Water heater permit checklist — St. Louis, Missouri
Assembled from St. Louis’s own published permit rules. Every line below is quoted from a city document and linked to it. Nothing here is generated, estimated, or inferred from another jurisdiction.
Do you need a permit?
St. Louis requires a permit for a water heater.
Ordinance 71644 brings the 2021 edition of the Uniform Plumbing Code into force in the City of Saint Louis, and it lets a narrow band of repair work proceed without a permit. Sealing a leak in a drain, water, soil, waste or vent line is one such case. Once a concealed trap or a concealed drain, water, soil, waste or vent line has failed badly enough that it has to come out and go back in with new material, though, the ordinance treats that as new work, so a permit and an inspection are required. Clearing a stoppage is exempt, as is patching a leak at a pipe, valve or fixture, so long as no valve, pipe or fixture ends up replaced or relocated. The ordinance's minor-repair category covers work on traps and cocks and the opening of waste lines, supply lines, traps, drains or frozen pipes. Temporary plumbing set up for a demonstration is exempt too, provided it ties into neither the public water main nor the public sewer. What minor repair does not reach: anything that disturbs a connection at a soil, supply, waste or vent pipe, anything relying on inside leader pipes, and the setting or replacement of fixtures.
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Sources
- water heater — permit rules ↗verified August 2026
Other permits St. Louis publishes rules for
Listed because the city publishes a separate rule for each type — not because this project necessarily triggers one. Whether it does depends on your scope of work.
- Deck permit checklist
- Fence permit checklist
- Shed permit checklist
- Re-roof permit checklist
- Retaining wall permit checklist
- Electrical work permit checklist
- General building work permit checklist
BuildSpec is a reference, not the authority having jurisdiction. Confirm requirements with St. Louis before you build.