Caldwell, ID Swimming Pools & Spas: Pool Permits (2026)

2. The city deleted the model code's original item 7 and replaced it with a Caldwell-specific rule: prefabricated swimming pools that are not greater than four feet, or one thousand two hundred nineteen millimeters, deep are exempt from needing a building permit. Read the other way, a prefabricated pool deeper than four feet is not on the exempt list and therefore needs a permit from the building official before it can be installed, the same as any other regulated structure under chapter 12. 2's electrical and plumbing exemption subsections in their entirety, a pool project that adds its own electrical bonding, pump wiring or plumbing lines cannot rely on a blanket exempt-from-permit reading; it still has to clear the city's electrical permit process under § 12-07-01 and its plumbing process under § 12-05-01 if those trades are involved.

The same amendment package sets a 180-day abandonment clock on any permit application, so a homeowner who applies for a pool permit and stops responding to the building department for that long risks having the application discarded outright.