Roanoke County, VA Building Safety: Plumbing Permits (2026)

Sec. 7-42(a) makes it unlawful for anyone to engage in, or offer to engage in, plumbing work for the general public for compensation without a certificate of qualification issued under the county's Division 2 certification program, alongside electricians and building-related mechanical workers. 1, or completion of a Virginia Apprenticeship Council-approved apprenticeship all satisfy the requirement (Sec. 7-42(b)), and violating it is a Class 3 misdemeanor (Sec. 7-42(c)). Certification runs on the same two-level system as electrical work: Level One covers installing, repairing and maintaining specified plumbing equipment, and Level Two adds supervising that work and planning installations to Virginia USBC specifications (Sec.

7-43). Applicants need four years of practical experience, a completed registered apprenticeship, or a degree paired with one to two years of experience, and must pass a written or oral exam administered by the building official with a seventy-five percent passing score (Sec. 7-44 through 7-46), paying fifteen dollars for the Level One exam or thirty dollars for Level Two (Sec. 7-47). The plumbing installation itself is billed as a trade permit under Sec. 7-72, calculated from the same construction-value formula as building permits with a trade-specific percentage factor, seventy-five dollars plus four dollars per additional thousand above five thousand dollars in valuation, and a thirty-dollar minimum.

Beyond the installation permit, Sec. 7-75 imposes a standalone forty-dollar fee, effective July 1, 2022, for each cross-connection inspection the county performs, the check that confirms a plumbing system can't let contaminated water flow backward into the potable water supply; that fee traces to a 1988 ordinance and cross-references the county's water chapter.