Grand Forks, ND Building Safety: Plumbing Permits (2026)

The permit duty in § 19-0317 falls on the licensed tradesperson, not the property owner: "every master licensed plumber," before touching installation, alteration or repair work, or connecting a house sewer to the city system, "shall make application to the city engineer on appropriate blanks... for a permit," and a separately licensed sewer and water contractor carries the same duty before making a water or sewer connection. Section 19-0318 fills in the mechanics: the application must state "the kind and number of fixtures to be installed" and their location, and the fee, set by council resolution, is charged "for each sewer connection, water connection and each fixture," though no permit is needed for minor work, "the removal of stoppages, repair of leaks and repairs of or the replacing of broken fixtures, tanks, for faucets." The substantive standard the permitted work must meet comes from § 19-0326, which adopts by reference "the most recent edition of the Uniform Plumbing Code, as adopted by the North Dakota State Plumbing Board," so Grand Forks ties compliance to whichever UPC edition the state board currently recognizes rather than freezing its own copy.

A related section, § 19-0325, layers city-specific amendments onto the state's Sewer and Water Service Code, covering pipe materials, minimum sewer diameter, and backflow valves in the 100-year flood zone. Licensing for plumbers pulling these permits runs through the city plumbing board created at § 19-0301, which requires a $5,000 surety bond under § 19-0315 before a master plumber's license issues.