Installation permits, fees and the permit holder's duties

The installation permit is the document a Northwest Territories electrician will handle more than any other. Section 8 of the Electrical Protection Act requires a permit for electrical work, section 11 creates the installation permit for qualified electrical workers, and sections 9 to 15 of the regulations set out the fee, the term, cancellation and extensions. The territory's frequently asked questions page adds practical detail: a permit is required before any work starts, any registered qualified electrical worker may apply, and contractors are expected to obtain the permit as part of the project agreement because the permit holder is responsible for the work. This lesson covers all of that, and the money side of permits, which in the north depends on distance as well as dollars.

The dryer circuit and the school

Slave River Electric's first two permits are a study in contrasts. The first is a 30 A dryer circuit in a Hay River house: an hour of labour and a little material. The second is a lighting and fire alarm power upgrade at the school in Fort Resolution, two hours' drive away, which will need a crew of three for three weeks, staying in town during the week. Tanya applies for both before any work starts, and she is surprised by how differently the two fees work out. The dryer circuit falls under the minimum fee. The school job's fee is calculated on the total project cost, and that cost includes the crew's travel, accommodation and meals as well as labour and material.

When a permit is needed

The FAQ puts it plainly: a permit is required before any work is commenced on any electrical installation, and work cannot start before the permit is issued. That covers new installations, additions, alterations and repairs that count as electrical work under the Act's definition. The two common exceptions in practice are work done under an annual permit, covered in Lesson 7, and work by a homeowner under a residential property owner's permit, also in Lesson 7. Neither exception lets a contractor skip the permit on a customer's job.

Because only a registered qualified electrical worker can be issued an installation permit, the permit also tells the inspector who is responsible for the work. On Slave River Electric's jobs that is usually Tanya. She must make sure that work done by Ravi, Kyle or anyone else under her permit meets the Code, is ready for inspection before it is concealed, and is not energized before an inspector allows it.

The forms

The Electrical/Mechanical Safety Section's permits page lists the forms. The two a contractor uses most often are:

• The Wiring Installation Permit Application, for certified electrical workers and property owners doing new installations, rewiring or additions to existing systems.
• The Electric Energy/Conceal Rough Wiring Permit Application to Supply, used to confirm that work follows the permit and the Code, is safe to supply with electric energy, and is safe to make roughed-in work inaccessible. Lesson 8 covers how it fits with inspections.

The page tells applicants to download the correct form, complete it and email it to the section, with the fee. Keep a copy of every application and the permit that comes back, and post or keep the permit at the job as the section requires.

How fees are calculated

Section 10 of the regulations and item 2 of Schedule A set the installation permit fee according to the cost of the work. The FAQ explains what goes into that cost: the total project cost, including materials, labour, and reasonable travel and living expenses the applicant incurs while doing the work away from home. It also gives the minimum: a minimum fee of 45 dollars covers projects valued up to 500 dollars. Larger projects are calculated on the section's fees page.

The travel and living part is what surprises southern contractors. A job in a fly-in community can have travel and accommodation costs as large as the labour, and those costs raise the project value and therefore the permit fee. Declare them honestly. An understated project value is a false statement on a government form and can also lead to a fee adjustment later.

The rest of the fee table is graduated by project value and changes from time to time, so this course does not reproduce it. The calculator below uses an invented graduated table to show the method; replace the bands with the current published schedule before relying on it.

# Installation permit fee: method only. The 45 minimum up to 500 is published;
# the higher bands below are INVENTED for illustration - use the current Schedule A.
def project_value(labour, material, travel_living):
    return labour + material + travel_living

def permit_fee(value):
    if value <= 500:
        return 45.0                       # published minimum
    bands = [(5_000, 0.012), (50_000, 0.009), (float("inf"), 0.006)]   # invented rates
    fee, lower = 45.0, 500
    for upper, rate in bands:
        portion = min(value, upper) - lower
        if portion > 0:
            fee += portion * rate
        lower = upper
        if value <= upper:
            break
    return round(fee, 2)

dryer = project_value(95, 160, 0)
school = project_value(21_600, 14_900, 8_700)
for name, v in [("dryer circuit", dryer), ("Fort Resolution school", school)]:
    print(f"{name:24s} value {v:9,.0f}  fee {permit_fee(v):8,.2f}")

dryer circuit            value       255  fee    45.00
Fort Resolution school   value    45,200  fee   460.80

How long a permit lasts

Section 13 of the regulations and the FAQ set the term. A standard installation permit is valid for one year. A permit for a temporary construction service is valid for 90 days. An inspector can grant one or more extensions at no additional fee, so a job that runs long does not need a new permit, but the extension must be asked for. An inspector may also cancel a permit if no work has been done for 90 days or more, or if the holder fails to comply with the permit, the Act or the regulations. The section has published a bulletin on permit expiry dates; read it if a job is likely to pause over a winter.

Refunds and transfers

If a permit is cancelled, or the work is included in another permit or cancelled before completion, the holder can get back all but 25 dollars of the fee, provided the refund is requested within 90 days of the permit being issued and no work has started. Permits are not transferable under section 26. If Tanya took out a permit and then left the company, the job would need a new permit in the name of another registered worker, not a transfer of hers.

The permit holder's duties

Holding a permit means taking responsibility. Pulling the threads of the Act and regulations together, the holder must:

• Have the permit before starting the work, and work within its scope.
• Make sure the work conforms to the Code and the other adopted standards (Act section 7 and regulations section 5.1).
• Make the work available for inspection before it is concealed (Act section 14).
• Not energize, or arrange for power to be supplied, until an inspector allows it (Act sections 16 and 17).
• Pay the fee, including any adjustment, and keep the permit current or extended.
• Supervise everyone who does electrical work under the permit, including apprentices.

A worked example: the school job's paperwork

Permits on jobs with several trades

On larger projects, the electrical permit sits alongside the general contractor's building permit and other trades' permits. The general contractor will want to know when electrical inspections are booked so that framing, insulation and board can be scheduled around them. Tanya sends the general contractor a short note each week listing open electrical permits, requested inspections and expected dates. That note costs ten minutes and prevents most of the disputes about who delayed whom.

Where the owner is a public body, the contract may require the contractor to provide permit numbers, inspection reports and final permissions as part of the closing documents. Keep these together in the job folder from the start, so that close-out does not depend on finding paper months later.

Estimating the permit cost into the bid

Because the fee is based on project value, the permit is a real line in a bid, especially on remote work where travel and living raise the value. Joe adds the expected permit fee to every estimate as a separate item, along with an allowance for possible re-inspection fees and the inspector's travel on remote jobs. That keeps the company from absorbing those costs on jobs where margins are already thin.

When the customer wants to skip the permit

Sooner or later a customer will ask whether a small job really needs a permit, or offer to pay less if there is no permit. The answer is always the same: the Act requires a permit before work, the permit holder is responsible for the work, and a contractor who does work without one risks a fine, a refused insurance claim and the trust of the inspectors. Tanya explains that the permit protects the customer too, because it brings an independent inspection of the work, and that the fee for most small jobs is modest.

If a customer insists, walk away. A contractor's registration and reputation are worth far more than one job.