snow load and the seismic category the same page carries the County's one published local amendment: "Table R301.5 is amended to require a minimum uniform live load of 40 PSF in habitable attics and sleeping rooms." The identical block is reprinted on the face of the County's Residential Building Permit Application, so these are the numbers a Jerome County permit is actually reviewed against. READ THE WIND FIGURE CAREFULLY. The County prints "115 MPH" without saying whether that is an ultimate design wind speed, a three-second gust on the older nominal basis, or a fastest-mile figure. Those are different numbers for the same loading and they are not interchangeable, so a designer should settle the basis with the building official before running a calculation rather than assuming one. Exposure C is the open-country exposure, which is what most of this county is. WHAT THE 30 PSF GROUND SNOW LOAD MEANS ON A ROOF. It is a ground load, not a roof load; the roof snow load is derived from it under the code's own procedure and is not stated by the County. The 40 PSF amendment above is a floor live load for habitable attics and sleeping rooms, not a roof load, and must not be read as one. The State of Idaho also deletes the model code's wind-borne debris opening-protection section statewide: IDAPA 24.39.30.600.03(d) reads "Section R301.2.1.2 Protection of Openings. Delete." That is a window and door provision rather than a roofing one, and under Idaho Code 39-4116(4)(b) a local jurisdiction may not re-adopt a provision the Idaho Building Code Board has expressly rejected.

6.0% -- the Idaho state rate, with no local add-on. Idaho Code 63-3619 imposes the state sales tax "at the rate of six percent (6%)". Idaho has only two kinds of local sales tax, and neither reaches roofing work in Jerome County. The first is the resort-city local-option tax, which Idaho Code 50-1044 confines to a resort city "with a population not in excess of ten thousand (10,000)"; the Idaho State Tax Commission publishes the list of cities that levy one, and no Jerome County city appears on it, nor does a county have that authority. The second is an auditorium-district tax, which the Tax Commission states "can charge a local sales tax only for short-term lodging (30 days or less)" and so never reaches roofing work. Idaho counties levy no sales tax at all. HOW A ROOF IS TAXED, WHICH MATTERS MORE THAN THE RATE: the Tax Commission's contractor guidance states that "Idaho sales tax law says contractors are the consumers (end users) of all the goods they use. As a result, they must pay sales tax on all purchases", and it names roofers among the contractors it covers. The roofer pays the 6% on materials at the supply house; the homeowner's invoice carries no sales tax line at all, on materials or on labour, because "a contractor doesn't charge sales tax to the customer" and the tax is absorbed into the bid. The Commission adds that "if sales tax is charged on the bill, the customer can refuse to pay it." A customer's own sales-tax exemption does not carry over to the contractor.