Cowlitz County, WA Building Safety: Plumbing Permits (2026)

110, and it stays current automatically as the Washington State Building Code Council amends it. The county trims the model code down: Chapters 12 and 14 of the UPC are deleted outright, along with the UPC's venting and combustion-air requirements for fuel-fired appliances that would otherwise sit in Chapter 5, while the portions of the code covering building sewers remain part of the county's plumbing rules. Of the UPC's appendices, only Appendix A is adopted; the rest do not apply in unincorporated Cowlitz County. Fees are handled locally rather than by the model code's schedule.

1, and that fee is set from time to time by resolution of the Board of County Commissioners. The plan review fee is due on submittal of the application, not contingent on whether a permit is ultimately issued, and if plans come back incomplete or get changed enough to require another look, the applicant owes an additional plan review fee for that second pass. 6 whenever work called for inspection is not actually complete, or required corrections have not been made, though the county's amendment is explicit that a first rejection alone does not trigger the fee; it is meant to discourage calling for an inspection before the job is ready, or missing a scheduled site visit.