You should contact the office that issues permits and ask them.

call your local city hall and ask for the building department. Ask them if a permit should be pulled for small bath radiant heat. I'm surprised your electrician couldn't answer your question. Both he and your contractor are top notch pros and they don't know the answers?? hmmmm...

btw, i'm sure it's fine. however, you being the homeowner and the person paying, should get a legitimate answer to your concerns. be serious w/your GC and tell you would like an answer. If he says you do'n't need a permit, then make sure that's written somewhere on your contract stating so. That way if something should arise down the road, you're covered.

Lets put it this way if the house burns down and it was caued by the wiring in your radient floor with no permit there is no insurance coverage.

Best to contact the building department and ask. It can be rectified and Patricia is right. Also, if you do work on your place without a permit and don't fix it, the fines can be enormous. In my area the fines are up to $1000/day. I'm not trying to get you upset. Just handle it with the building department for your city/county tomorrow. You will be glad you did. Always best to handle an issue head on rather than ignore it IMO. If you go right away to get the permit, probably no fine or very small fine will be charged. Most building departments are cooperative IME.

One more point: if you look at the contract, I bet the contractor put the burden to pull a permit on the homeowner. Many of the contracts I see do that - they remove the liability from themselves that way.

By the way, it is one sure way to devalue your home (not having permits). The liability transfers to the new buyer when (if) you sell down the road and remodeling without a permit is a disclosure item. IME the biggest violators of not pulling permits are those people in the construction industry. They don't want to waste the time or money even when we are talking only a couple of hundred dollars. Doesn't make sense to me.

Denita is right about it being a disclosure item for buyers. Even if it is not disclosed, buyers can easily determine whether permits were pulled for renovation by contacting the applicable city or county office. We recently backed out of purchasing a house for our daughter because we discovered that the seller had not pulled permits for a ton of renovations. The seller ended up having to sell it for a lot less money.

With that said, don't freak out this is probably fine. Where I am located, our permit office is so nice. Even if a permit should be pulled, they are really helpful during the process. (If there were yelp reviews for permit offices, I would totally leave a 5 star review for our local city permit office.)

I am sure he is doing the work a lot cheaper than a true professional who would have done the right thing and obtained the proper permit. and then to have a "pro" in this exchange say not to worry baffles me

The electrical inspector does not care what the product looked like coming out of the box, just that it is installed properly. Most problems come from installing the thinset, tile, and grout. Short of standing there watching them do all that work, the only way to inspect it properly is to test it after the tile is finished. Around here,for small jobs like that, we (liscenced, bonded electricians having a charge account with the city) call the electrical inspector at 8am of the day we will be doing the work. (After the tile is finished) Some place require an actual permit to be bought and paid for ahead of time.

Promethean Remodeling_,Don't say something like that directed at me. I was telling her not worry until she could call the building dept. I clearly advised her to find out what is required, permit-wise, and to get written documentation from the GC/electrician. She said she couldn't do anything until Monday. I meant it's not a big deal to wait, don't worry. In my mind, it's not a big deal.They haven't even tiled the darn thing yet! Getting all worked up over something you can't find out the answer to for a few days isn't going to help.

I can't imagine an Insur Co. not covering a low voltage radiant heat flooring because a permit wasn't pulled. I'll have to check that one. I'm sure things vary from state to state.

I mean, replacing a garbage disposal requires a permit. If I don't pull one, change it myself, and end up flooding my kitchen because of it, is insurance not going to cover the damage? I don't think so. Ditto for changing an electrical outlet. needs a permit. There are a lot of things that 'require permits' that homeowners don't necessarily pull. Insurance companies still cover the damage.

I know a guy that kept calling the county to see if they needed permits. The county always said no. Then I pointed out that he needed to call the state, where the answer was much different. Where I am, the county does well, septic, draifield, and driveway approaches on some roads. The state does electrical and plumbing. (presuming you are not in a city)

You were too fast. I added to my last post

I am not wild about the idea of involving inspection at this stage of the game. They could force him to do it over and if there's one thing worse on a job than a radiant floor that won't pass inspection, it's a contractor who's losing money replacing it.

I'd consult with another contractor who is experienced and discreet before inspection. If he doesn't like it, do what you have to do.

I've seen permits pulled 3/4 of the way through a project. Many times, it is simply because the project grew more extensively beyond an original plan. Licensed electricians are like a band of persnickety brothers regarding code. I've never MET one who'd deviate from code, permit or no permit! The penalties are too steep, could result in loss of license and ability to earn a living!

The town will not punish you. It's Monday. Address the fear, and it will be fine. While permits are for your safety, they can also be a bit nuts when rules are taken too literally........

Years ago I did a permitted addition for a client. A lovely sun room beyond a tiny dining room, and large living room. The living room became a dining, the dining area, got built ins and a became a walk through study, essentially a lovely hallway.. So, here I am with this lovely result including new addition.. Inspector shows up and says, "Lady, you have to put a window in those shelves." WHAT??!! What are you talking about? "Yeah lady, it's a room, this here is a room, it needs an exit"

My reply? "with all due respect sir, I have French doors here. I have 16 feet of sliding doors out here, three feet away. You are telling me, in a fire, I would CHOOSE to crawl through an 18 inch back splash in a study, when I could open a living room french door exit or any other of the almost twenty feet of exit points beyond this OPEN study and flee. I would crawl through a book case? ..........I think NOT. And no I did not.

Just curious... did you (or the contractor) happen to take nice clear pictures of the cable installation before they embedded them in thinset? If so, you would at least have that to further demonstrate that things were done properly ( if an inspector happens to take issue with anything).

After the fact permits are triple cost locally.

While your paniking, Do understand that radiant heat requires paying close attention to dry/cure times for the tile installation before you attempt to fire it up . sometimes we wait as much as 30 days. Dp consider a backup thermostat sensor. Dont ask me how i know all this

Its better you just thoroughly read the MFG instructions for the heat system you have, and the Tile thinset MFG instructions.

Dont ask me how many times I've said "Dont ask me how i know all this." on this board.

CORRECT ON THE RADIANT. !!! You don't want to crack tile................: (