City of Toledo, Ohio - Division of Building Inspection

City of Toledo, Ohio

city

One Government Center, Suite 1600, Toledo, OH 43604

Required

Required

Toledo's Division of Building Inspection is at One Government Center, Suite 1600, Toledo, OH 43604 (419-245-1220; fax 419-245-1329); office hours 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Monday-Friday. As of the September 2024 rollout, the Division processes applications, plan review, payments, and inspection scheduling through a rebuilt online Permit Application Portal (applyforpermits.toledo.oh.gov) -- the Division's own portal page notes existing account holders must reset their password because "All user information has been moved from the old system into the new one." Online payments carry a 2.95% credit-card surcharge (Visa/MasterCard/Discover) or a flat $1 fee for electronic check. The City's own Building Permit Application form prices a residential roof-replacement line item at "$60 Residential" (Windows/Doors/Siding priced the same; $95 each for Commercial), on top of a base Building Permit fee of "Base fee $60 + 0.20/Sq. Ft" and a Plan Review fee of "Base fee $50 + 0.03/Sq. Ft" (100 sq. ft. minimum for all projects), plus a 1% State of Ohio surcharge on residential permits (3% commercial). Historic Districts, the Warehouse District, and Downtown Overlays require additional Plan Commission approval for exterior work, per the same form. Inspections can be booked in the online portal or by calling 419-245-1220.

SET BY STATE RULE -- the identical statewide Ohio framework as the merged Cincinnati/Cleveland/Columbus records. The Residential Code of Ohio (RCO), Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 4101:8, is adopted statewide by the Ohio Board of Building Standards under Ohio Revised Code Chapter 3781; the current edition is the 2019 RCO (2018 IRC base), amended effective March 1, 2024 and further amended effective April 15, 2024; Ohio has not moved to a newer IRC base edition. ORC 3781.11 requires the Board's residential rules to be uniform throughout the state; ORC 3781.01(B) lets a local governing authority such as Toledo adopt only additional, non-conflicting regulations for residential structures, via the division (C) notice-and-determination procedure. CITY LAYER: Toledo's Division of Building Inspection describes itself, in its own "Construction Procedures & Codes" handout, as "a State-Certified Building Department enforcing the building codes of the State of Ohio as adopted by its Board of Building Standards embodied in the Residential Code of Ohio [RCO] for 1-, 2- and 3-Family Dwellings, The Ohio Building Code [OBC], and the City of Toledo Municipal Code [TMC] Part 13 Building Code and TMC Part 11 Zoning Code" -- confirming TMC Part 13 (Building) and Part 11 (Zoning) as Toledo's own local adopting instruments alongside the state RCO. STALE-DOCUMENT NOTE: that same handout (revision date 01-20-18) still describes the applicable code as the "Residential Code of Ohio (RCO) for One-, Two- and Three-Family Dwellings, 2013 Edition" and prints a Toledo-specific reading of RCO Table 301.2(1) showing Wind Speed "90 (mph/3-sec gust)." Both figures are superseded: the 2013-edition reference predates the 2019 RCO (effective 7/1/2019, later amended in 2024), and the 90 mph three-second-gust reading is an older allowable-stress-design convention superseded by the 2019 RCO's own printed 115 mph ultimate-design-wind-speed statewide fill-in (see wind_design_criteria, copied unmodified from the merged state-layer records). The full text of TMC Part 13 was not independently accessible this session -- codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/toledo returned an HTTP 403 Cloudflare interstitial ("Just a moment...") to curl, wget, and WebFetch alike, and library.municode.com serves only a client-side application shell to automated fetches -- so whether Toledo has exercised its ORC 3781.01(B) authority to add a roofing-specific local regulation beyond incorporating the RCO has not been established in this record.

Not required — SET BY STATE RULE, and a genuine, non-obvious deviation from most other IRC-based states. Ohio's RCO does NOT carry forward the base IRC's prescriptive drip-edge provision. The entire content of RCO Section 905.2.8.5 (OAC 4101:8-9-01, effective 7/1/2019) is, verbatim: "905.2.8.5 Drip edge. Refer to Sections 903.1 and 905.1." Section 903.1 (General) states only: "Roof decks shall be covered with approved roof coverings secured to the building or structure in accordance with the provisions of this chapter. Roof assemblies shall be designed and installed in accordance with this code and the approved manufacturer's instructions such that the roof assembly shall serve to protect the building or structure." Section 905.1 (Roof covering application) is a general wind-load-resistance provision, not a drip-edge mandate. There is therefore no numbered Ohio provision requiring a drip edge at eaves and rakes with the usual dimensional and fastening specifications; drip edge in Ohio is, at the state level, effectively governed by the roof-covering manufacturer's approved installation instructions via Section 903.1. Whether Toledo has exercised its ORC 3781.01(B) authority to add its own local drip-edge requirement in TMC Part 13 has not been established in this record -- Toledo's own codified building-code chapter was not accessible this session (amlegal Cloudflare-gated; municode serves only a client-side shell to automated fetches) -- so 903.1's manufacturer's-instructions standard is confirmed only as the statewide floor, not necessarily the complete picture for Toledo. About drip edge

Required — SET BY STATE RULE -- required in Toledo exactly as everywhere else in Ohio, because Ohio makes the ice-damming determination statewide by rule rather than leaving it to local option. RCO Table 301.2(1) pre-fills "Ice Barrier Underlayment Required" as "Yes" for the whole state, with footnote (h): "In accordance with Sections 905.1.2, 905.4.3.1, 905.5.3.1, 905.6.3.1, 905.7.3.1 and 905.8.3.1, all jurisdictions in Ohio have a history of local damage from the effects of ice damming." RCO Section 905.1.2 (Ice barriers) provides, verbatim: "In areas where there has been a history of ice forming along the eaves causing a backup of water as designated in Table 301.2(1), an ice barrier shall be installed for asphalt shingles, metal roof shingles, mineral-surfaced roll roofing, slate and slate-type shingles, wood shingles and wood shakes. The ice barrier shall consist of not fewer than two layers of underlayment cemented together, or a self-adhering polymer-modified bitumen sheet shall be used in place of normal underlayment and extend from the lowest edges of all roof surfaces to a point not less than 24 inches (610 mm) inside the exterior wall line of the building. The 24 inch measurement shall be along the slope of the roof from the point where the projected outside face of the wall intersects the roof deck. On roofs with slope equal to or greater than eight units vertical in 12 units horizontal (67-percent slope), the ice barrier shall also be applied not less than 36 inches measured along the roof slope from the eave edge of the building." Exception, verbatim: "Detached accessory structures and roof assemblies terminating at a vertical wall over unconditioned floor areas." Toledo's own (stale, pre-2019-RCO) Construction Procedures handout independently prints a Toledo-specific reading of the same table row confirming "Ice Shield Underlayment Required: Yes" for Toledo/Lucas County, consistent with the statewide rule. About ice & water barrier

Not required — Not established as a sourced affirmative in this record. Unlike Cincinnati's Construction Inspections page (which prints a named "Minimum Required Inspections" list), no Toledo Division of Building Inspection document opened this session -- the Building Inspection department page, the "Construction Procedures & Codes" handout, the Building Permit Application form, or the online Permit Application Portal page -- enumerates a checklist of inspection stages (e.g., footing, framing, roof/dry-in, final) for residential work. The Division's own "When Are Permits Required" handout establishes only the general rule that "All work for which a permit is required must be inspected to ensure it meets code," without naming an interim roof-specific stage. Combined with the absence of any such stage in the documents actually opened, this record states a sourced negative -- required: false -- rather than asserting a specific inspection-stage list that was not found.

CITY-SPECIFIC, and notably stricter than Cincinnati (no layer-count exemption). Toledo's own "Information on Building Department Requirements" handout states verbatim that building permits are required for work that includes: "to demolish, alter or make major repairs to any existing building structure, or any portion of that structure, or to build any new structure/addition. New roof coverings, window replacements, new siding (except small areas of replacement), decks, new steps (or rebuilding steps), fences (new or replacement) all require permits." The same handout states, "In general, permits are required for most construction activities except minor repairs, exterior/interior painting, and gutters and downspouts installations" -- so gutters and downspouts are the one roofing-adjacent item exempted, narrowly echoing Cincinnati's gutter exemption, but Toledo draws no comparable layer-count or percentage exemption for the roof covering itself: any new roof covering requires a building permit regardless of the number of existing layers. Separately, Toledo's own Building Permit Application form requires additional Plan Commission approval for exterior work performed in "Historic Districts, Warehouse District, and Downtown Overlays."

SET BY STATE RULE. RCO Table 301.2(1) ("Climatic and Geographic Design Criteria"), OAC 4101:8-3-01 effective 7/1/2019, pre-fills a Wind Design Speed of 115 mph (ultimate design wind speed) for the entire state -- the value is printed in the rule's own table rather than left blank for local fill-in -- along with Weathering "severe," Termite "moderate to heavy," and Ice Barrier Underlayment Required "Yes." Wind exposure category is determined site-specifically rather than by state or city rule. Ground snow load is the one geographically-varying input and is NOT a statewide constant: the master rule leaves that cell blank, with footnote (o) directing that "The jurisdiction shall fill in this section of the table using the Ground Snow Loads in Figure 301.2(6)" -- each jurisdiction reads its own value off the statewide reference map. Toledo's own (2018, pre-2019-RCO) Construction Procedures handout prints its own such reading for Toledo/Lucas County: Ground Snow Load 20 lbs/sf, Seismic Design Category A or B, Frost Line Depth 36" minimum, Weathering "Severe" -- but the SAME table in that stale handout also prints Wind Speed "90 (mph/3-sec gust)," a figure from an older allowable-stress-design convention that predates and is superseded by the 2019 RCO's own printed statewide 115 mph ultimate-design-wind-speed fill-in above; that older 90 mph figure should NOT be used as Toledo's current wind design value. The 20 psf ground-snow-load reading is retained here as the jurisdiction's own fill-in of the (unchanged) statewide snow-load map, consistent with how the Cleveland record retains a neighboring jurisdiction's own map reading.

SET BY STATE RULE. RCO Section 908 (OAC 4101:8-9-01, effective 7/1/2019). Section 908.3 Roof replacement, verbatim: "Roof replacement shall include the removal of existing layers of roof coverings down to the roof deck. Exception: Where the existing roof assembly includes an ice barrier membrane that is adhered to the roof deck, the existing ice barrier membrane shall be permitted to remain in place and be covered with an additional layer of ice barrier membrane in accordance with Section 905." Section 908.3.1 Roof recover permits installing a new roof covering over an existing one where any of four conditions occur, the first being "Where the new roof covering is installed in accordance with the roof covering manufacturer's approved instructions." Section 908.3.1.1 Roof recover not allowed, verbatim: "A roof recover shall not be permitted where any of the following conditions occur: 1. Where the existing roof or roof covering is water soaked or has deteriorated to the point that the existing roof or roof covering is not adequate as a base for additional roofing. 2. Where the existing roof covering is slate, clay, cement or asbestos-cement tile. 3. Where the existing roof has two or more applications of any type of roof covering." Net effect for the common asphalt-shingle case: one existing layer may be recovered over; once two or more layers already exist, full tear-off to the deck is mandatory -- functionally a one-layer (single recover) limit, identical statewide including in Toledo.

SET BY STATE RULE, applying identically in Toledo as everywhere else in Ohio. RCO Section 905.2.1 (OAC 4101:8-9-01, effective 7/1/2019) reads verbatim: "Asphalt shingles shall be fastened to solidly sheathed decks." Ohio adopted this without amendment from the base 2018 IRC -- Ohio does not add an express "or 1-inch nominal wood boards" allowance to the text. Related, RCO Section 908.3.1.1 forbids a roof recover "where the existing roof or roof covering is water soaked or has deteriorated to the point that the existing roof or roof covering is not adequate as a base for additional roofing," the practical deck-condition trigger for tear-off and sheathing replacement.

Lucas County's combined state-and-local sales and use tax rate is 7.75%, per the Ohio Department of Taxation's Sales and Use Tax Rate Map (dated March 31, 2026, reflecting rates in effect as of October 2025): a 5.75% state rate (per the map's own note 3, "The current state rate is 5.75%") plus a 1.50% Lucas County permissive rate plus a 0.50% transit permissive rate, printed in the map's own county table as "Lucas 1.50% 0.50% 7.75%." The map's narrative separately lists Lucas County among the counties with rates of 7.30% or higher, at "7.75 percent" (tied with Coshocton County), the third-highest tier in the state, below only Cuyahoga and Franklin Counties (8.00% each) and Hamilton County (7.80%).