Wells building permits

Building department

Address

525 Sixth Street, P.O. Box 366, Wells, NV 89835

Phone

(775) 752-3355

Email

building@cityofwellsnv.com

Office hours

Not published online. Building Department fax: (775) 752-3419. City Manager's office (general city contact) also reachable at (775) 752-3355. Source: City of Wells Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit application form (PDF).

Website

Official site

Codes adopted

Nevada does not mandate a single statewide building code edition. Under NRS 278.580, the governing body of each city or county may adopt its own building code, specifying design, soundness, and materials of structures, together with rules and ordinances for enforcement — a home-rule framework in which each jurisdiction selects and amends its code independently. There is no state-mandated IBC or IRC edition. The one statewide floor is for energy: under NRS 701.220, the Governor's Office of Energy (GOE) is required to adopt the most recently published edition of the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC) on a triennial basis. Upon adoption by GOE, local governments must incorporate that edition as the minimum energy standard and may adopt higher or more stringent requirements. GOE adopted the 2024 IECC, effective August 18, 2024, pursuant to NAC 701.185. Because building code editions, local amendments, and energy code effective dates vary by jurisdiction across Nevada, always confirm the current adopted edition and any local amendments with your specific city or county before submitting plans.

• Nevada is a home-rule state for building codes: there is no single mandatory statewide building-code edition — each city and county adopts and amends its own code. The only genuine statewide floor is the energy code: NRS 701.220 directs the State to adopt and update energy-efficiency standards for new construction. Always confirm the specific adopted edition for the jurisdiction in question rather than assuming a uniform statewide code. Source: Nevada Legislature NRS Chapter 701 (State Office of Energy).
• The City of Wells Municipal Code, Title 4 (Building Regulations), contains the city's building-code adoption chapters, and Title 4/5 include a 'Chapter 3 Uniform Fire Code' provision. The exact edition-year of the IBC/IRC/UBC (or Uniform Building Code) currently adopted by the City of Wells could not be independently verified: American Legal Publishing's amlegal.com code library (which hosts the official City Code of Wells, Nevada) renders its chapter content only via an in-browser JavaScript application; direct fetch and browser-header curl requests both returned only the unrendered page shell (no chapter text), and amlegal blocks the fetch tool outright (HTTP 403) on direct chapter URLs. No cached/indexed rendering of the Title 4 building-code adoption section (chapter number and specific code edition) surfaced through targeted web search either. This field is intentionally left without a specific claimed edition rather than guessing. Source: attempted access to City Code of Wells, Nevada, Title 4, via codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/wellsnv/latest/wells_nv/0-0-0-17004 (chapter shell only, no edition text recovered).
• The City of Wells Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit application confirms the city independently issues Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, and Foundation permits for Commercial, Residential, and Manufactured Home projects, with classifications New, Addition, Remodel, and Repair, and calls out 'Special Approvals Required' fields for Nevada State Fire Marshal, Nevada State Health, Fire Sprinklers, Engineering, Addressing, and Contract Plan Review — confirming the city runs its own permitting program rather than deferring to Elko County. Source: City of Wells Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit application (PDF), cityofwellsnv.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Building-Permit-Application.pdf.

Permit types & fees

• Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit

  The City of Wells uses a single universal permit application covering Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, and Foundation permit types, for Commercial, Residential, or Manufactured Home projects, classified as New, Addition, Remodel, or Repair. This is the only permit form published by the City of Wells Building Department.

  →

• Solar PV Installation (Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit)

  The City of Wells has no dedicated solar-PV application, checklist, or fee line — the city publishes only the single universal 'Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit' application (see building-permit), which covers Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, and Foundation permit types for Commercial, Residential, and Manufactured Home projects, classified New/Addition/Remodel/Repair, with no separate 'Solar' or 'Photovoltaic' checkbox. A residential rooftop or ground-mount PV installation is filed on this same universal form (selecting Building and/or Electrical as applicable) and billed under the City's general Building Permit Fee and Electrical Permit Fee tables adopted by City Council Resolution No. 19-04 ('A Resolution Establishing Building Valuations and Amending Building Permit Fees Pursuant to Wells City Code, Title 4, Building Codes, Chapter 4, Section 4-1-4'), which by its own terms remains in force 'until further action taken by the Wells City Council to amend, delete or otherwise change the same.' Re-chased 2026-07-20: located this fee resolution via a Wayback Machine CDX search of cityofwellsnv.com (it is not linked from any current top-level Building Department page) and confirmed it is still hosted live on the current site — https://cityofwellsnv.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Resolution-19-04-Building-Valuations-and-Building-Permit-Fees.pdf returns HTTP 200 with an identical file hash to the 2023 and 2025 Wayback captures, i.e. unchanged and current. No PV-specific line item exists within it, so a solar installation is billed under the same valuation-based Building Permit Fee table plus the Electrical Permit processing/unit fees, same as any other electrical work.

  →

• EV Charger Installation (Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit)

  The City of Wells has no dedicated EV-charger/EVSE application, checklist, or fee line — the city publishes only the single universal 'Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit' application (see building-permit), which covers Building, Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, and Foundation permit types for Commercial, Residential, and Manufactured Home projects, with no separate 'EV Charger' or 'Electric Vehicle' checkbox. A Level 2 or DC fast charger installation would be filed on this same universal form (selecting Electrical, and Building if a new support structure/canopy is involved) — the same genuine finding already documented for this city's general permitting process and for its solar-pv-permit entry: no published fee schedule, no published adopted-code edition, and no published review timeline exist anywhere on the city's current website for ANY permit type, not EV charging specifically. Wells does not appear on SolarAPP+'s (gosolarapp.org) list of participating jurisdictions. Re-chased 2026-07-20: directly re-read the full Building/Electrical/Plumbing/Mechanical Permit application PDF -- confirmed it has a blank "Deposit Amount" and "Value of Project Work" field with no printed fee table or schedule anywhere on the form. Searched for a separate fee resolution or ordinance (none found); the Wells, NV municipal code library (codelibrary.amlegal.com/codes/wellsnv) returns HTTP 403 to automated fetch and has no Wayback Machine snapshot available for its building/electrical fee sections. No indication was found that Elko County (which does publish its own fee schedule/travel-fee structure) administers permitting on behalf of the City of Wells -- Wells appears to self-administer via this single blank-fee application form.

  →

• Sign Permit (Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit)

  The City of Wells requires a sign permit for wall, ground, pole, projecting, and roof signs, plus outline lighting and marquees, filed on the same universal Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit application used for all other permit types (see building-permit) -- selecting Building for the structural/mounting scope and/or Electrical for illuminated signs, outline lighting, or marquees wired to a branch circuit. Unlike most other permit types at the City of Wells, signs have a dedicated, currently-published fee: City Council Resolution No. 19-04 (the same fee resolution already documented in this file's solar-pv-permit and ev-charger-permit entries, re-confirmed live on 2026-07-22) contains a standalone 'Table 10: Sign Permit Fee' plus a 'Signs, Outline Lighting and Marquees' line item within the Electrical Unit Fees (Table 5, item 7). No adopted-code edition or review-timeline SLA is published for signs specifically, matching the same gap already documented for every other permit type at this jurisdiction.

  →

• Fire Sprinkler & Fire Alarm Permit (Special Approval)

  The City of Wells has no standalone fire-sprinkler or fire-alarm permit application, checklist, or published fee -- fire sprinkler and fire alarm work is instead flagged as a 'Special Approvals Required' item (Nevada State Fire Marshal, Fire Sprinklers) on the same universal Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit application used for all other permit types. Verified directly against the live City Code of Wells (rendered via American Legal Publishing's code library, which blocks direct automated fetch but renders through a browser): Title 5, Chapter 3 adopts the Uniform Fire Code and establishes a city Bureau of Fire Prevention operated under the supervision of the Fire Department chief, with permit-refusal appeals running to the Board of Councilmen (sections 5-3-1 through 5-3-4) -- confirming Wells retains its own local fire-code enforcement authority rather than deferring entirely to the state or county. Separately, Title 4, Chapter 1 (Building Codes, section 4-1-1) confirms the city's currently adopted technical fire code is the 2012 International Fire Code, and that the 2012 IRC was adopted with section R-313 (automatic residential fire sprinkler systems) specifically DELETED for one- and two-family dwellings -- so Wells does NOT require automatic sprinklers in typical single-family/duplex construction, only where triggered by IBC/IFC commercial-occupancy thresholds. No fee line item for fire sprinkler or fire alarm plan review/permits appears anywhere in City Council Resolution No. 19-04 (the city's only published building/electrical/mechanical/plumbing fee schedule) -- sprinkler and alarm work is absent from all nine of that resolution's fee tables, confirming this is a genuine publication gap rather than an omission by this corpus.

  →

• Occupancy Permit / Change Of Use (Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit)

  The City of Wells has no separate change-of-use or certificate-of-occupancy application, checklist, or fee. The city's own Zoning Code (Title 10, Chapter 2, Section 10-2-2) defines 'OCCUPANCY PERMIT' as simply 'a permit issued by the Building Department indicating that a newly constructed building is complete and safe for occupancy or use' -- issued as part of the standard Building Department permitting process rather than as a distinct product. A change of occupancy or use is processed through the same universal Building, Electrical, Plumbing & Mechanical Permit application used for all other permit types (see building-permit), and is governed technically by the city's adopted 2012 International Existing Building Code (IEBC), which by its own terms in City Code 4-1-1.C.6 'shall apply to the repair, alteration, and change of occupancy, addition and relocation of existing buildings.' Zoning Code Section 10-3-1 (Zoning Certificate-Building Permit) additionally requires a zoning certificate-building permit 'for the construction of all buildings and structures' -- the same permit under which a change-of-use project is reviewed for zoning-district conformity (Title 10, Chapter 6, Section 10-6-1, 'Conformity Required'). No dedicated fee, checklist, or review-timeline exists specifically for occupancy/change-of-use projects; they are billed under the same general Building Permit Fee valuation table (Resolution No. 19-04, Table 1) as any other building-scope project.

  →

Comparable nearby cities