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Permitting Authorities / Nebraska / City of Ralston - Building and Safety

Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Ralston, NE?

Adopted code

City of Ralston - Building and Safety

Yes, a permit is required to replace a roof in Ralston, NE, issued by City of Ralston - Building and Safety. Ralston files building permits through its own online Citizen Portal, reached from the City's Permits & Licenses page; the City states that "Paper applications are available by request to Dan Freshman or in person at City Hall." The contact is Dan Freshman, Building and Safety Director and Chief Building Official, on 402-331-6677 extension 1310, at 5500 S 77th Street, Ralston, NE 68127. Fees, from the City's 2024 Master Fee Schedule: a $25.00 issuance fee for a Building Permit/Accessory Use; a permit fee on total valuation starting at $41.00 for $1.00 to $2,000 and stepping up by bracket; and a technology fee of $25.00 on a total permit fee of $0 to $499.00, $50.00 from $500.00 to $2,499.00, and $75.00 at $2,500 and above. Plan review is $30.00 an hour with a one-hour minimum for additional review, $300.00 for engineer review, and $100.00 or 10% of fee for commercial and multi-family review. Refunds are "70% within 180 days if work has not commenced" on a permit with plan review and "90% within 180 days if work has not commenced" without, and plan review, engineer review and inspection fees are non-refundable. Ralston also publishes driveway and curb cut information and a deck-plan requirement sheet on the same page.

Roof code checklist: Ralston, NE

ItemAnswerCode citeSourceVerified
Permit to replace a roofYescityofralston.com2026-09-05
Repair permit thresholdPublishedR105.2cityofralston.com2026-09-10
Layer limit / roof-overPublishedR908.3.1.1RA4113-009a Residential Code Amen...2026-09-10
Deck & sheathingNot published
Drip edgeNot published
Ice & water shieldNot published
Mid-roof inspectionNot published
Impact-resistant (Class 4) roofingNot published
Wind design criteriaNot published
Adopted codePublishedSec. 9-501.01cityofralston.com2026-09-10
Contractor license / registrationYesnebraskalegislature.gov2026-09-05
Sales & use taxPublishedslstax_rates_07-01-2026.pdf2026-09-05

Each row comes from the sourced record on this page; full wording is in the table below. "Not published" means no official source for that item was found when the record was last verified.

Jurisdiction
City of Ralston, Nebraska
Jurisdiction type
city
Address
5500 S. 77th Street, Ralston, NE 68127
Contact
  • url: https://www.cityofralston.com/1216/Permits-Licenses
  • phone: 402-331-6677
Roofing permit required
Required
Contractor registration required
Required
Registration details
  • state_level: STATEWIDE, AND IT IS THE REQUIREMENT THAT BITES HERE. Neb. Rev. Stat. 48-2104(1), in the Contractor Registration Act: "Before performing any construction work in Nebraska, a contractor shall be registered with the department." The department is the Nebraska Department of Labor. A roofer is inside the definitions rather than at their edge: "Construction" means "work on real property and annexations, including new work, additions, alterations, reconstruction, installations, and repairs" (48-2103(2)), and "Contractor" means a person or firm "engaged in the business of the construction, alteration, repairing, dismantling, or demolition of buildings ... and every other type of structure" (48-2103(3)). Two exemptions, both in 48-2104(1): a person who performs work, or has work performed, on his or her own property; and "any person who earns less than five thousand dollars annually for construction services." That threshold is annual earnings for construction services, not the value of one job, so it will rarely reach a working roofer.
  • city_level: NO CITY LICENCE FOR ROOFING. Ralston publishes its contractor-licensing requirements on its Permits & Licenses page under the heading "Contractor Licensing", and it licenses exactly two trades. For plumbing it requires a "Master Plumbing License from Omaha, La Vista, or Bellevue", a "Current Certificate of Insurance" and a "$30 licensing fee" - so Ralston recognises a neighbouring city's master licence rather than examining its own. For electrical it requires a "State of Nebraska Electrical Contractor License" and a "Current Certificate of Insurance". No roofing licence, general contractor licence or contractor registration appears there, and the City's 2024 Master Fee Schedule carries a "Plumbing Contractor's License" fee of $30.00 and no contractor licence fee of any other kind. The Municipal Code agrees as far as it has been read. Chapter 9, Building Regulations, and Chapter 10, Business Regulations, were both read in full, and neither licenses or registers roofing contractors or general contractors. The only licensed-contractor language in Chapter 9 is in the City's amendments to the mechanical code at Section 9-802, where an application for a mechanical permit "shall be signed by a licensed contractor". Chapter 10's licences and permits cover alcoholic beverages, itinerant vendors, explosives and mobile food vendors. The itinerant-vendor licence is worth knowing about before canvassing door to door: Section 10-203 makes it "unlawful for an itinerant vendor to engage in such business within the City without first obtaining a license therefor", and Section 10-202 defines an itinerant vendor as a person who "engages temporarily within the City in the business of selling and delivering goods, wares, and merchandise or taking orders for goods, wares or merchandise". This record does not decide whether that reaches a roofing contractor taking orders for re-roofs; ask the City before canvassing. The limit on the negative, stated plainly: the other chapters of the Municipal Code have not been read in full for this record, so a licensing provision sitting in one of them and not repeated on the website would not have been seen. Confirm with the Building and Safety Director on 402-331-6677 extension 1310 before the first Ralston job.
Permit process note
Ralston files building permits through its own online Citizen Portal, reached from the City's Permits & Licenses page; the City states that "Paper applications are available by request to Dan Freshman or in person at City Hall." The contact is Dan Freshman, Building and Safety Director and Chief Building Official, on 402-331-6677 extension 1310, at 5500 S 77th Street, Ralston, NE 68127. Fees, from the City's 2024 Master Fee Schedule: a $25.00 issuance fee for a Building Permit/Accessory Use; a permit fee on total valuation starting at $41.00 for $1.00 to $2,000 and stepping up by bracket; and a technology fee of $25.00 on a total permit fee of $0 to $499.00, $50.00 from $500.00 to $2,499.00, and $75.00 at $2,500 and above. Plan review is $30.00 an hour with a one-hour minimum for additional review, $300.00 for engineer review, and $100.00 or 10% of fee for commercial and multi-family review. Refunds are "70% within 180 days if work has not commenced" on a permit with plan review and "90% within 180 days if work has not commenced" without, and plan review, engineer review and inspection fees are non-refundable. Ralston also publishes driveway and curb cut information and a deck-plan requirement sheet on the same page.
Inspection requirements
Ralston does not charge for the inspections a permit actually needs, and it does charge for the ones it should not have needed. Its 2024 Master Fee Schedule sets out, under "Inspection Fees": "Initial required inspection - No Charge"; "First additional inspection - No Charge"; "Second inspection, each additional thereafter - $50.00"; and "After hours inspections, if available - $100/hr (min 1 hour)". So a re-roof that passes, or passes on one re-check, costs nothing in inspection fees, and every re-inspection after that is $50.00. The City's own codified Building Regulations chapter (Chapter 9, hosted on ecode360.com -- its standard content route serves an empty page shell, but its print route, fetched with the chapter's own node id, serves the real text) was fetched and read in full, and states the City's inspection sequence at Sec. 9-104 ("Building Inspector; Time of Inspection"): the Building Inspector, on notice from the permit holder, makes four inspections in order -- Foundation and Ground Work (after trenches are excavated and forms erected), Sewer Line and Sewer Tap (before the line is covered), Rough-in (made "after the roof, framing, fire-blocking, and backing is in place and all pipes, electrical wiring, chimneys, and vents are complete"), and Final (after the building is completed and ready for occupancy) -- and it is unlawful to proceed past any of those points without the Building Inspector's written approval. That sequence names no separate roof-covering or mid-roof inspection stage of its own; the roof structure being complete is a precondition the Rough-in inspection checks for, not a roofing inspection in its own right. The City's separately-adopted 2018 IRC amendments (Ordinance No. 1278, read in full from the City's own posted amendment document) do not touch Section R109 (Inspections) at all -- so the base 2018 IRC's own inspection article governs unmodified, and this record does not restate that unread text. The City's permit portal is where inspection results are published to the permit holder. Ask when the permit is issued.
Adopted code
Ralston publishes its own list of adopted codes on its Permits & Licenses page, under the heading "Current Adopted Building Codes": the 2018 International Building Code, the 2018 International Residential Code, the 2021 Ralston Plumbing Code, "The National Electrical Code, 2023 (NFPA 70, 2023)", the 2018 International Mechanical Code, the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code, the 2018 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code and the 2018 Property Maintenance Code. Note the plumbing entry: Ralston runs its own named plumbing code rather than an ICC edition. The enacted adoptions are in Chapter 9, Building Regulations, of the Ralston Municipal Code, which was read in full. The one that governs a house roof is Section 9-501.01, Residential Building Code; Adopted by Reference (added by Ord. No. 1086, 3-22-2004; amended by Ord. No. 1134, 4-1-2008; amended 2-2-2021 by Ord. No. 1278). It adopts "the International Residential Code, 2018 Edition" with local amendments "attached hereto, marked Exhibit A", and it makes the Residential Code as amended "controlling throughout the Municipality and throughout its zoning jurisdiction". The City's code library publishes Exhibit A as 9 Attachment 1, Residential Code Amendments, headed "2018 International Residential Code Amendments" and "Adopted 2-2-2021 by Ord. No. 1278", and it too was read in full. In the roofing chapter it makes these changes. Section R903.4, Roof Drainage, gains a paragraph requiring scuppers or gutters and downspouts where a roof drains over the edge, with rainwater discharged at least three feet from the building foundation, and parallel to the adjoining property line where the discharge point is within 20 feet of it; structures with no sub-grade spaces are excepted. Section R905.2.5, Fasteners, allows corrosion-resistant staples (minimum 16 gage, 15/16-inch crown) where the manufacturer approves them. Table R905.2.8.2 changes galvanized steel valley lining from 26 gage to 28, and Sections R905.3.8 (Flashing), R905.7.6 and R905.8.8 (both Valley flashing) lower their sheet-metal minimum from No. 26 gage, 0.019 inches, to No. 28 gage, 0.018 inches. The amendments also delete Sections R908.3.1, Roof recover, and R908.4, Roof recovering, and add Section R908.3.1.1: "A roof recover is not allowed." The other codes on the City's list carry their own adopting sections and ordinance histories: the 2018 International Building Code at 9-501 (last amended 5-17-2022 by Ord. No. 1307, with its local amendments codified at 9-501A); the 2021 Ralston Plumbing Code at 9-701 (amended 5-4-2021 by Ord. No. 1282); the National Electrical Code "as revised and adopted by the Nebraska State Electrical Board" at 9-801 (amended 5-2-2023 by Ord. No. 1320); the 2018 International Mechanical Code at 9-802 (amended 8-2-2022 by Ord. No. 1310); and the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code at 9-901 (amended 4-5-2022 by Ord. No. 1305).
Repair permit threshold
Ralston names roof replacement as permitted work and publishes no exemption for small jobs on any page read for this record. The City's Permits & Licenses page states: "Building permits are required for most projects. Please use the links on this page to access our Citizen Portal to file for all building-related permits or to apply for a plumbing license." The City's Master Fee Schedule, Exhibit "A", marked "City of Ralston 2024" and "Updated 11-29-23", carries a "Building Permit Fees" block whose scope line reads: "Includes residential and commercial new construction, remodels, accessory use, decks, fences, roof replacements, siding replacements, and gutter replacements". Roof replacement is therefore inside the building permit, and so are the siding and gutter work that often travel with it - which is not true of every Nebraska city, so do not carry an assumption in from a neighbouring jurisdiction. Read the fee brackets as fee brackets and not as a permit threshold: the lowest one is "$1.00 to $2,000" at "$41.00", so a small job is a cheap permit rather than no permit, and on top of the permit fee there is a technology fee of $25.00, $50.00 or $75.00 by permit-fee band and a $25.00 issuance fee for a Building Permit/Accessory Use. Working without the permit is expensive: the penalty fee is "4x the regular permit fee", although "The Chief Building Official will issue one warning for a first offense for every address, contractor, or contracting company, if a permit appplication was received within 5 days working days of notificati" - the sentence is printed that way, truncated at the page edge and with the City's own spelling. The code-level list of work exempt from permit says the same thing. Ralston's residential code is the 2018 International Residential Code as amended by Ordinance No. 1278, which Municipal Code 9-501.01 adopts as Exhibit A and the City's code library publishes as 9 Attachment 1, "Residential Code Amendments". Its first amendment is to R105.2, "Work exempt from permit", and under the heading "Building:" it states "Permits shall not be required for the following:" followed by ten items: small one-story detached accessory structures, fences, retaining walls, water tanks, sidewalks and driveways, painting, papering, tiling and similar finish work, shallow prefabricated swimming pools, swings and other playground equipment, window awnings, and small detached decks. None of the ten is roofing work, so Ordinance No. 1278 exempts no re-roof, roof repair or roof-covering job from the permit. The ordinance amends nothing else in Section R105, and the rest of that section is the base 2018 IRC text, which this record does not restate. Chapter 9 of the Municipal Code, Building Regulations, read in full, adds no roofing exemption of its own, and the other list of work exempt from permit in it, in the City's amendments to the International Building Code, does not name roofing either. If a job looks marginal, ask the Building and Safety Director before skipping the permit rather than after.
Roof layer limit / recover
No overlay: a full tear-off is required on every re-roof in Ralston, however few layers are up there. Ralston Municipal Code 9-501.01, "Residential Building Code; Adopted by Reference", adopts the 2018 International Residential Code together with local amendments "attached hereto, marked Exhibit A", which the City's code library publishes as 9 Attachment 1, "Residential Code Amendments", headed "Adopted 2-2-2021 by Ord. No. 1278" and footed "Supp 1, Aug 2021". Ordinance No. 1278 is the latest amendment in 9-501.01's history. Under "Page 445" the amendments read: "Section R908.3.1, Roof recover. Delete this section in its entirety. Section R908.3.1.1, Roof recover not allowed. A roof recover is not allowed. Section R908.4, Roof recovering. Delete this section in its entirely." The second "entirely" is the City's own printing, and "is not allowed" is underlined in the City's document, which marks its insertions that way. With the recover section and the recovering section both struck, no condition, layer count or covering material is left under which a new roof may go over an old one: every existing layer comes off. The rule sits in the residential code, the code for one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses, and 9-501.01 makes the Residential Code as amended "controlling throughout the Municipality and throughout its zoning jurisdiction". Chapter 9 of the Municipal Code, read in full, carries no re-roofing or layer provision of its own that could soften it.
Sales & use tax
7.0% combined (.07) = Nebraska state rate 5.5% + City of Ralston local-option rate 1.5%, effective July 1, 2026, per the Nebraska Department of Revenue's Local Sales and Use Tax Rates schedule. Ralston is an independent city inside the Omaha metro, so the rate turns on the municipal boundary and not on the county: Douglas County levies no county sales tax - Dakota County is the only Nebraska county on that schedule with a county rate, and its 0.5% applies only outside a municipality that imposes its own local tax - but the surrounding municipalities are on the same schedule at their own rates, and a job a few blocks away can be taxed differently. Confirm the address, not the metro. Nebraska's local sales tax is state-administered rather than self-collected by the city, and no separate construction or use tax deposit is taken at building-permit issuance in Ralston.

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The permitting authority for the City of Ralston, an independent city of roughly eight thousand people entirely surrounded by Omaha in Douglas County, Nebraska. Ralston is its own municipality with its own Chief Building Official and its own adopted codes, and a roofer working an Omaha metro job must check which side of the Ralston line the address falls on - the permit, the fee schedule and the code edition are the City of Ralston's, not Omaha's. Permits are filed through the City's own Citizen Portal, and the City's published fee schedule names roof replacements among the work a building permit covers.

Hail reports near Ralston, NE

Reports, last 24 months
37
Largest, last 24 months
3.00 in Apr 24, 2025
Most recent
Jun 13, 2026 1.00 in
Reports, last 5 years
90
5 most recent reports, last 5 years
DateHail sizeDistance
Jun 13, 20261.00 in9 mi NW
Jun 13, 20261.00 in7 mi ESE
Jun 13, 20261.00 in8 mi ESE
Apr 23, 20261.25 in6 mi W
Apr 23, 20261.25 in2 mi WSW

Source: NOAA Storm Prediction Center severe weather database and daily storm reports (reports since the start of the current year are preliminary), within 10 miles of Ralston, NE (Census point). Data through Oct 7, 2026, not updated since. A report is an observation, not a damage record.

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Roofing questions: Ralston, NE

Do you need a permit to replace a roof in Ralston, NE?

Yes, a permit is required to replace a roof in Ralston, NE. Ralston names roof replacement as permitted work and publishes no exemption for small jobs on any page read for this record. The City's Permits & Licenses page states: "Building permits are required for most projects. Please use the links on this page to access our Citizen Portal to file for all building-related permits or to apply for a plumbing license." The City's Master Fee Schedule, Exhibit "A", marked "City of Ralston 2024" and "Updated 11-29-23", carries a "Building Permit Fees" block whose scope line reads: "Includes residential and commercial new construction, remodels, accessory use, decks, fences, roof replacements, siding replacements, and gutter replacements". Roof replacement is therefore inside the building permit, and so are the siding and gutter work that often travel with it - which is not true of every Nebraska city, so do not carry an assumption in from a neighbouring jurisdiction. Read the fee brackets as fee brackets and not as a permit threshold: the lowest one is "$1.00 to $2,000" at "$41.00", so a small job is a cheap permit rather than no permit, and on top of the permit fee there is a technology fee of $25.00, $50.00 or $75.00 by permit-fee band and a $25.00 issuance fee for a Building Permit/Accessory Use. Working without the permit is expensive: the penalty fee is "4x the regular permit fee", although "The Chief Building Official will issue one warning for a first offense for every address, contractor, or contracting company, if a permit appplication was received within 5 days working days of notificati" - the sentence is printed that way, truncated at the page edge and with the City's own spelling. The code-level list of work exempt from permit says the same thing. Ralston's residential code is the 2018 International Residential Code as amended by Ordinance No. 1278, which Municipal Code 9-501.01 adopts as Exhibit A and the City's code library publishes as 9 Attachment 1, "Residential Code Amendments". Its first amendment is to R105.2, "Work exempt from permit", and under the heading "Building:" it states "Permits shall not be required for the following:" followed by ten items: small one-story detached accessory structures, fences, retaining walls, water tanks, sidewalks and driveways, painting, papering, tiling and similar finish work, shallow prefabricated swimming pools, swings and other playground equipment, window awnings, and small detached decks. None of the ten is roofing work, so Ordinance No. 1278 exempts no re-roof, roof repair or roof-covering job from the permit. The ordinance amends nothing else in Section R105, and the rest of that section is the base 2018 IRC text, which this record does not restate. Chapter 9 of the Municipal Code, Building Regulations, read in full, adds no roofing exemption of its own, and the other list of work exempt from permit in it, in the City's amendments to the International Building Code, does not name roofing either. If a job looks marginal, ask the Building and Safety Director before skipping the permit rather than after.

Can you roof over an existing roof in Ralston, NE?

No overlay: a full tear-off is required on every re-roof in Ralston, however few layers are up there. Ralston Municipal Code 9-501.01, "Residential Building Code; Adopted by Reference", adopts the 2018 International Residential Code together with local amendments "attached hereto, marked Exhibit A", which the City's code library publishes as 9 Attachment 1, "Residential Code Amendments", headed "Adopted 2-2-2021 by Ord. No. 1278" and footed "Supp 1, Aug 2021". Ordinance No. 1278 is the latest amendment in 9-501.01's history. Under "Page 445" the amendments read: "Section R908.3.1, Roof recover. Delete this section in its entirety. Section R908.3.1.1, Roof recover not allowed. A roof recover is not allowed. Section R908.4, Roof recovering. Delete this section in its entirely." The second "entirely" is the City's own printing, and "is not allowed" is underlined in the City's document, which marks its insertions that way. With the recover section and the recovering section both struck, no condition, layer count or covering material is left under which a new roof may go over an old one: every existing layer comes off. The rule sits in the residential code, the code for one- and two-family dwellings and townhouses, and 9-501.01 makes the Residential Code as amended "controlling throughout the Municipality and throughout its zoning jurisdiction". Chapter 9 of the Municipal Code, read in full, carries no re-roofing or layer provision of its own that could soften it.

Do roofing contractors need a license or registration in Ralston, NE?

Yes.

What building code does Ralston, NE use?

Ralston publishes its own list of adopted codes on its Permits & Licenses page, under the heading "Current Adopted Building Codes": the 2018 International Building Code, the 2018 International Residential Code, the 2021 Ralston Plumbing Code, "The National Electrical Code, 2023 (NFPA 70, 2023)", the 2018 International Mechanical Code, the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code, the 2018 International Swimming Pool and Spa Code and the 2018 Property Maintenance Code. Note the plumbing entry: Ralston runs its own named plumbing code rather than an ICC edition. The enacted adoptions are in Chapter 9, Building Regulations, of the Ralston Municipal Code, which was read in full. The one that governs a house roof is Section 9-501.01, Residential Building Code; Adopted by Reference (added by Ord. No. 1086, 3-22-2004; amended by Ord. No. 1134, 4-1-2008; amended 2-2-2021 by Ord. No. 1278). It adopts "the International Residential Code, 2018 Edition" with local amendments "attached hereto, marked Exhibit A", and it makes the Residential Code as amended "controlling throughout the Municipality and throughout its zoning jurisdiction". The City's code library publishes Exhibit A as 9 Attachment 1, Residential Code Amendments, headed "2018 International Residential Code Amendments" and "Adopted 2-2-2021 by Ord. No. 1278", and it too was read in full. In the roofing chapter it makes these changes. Section R903.4, Roof Drainage, gains a paragraph requiring scuppers or gutters and downspouts where a roof drains over the edge, with rainwater discharged at least three feet from the building foundation, and parallel to the adjoining property line where the discharge point is within 20 feet of it; structures with no sub-grade spaces are excepted. Section R905.2.5, Fasteners, allows corrosion-resistant staples (minimum 16 gage, 15/16-inch crown) where the manufacturer approves them. Table R905.2.8.2 changes galvanized steel valley lining from 26 gage to 28, and Sections R905.3.8 (Flashing), R905.7.6 and R905.8.8 (both Valley flashing) lower their sheet-metal minimum from No. 26 gage, 0.019 inches, to No. 28 gage, 0.018 inches. The amendments also delete Sections R908.3.1, Roof recover, and R908.4, Roof recovering, and add Section R908.3.1.1: "A roof recover is not allowed." The other codes on the City's list carry their own adopting sections and ordinance histories: the 2018 International Building Code at 9-501 (last amended 5-17-2022 by Ord. No. 1307, with its local amendments codified at 9-501A); the 2021 Ralston Plumbing Code at 9-701 (amended 5-4-2021 by Ord. No. 1282); the National Electrical Code "as revised and adopted by the Nebraska State Electrical Board" at 9-801 (amended 5-2-2023 by Ord. No. 1320); the 2018 International Mechanical Code at 9-802 (amended 8-2-2022 by Ord. No. 1310); and the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code at 9-901 (amended 4-5-2022 by Ord. No. 1305).