City of New Albany Building Department

City of New Albany, Indiana

city

142 E Main, Suite 206, New Albany, IN 47150

Not required

Required

WHERE. The Building Department is at 142 E Main, Suite 206, New Albany, IN 47150, on (812) 948-5371, with David Kalbaugh as Building Commissioner; Code Enforcement is a separate line, (812) 948-5309. The Building Department's page points to the City's SmartGov public portal for every permit the City offers, and the same portal is where it sends contractors for the Contractor's License Application. WHEN A ROOF DOES NEED A PERMIT, because structural work is involved, section 150.060(A) requires the application to be accompanied by "a plat or sketch of the proposed location showing lot boundaries, and by plans and specifications showing the work to be done", and section 150.046(C) bars a licensed residential contractor from applying for permits on behalf of another person, firm or entity. Permit fees are fixed by the Board of Public Works and Safety with Council approval and published in section 158.01, which was not read for this record, so no fee is stated here. No published review time was found. The Building Commission meets on the first Monday of the month at 4:00 P.M.

THE CITY ADOPTS NO EDITION OF ITS OWN; ITS ADOPTION IS EXPRESSLY FLOATING. Section 150.010(A), Adoption of regulations by reference, reads: "Building rules of the Indiana 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 code and shall include later amendments to those articles as the same are published in the Indiana Register or the Indiana Administrative Code with effective dates as fixed therein". The list that follows runs from Article 13 to Article 20 and names, under Article 14, One and Two Family Dwelling Codes, the "Indiana Residential Code" by name. The section's history is Ord. G-88-112, passed 4-21-1988, and Ord. G-02-39, passed 10-17-2002. So New Albany tracks whatever Article 14 is at the time of the work rather than freezing an edition. WHAT ARTICLE 14 REACHES. The Indiana residential rule is 675 IAC 14-4.4, the 2020 Indiana Residential Code, which the Indiana Department of Homeland Security states has regulated residential construction statewide since December 26, 2019, and which adopts and amends the first printing of the 2018 International Residential Code. New Albany writes no roofing amendment to it anywhere in its building-code sections, 150.001 through 150.086, and IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars a city from an ordinance "that conflicts with or includes more stringent or detailed requirements than the commission's rules".

Required — REQUIRED, BUT BY THE STATE RATHER THAN BY NEW ALBANY. The Indiana State Building Commissioner's own memo reproduces the provision as adopted: "R905.2.8.5 Drip edge. A drip edge shall be provided at eaves and rake edges of shingle roofs. Adjacent segments of drip edge shall be overlapped not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall extend not less than 1/4 inch (6.4 mm) below the roof sheathing and extend up back onto the roof deck not less than 2 inches (51 mm). Drip edges shall be mechanically fastened to the roof deck at not more than 12 inches (305 mm) o.c. with fasteners as specified in Section R905.2.5. Underlayment shall be installed over the drip edge along eaves and under the drip edge along rake edges." 675 IAC 14-4.4 amends R905.2.8 only by deleting the word "approved" and does not touch R905.2.8.5. New Albany has no drip-edge provision of its own and no power to add or remove one under IC 22-13-2-3(c). The permit exemption for a covering replacement does not lift it. About drip edge

Not required — NOT REQUIRED BY THE TABLE IN FLOYD COUNTY, AND THAT IS NOT THE END OF THE QUESTION. The Indiana Residential Code's Table R301.2(1), amended by 675 IAC 14-4.4-5, runs county by county, and the Floyd row reads: wind speed 115, seismic design category B, ground snow load 20, frost depth 24, winter design temperature 9 degrees, decay slight to moderate, termite moderate to heavy, weathering severe, ice shield underlayment required No, air freezing index 1500 or less, mean annual temperature 54.7 degrees. WHAT THE STATE'S OWN MEMO SAYS THE No MEANS. It means only that Floyd is not one of the counties where the barrier is always required; R903.1, R904.1 and R905.1 still require roofing to be installed in accordance with the manufacturer's installation instructions, so where those instructions call for an ice-and-water membrane on a given assembly, that requirement governs the job regardless of the table. New Albany has no ordinance touching this: its building-code sections 150.001 through 150.086 contain no ice barrier, underlayment or climatic provision, and IC 22-13-2-3(c) bars it from adding one. Read the shingle manufacturer's instructions for the assembly being installed before treating the membrane as optional here. About ice & water barrier

Not required — NOT REQUIRED. No impact-resistance, UL 2218, Class 4 or hail provision appears in New Albany's building-code sections 150.001 through 150.086, which were read for this record, and the state rule the City adopts, 675 IAC 14-4.4, makes no impact-resistance amendment to the roofing chapter. IC 22-13-2-3(c) would in any event bar the City from imposing a requirement more stringent or more detailed than the commission's rules. BE CLEAR ABOUT THE SCOPE: the rest of Chapter 150, which holds the housing code, the comprehensive plan and the unsafe-buildings provisions, was not read; those govern existing housing, planning and unsafe structures rather than new work. Impact-resistant shingles are an insurance and warranty decision in New Albany, not a code requirement.

NOT A THRESHOLD BUT A CONDITIONAL EXEMPTION, AND IT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING A ROOFER CAN KNOW ABOUT NEW ALBANY. The general rule at section 150.060(A) is broad: "A building permit shall be obtained before beginning construction, alteration or repair of any building or structure, using the forms furnished by the Building Commissioner." Section 150.063, When permits not required, then carves roofing out in terms: "Painting, exterior siding, flat concrete installation, window and door replacement and roof covering replacement do not require a permit provided that no structural work is involved." No dollar figure and no square-footage figure attaches to that sentence. The $1,000 cost limit in the sentence before it belongs to a different exemption, for minor interior repairs and for alterations that leave supporting walls, members and structural parts alone, and it does not cap the roof covering exemption. THE PROVISO IS THE WHOLE OF IT. The exemption holds only while no structural work is involved, and the ordinance neither defines structural work nor says whether replacing roof sheathing counts as such. A job that opens up to reveal rotten decking or damaged rafters may move from exempt to permitted in the middle of the tear-off, so stop and call the Building Department on 812-948-5371 before replacing anything beneath the covering. THE COST OF GUESSING WRONG. Under section 150.060(C), work begun without a required permit pays double the fees plus a flat $100 when the permit is later taken out, and stays subject to the chapter's penalties. Exemption from a permit is not exemption from the code: section 150.002 applies the building code to the repair of all buildings, and the state residential code still governs how the roof is installed.

THE FIGURES ARE THE STATE'S COUNTY-INDEXED TABLE, READ FROM THE STATE BUILDING COMMISSIONER'S OWN PUBLICATION, NOT A NEW ALBANY ENACTMENT. Table R301.2(1) of the Indiana Residential Code gives the Floyd County row as wind speed 115 mph, seismic design category B, ground snow load 20 psf, frost depth 24 inches, winter design temperature 9 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 54.7 degrees. TWO FIGURES TRAVEL BADLY FROM THE NORTH OF THE STATE. The seismic design category is B here, where DeKalb, Elkhart and Fulton counties print A on the same page of the table, and the frost depth is 24 inches, where those three print 36. A footing detail or a seismic assumption carried south from a northern Indiana job will be wrong. The City publishes no design criteria of its own and could not vary these under IC 22-13-2-3(c).

NO LOCAL LAYER RULE IS POSSIBLE IN INDIANA, AND NEW ALBANY'S BUILDING CODE WRITES NONE. The City's building-code sections, 150.001 through 150.086 of the Code of Ordinances, were read for this record and contain no layer, overlay, tear-off or reroofing provision; their only mention of a roof is the permit exemption in section 150.063. The City adopts the state residential code at section 150.010 with no technical amendment of its own. On the state side, 675 IAC 14-4.4 makes no amendment to the model reroofing section; its only edits anywhere in the roof assemblies chapter delete the word "approved" from two asphalt-shingle attachment and flashing sections, delete "printed" from a third and delete one sentence from the rooftop photovoltaic section. IC 22-13-2-3(c) then bars a city, town or county from an ordinance "that conflicts with or includes more stringent or detailed requirements than the commission's rules", and IC 22-13-2-3(a)(2) gives the state rules precedence over any local ordinance covering the same subject matter. So the answer on a New Albany job is the base 2018 International Residential Code rule. Base-code rule, read at 2018 International Residential Code Section R908.3.1.1, Roof recover not allowed, and quoted here rather than left behind the ICC paywall: 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. A PERMIT-FREE JOB IS NOT A CODE-FREE JOB. Section 150.063 removes the permit for a covering replacement, not the obligation, so the layer rule binds a New Albany reroof whether or not anyone inspects it.

7.00% in New Albany, the Indiana state sales and use tax rate, with no county or municipal add-on. Indiana authorises no local-option general sales tax, so neither Floyd County nor the City levies anything on top of the state rate, and 7.00% is the full rate a roofing contractor pays on materials purchased here.