Electrical Permits in Edmonton: The Permit Order You Must Follow For Any Renovation

Hey everybody, welcome back to Halo Power’s YouTube channel. I’m Trevor, and I’m going to be interviewing Kevin Stay from Halo Power. He’s the owner-operator. How long have you guys been in business at Halo Power?

This is our 10th year; our 10th anniversary was 2025. Started it in 2015. So nice. Yeah, it’s gone by quick. Happy 10 years. Yeah, thank you.

Today we’re going to be talking about permits—talking all about permits: who can get a permit, what you should check about getting permits, and, you know, just going to tell a little story about an experience you’re having right now with a customer. So, go ahead, Kevin.

Why Townhouse and Condo Owners Can’t Pull Homeowner Permits

Yeah, absolutely. A call came in today from a customer who’s in a dilemma because this customer is in a townhouse and had an electrician wire the basement and then proceeded to contact the city to pull a homeowner’s permit. And this kind of activity happens all the time. But here’s the kicker with a townhouse: yeah, because you share a wall with your neighbor, you as a homeowner are not allowed to pull a homeowner’s permit.

And what a way to find out after you have hired an electrician, right? Who obviously wasn’t a master electrician and not able to pull his or her own permit and maybe even talked the client into pulling a homeowner’s permit so they could work. Unsure of what, what the situation was.

So, what city was this? Edmonton or Sherwood Park? City Edmonton. It wouldn’t matter. Right. Okay. So is it because it’s a condo? Is it a condo or like why, why in particular town houses are you not allowed to do a homeowner’s permit?

Well, it’s any, any residence where you share a wall—what they call the party wall—with the neighbor. So, it could be a condo, it could be a townhouse, duplex, whatever. It’s very much a safety thing. I mean, if you’re going to be in your own house and you pull a homeowner’s permit and you wire it yourself and it passes inspection and it burns down, well, it’s, it’s your four walls that burn down. But it’s a whole other animal when you are now potentially putting your neighbors at risk because you did the work yourself or you had the work done under a homeowner’s permit by somebody who couldn’t pull their own permit.

Wild. Okay, so, that’s interesting. Now, when it comes to permits, what should people be doing? Because I, I recently did some renovations and I pulled all my, my own permits, but I had a licensed electrician doing the work. Right. Right. So, different scenario, but like, walk me through what should this person have done and what could they do?

The Essential Order of Operations for Your Alberta Home Renovation

Well, you know that this is the thing with, with living in a townhouse or being in, in a condo or something. There’s a good chance you don’t know. So if you’ve got a buddy who’s an electrician or, or somebody’s husband who’s, you know, maybe does electrical on the side on the weekends when he’s back from Fort McMurray, you know, he’ll put up his hand and say, “Yeah, absolutely. I can wire your basement.” And as a homeowner, you just trust that this fellow is a tradesperson. He knows what he’s doing.

So ignorance is bliss, right? Until you actually make that call to the city. And, you know, good on the individual for actually going ahead and saying, “Yeah, I, I’ll at least get a permit in place.” But really, what this homeowner or any homeowner in this situation should have done: reached out to a contractor like ourselves or many of the other ones that have a master electrician on staff that knows the game, right? Right? Knows what needs to be done, knows that the permits need to be pulled and the work is to be done by that contractor that pulls the permit.

You know, and just touching on the whole thing with homeowners’ permits: if you as a homeowner pull an electrical permit, the intention is that you are doing the work yourself. But the amount of jobs that are done out there by the Kijiji electrician who can’t pull his own permit because he’s not a master and talks the homeowner into pulling a homeowner’s permit. They’re running a business. They’re charging a customer—could be top dollar—but it’s not being done properly.

And you know, depending who the homeowner knows or who the homeowner is, he might not know the difference. It just sounds like this is the way to do it. There’s a lot of homeowners that are being put in a position that is really putting themselves at risk because when you look at that electrical permit and your name’s John Smith, John Smith’s name is on the permit, not Mr. Kijiji electrician. So, he’s gone off, taken your money, and guess who’s on the hook with the work that was, was done because it’s in your name.

Yeah. And at the end of the day, you do have to pass inspection so that you know they can approve it and say everything’s done according to code and to whatever their requirements are as the municipality, right? Absolutely. Yeah.

So, okay, going forward with that. So, people who need permits, what is the recommended, I guess, path or order of operations as to what they should be doing if they’re getting a renovation done or you know, just getting some electrical work? What’s, what’s the order of operations they should perform in order to get it done right?

Yeah, great question. So, let, take a basement development for example. Sure. You know, we’re electricians. We concentrate on the electrical work, but as a homeowner, you need to know that the first thing you’re going to need is building—a building permit, development permit. If you’re getting electrical work done, definitely an electrical permit needs to be done. If you’ve got a bathroom being put in, there’s got to be a plumbing permit.

So, you have to do some due diligence as a homeowner to,, to know what you’re getting into, especially if you want to be your own little general contractor because everyone thinks, “Oh, I can manage all these trades and do it myself.” And you know, I, I can, I can say that many times I’ve come in to do a quote for a basement development and it’s already framed in. You know, there’s, there’s definitely been work done. And my first question to the customer is, “Oh by the way, you’ve already got your building or your development permit in place, right?” And they look at you with that stunned look like, “I didn’t know I needed one of those.”

Well, absolutely you do, because as a contractor, if we apply for an electrical permit for a renovation—renovation, basement development, kitchen ren—first thing the, the county or the city is going to ask is, “Where’s the building permit?” That’s right. They check, right? Because there is an order of operations. Yep. That’s got to be in place and then your other trades can pull their permits afterwards. And the hang-up on this a lot of times is that if you weren’t on the ball, you could be waiting months to get your building permit. Mhm.

So, you know, you’re banging a basement up, you didn’t know or you didn’t bother checking, and then you find out, “Oh my god, I have to wait three minutes—three months—for a building permit.” What do they do? They just get whoever in there and figure, “Well, we’ll worry about the permits later.” And that, if they even do pursue permits, it will bite you in the butt severely.

Why Unpermitted Electrical Work Risks Your Home Sale and Safety

Yeah, for sure. And you know, that really hurts them. Maybe not in the short term, but when you go to sell the house, that causes some issues. It’ll cause issues because there was no permit play. So then you have to basically sign a, an insurance waiver and there’s a bunch of stuff that, that basically puts you back on the hook just in case something goes wrong or you have to pay a certain amount of money or take money off of the off of the price of the house to have somebody else look at it and make sure that it was done up to par. It’s a hassle. Like, it’s not good.

We get, oh my god, I have lost count how many of those calls I get. And here’s the thing: you may have wired your own basement or had your electrician buddy wire it 10 years ago, 12 years ago, and they did a fantastic job. Unfortunately, we have a code update every 3 years, and they love to sneak new things in the code that changes the way homes are wired.

And this is the call: “Hey Halo Power. I understand, you know, you’re a master electrician, Kevin. We just need you to come in and pull a permit because my husband or my buddy wired the basement and we didn’t get a permit. So, we just need you to check it and get us a permit inspection.” And you know right now that a basement that was developed that long ago, even though it could have been done perfectly to code back then, will not pass today because of arc fault protection, because of the way that we need to bring an identifier or neutral conductor to every switch box.

Like, there’s just so many things…I’ll come into play and you know I come out there and of course you got a fully finished basement, drywalled ceilings, and it doesn’t meet code and you break the news to them and now they’re, now they’re in a panic. And then you’ve got the situation that you described there, Trevor, because that’s usually when it comes up is they got the house for sale and they got a buyer, but the buyer wants to see the permits inspections for that basement was done. Yep.

And, now, now you’re in a very expensive situation. And I don’t know any reputable contractor or master electrician that would put their neck on the line and just go ahead and pull a permit recklessly without knowing what’s been done behind those walls. Because at the end of the day, the second you pull that permit as a master electrician, you have taken on the responsibility of all that work that’s been done. So I have turned away the majority of those types of situations because the homeowner is not willing to tear all the drywall down.

Hire an Electrical Contractor in Sherwood Park Who Is Knowledgeable and Communicative

Yeah. So I mean, there, there are things that you can do, but it is a hassle. And when you’re trying to close on a property, that is not the time you want to be trying to contact the city for development permit inspections and all that stuff because it can take you weeks and months. Not good. Not good. So before you start any development, definitely get your ducks in, in a row. Get your development permit, building permit, and all your other stuff.

For mine, I decided to pull all the permits for my job, right? So, I got my development permit—actually, it turned out I didn’t need one—but I got a building permit, HVAC permit, plumbing permit, electrical permit. Yeah. And lots, there’s lots, lots of things going on. There is so much going on and, and, you know, you can’t just take your, your renovation lightly because you may think at the time, “I’m, I’m saving, I’m saving money here because I’m not, not messing around with permits and that,” and… but boy, it’s going to bite you down the road.

Yeah. Permits weren’t that expensive, by the way. It wasn’t a big deal. Well, there you go. You might pay 150, 200 bucks for a permit, but the alternative is maybe it’s going to cost you $5,000 to redo that project or more. More, more, right? Yeah. Or lots more. Yeah. Electrical is one thing, but what about drywall paint? All the other things—put it back into place.

Okay. Awesome. Anything else that you wanted to share about permits and, you know, anything on this topic? Well, you know, I’d like to do another video. We’ll chat again about hot tubs because when you put a hot tub in, you definitely need an electrical permit. What most people don’t realize is you also need a development permit that needs to be in place before you get the electrical per or before I as your contractor pull that electrical permit, because they want to know that you’ve got a fully fenced yard. You have a hot tub that has a proper cover on it.

That—horrible to think—but the neighbor’s kid doesn’t wander into your yard and fall into your hot tub and something terrible happens, right? We’ve seen hot tubs that are placed on the sketchiest decks that are ready to collapse. Those are the kind of things that are covered when you get that inspection done for the hot development. So, a whole other issue, but I mean, this is it. Again, I can’t even tell you how many hot tubs get put in without permits in place. And I see them just looking at other jobs and you’ve got them where they’re underneath overhead power lines, which you’re not allowed to do. You got it so you can sit in the tub and reach out and grab the electrical meter, which you’re not allowed to. Like so many things.

So there’s a reason why we pull permits to get inspections done. It’s not just, you know, it’s not just a cash cow, even though sometimes it feels like it. It’s for safety. It’s for your own protection and it’s going to definitely make things better for you when you go to sell your home.

There you go. All right, guys. Thanks so much, Kevin, for sharing with us today. And guys, get your stuff done properly. Kevin is a licensed master electrician in the province of Alberta. Get it done properly. If you’re looking for any of this type of work in the Sherwood Park, Edmonton area give Halo Power a call. What is your website address? Halopower.ca. Check them out. And thanks so much for joining us.