Wichita, Sedgwick County, Kansas
Plumbing Wichita Rules Start With an Exam, and Everyone Sits One
There is one number behind almost every plumbing rule in this city, and it is 75 per cent. It is the pass mark a homeowner needs before a permit will issue for work they intend to do themselves. It is the pass mark a journeyman plumber needs on an approved code exam before they can hold a certificate. It is the pass mark a master plumber needs on top of years of documented field experience. Three very different people, one identical bar.
The second thing worth knowing before anything else is that the authority is split. The City of Wichita runs water, sewer, wells and septic. Permits, licences, trade certificates and inspections belong to the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department, a joint city and county body sitting just south of City Hall. The city permits page links straight out to it. Knowing which of the two you need saves a wasted morning.
The Homeowner Exam
Four Tests, Two of Them Plumbing, All at 75 Per Cent
Most cities on this site draw the line at whether a permit is required. Wichita draws it somewhere far more unusual: at whether the person holding the tools has demonstrated they know the code. The building department publishes the format, the book, the length, the fee and the pass mark for each homeowner exam, and it publishes them together.
| Homeowner exam | Format | Reference book | Questions | Fee | Pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing | Unlimited time, start before 1 p.m. | 2012 Uniform Plumbing Code Book | 30 multiple choice | $25 | 75% |
| Water heater | Unlimited time, start before 1 p.m. | 2012 Uniform Plumbing Code Book plus a handout | 20 multiple choice | $25 | 75% |
| Electrical | 3 hours open book, start before 1 p.m. | 2023 National Electrical Code Book | 50 multiple choice | $50, includes a plan review | 75% |
| Mechanical | Not published | Not published | Not published | Not published | Contact the Mechanical Chief |
The water heater exam being separate from the plumbing exam is the detail that catches people out. A homeowner who passes the general plumbing exam has not thereby qualified to change their own water heater. That is a second sitting, a second $25, a second book, a handout, and the same 75 per cent. The mechanical trade publishes no format at all and directs applicants to the Mechanical Chief on (316) 660-1829 instead.
Who Is Even Allowed to Sit It
The Conditions Wrapped Around the Homeowner Exam
Passing is not the first hurdle. Being eligible to try is. The department publishes a short set of conditions and each one closes a common workaround.
You must own the home and you must occupy it. If you own it but do not live in it, the department states you must use a licensed contractor, which removes the landlord route entirely. A Homeowner Declaration Form has to be completed and submitted. At the point of applying for the permit you must either designate a licensed sub-contractor for each trade the project needs, or schedule the homeowner exam for each trade you intend to perform yourself.
Then the timing rule that ends the argument. If you choose to test, the building permit can only be issued after all required homeowner exams are passed. Fail one and a licensed sub-contractor is required for that trade. And if you do not make arrangements to sit the exams at the time you apply, then once the permit has issued, licensed professionals are required to perform the trade work. There is no retrofitting a homeowner exam onto a permit that has already been pulled.
What Needs No Permit at All
The Short List of Work Wichita Leaves Alone
The department frames the exemption around replacement rather than around cost, which is a cleaner test than a dollar threshold. If it was there before, you may repair or replace it.
- Paint
- Wallpaper
- Tiling
- Carpeting
- Cabinets
- Countertops
- Paneling
- Similar finish work
New construction, including additions and changes, requires a permit. That list is finish work only, and nothing on it involves opening a wall or touching a supply or waste line, which tells you where the boundary sits without anyone having to write it out. The department points to section 2.4.020 for the detailed residential position and invites calls on (316) 660-1840 rather than leaving people to guess.
The Trade Side of the Same Bar
Journeyman, Master, and Twelve Hours Every Two Years
Trade certificates are required for journeyman and master electrical, mechanical and plumbing trades people to work in Sedgwick County and the City of Wichita, and the department states plainly that it does not reciprocate with state testing. Only the exams on its own approved list count.
A plumbing journeyman needs one year of field experience plus one year of plumbing trade school, or two years of field experience on its own, with hours documented on company letterhead and a detailed description of the work performed. On top of that comes 75 per cent or better on an approved exam: ICC K9R Plumbing with Gas, ICC 560 Journeyman Plumber with Gas, or an IAPMO exam.
A plumbing master must already be a journeyman, then add two years of field experience as a certified journeyman or four years of field experience, and pass ICC K9F Master Plumber with Gas, ICC 557 Master Plumber with Gas, or an IAPMO exam at the same 75 per cent.
The certificate costs $35 new and $35 to renew, and it lasts two years. Twelve continuing education units must be completed by the expiry date, made up of three trade specific hours and three general hours in each of the two years. The department is explicit that CEUs must be completed by expiry with no exceptions, and that it does not receive copies of certificates from providers, so the tradesperson carries the paperwork.
| Certificate renewed after expiry | Additional CEU hours above the required twelve |
|---|---|
| 1 January through 31 March | None, grace period |
| 1 April through 30 June | 1.5 hours |
| 1 July through 31 August | 3 hours |
| 1 September through 31 December | 4.5 hours |
| After 31 December | Refer to the Section Chief |
One Job, Several Licences
Drain Cleaner and Drain Layer Are Separate Licences Here
The trade contractor licence list in this jurisdiction is unusually granular, and the granularity lands directly on drainage work. Drain Cleaner is one licence. Drain Layer is another. Plumbing is a third. Gas Fitter is a fourth and Lawn Irrigation a fifth, alongside Mechanical, Refrigeration, Sheet Metal, Fire Suppression, Elevator, Solid Fuel, Handicap Accessibility and Mobile Home Installer.
The renewal cycle is split in a way that catches firms holding both kinds. General contractor licences, covering classes A through D plus cell tower, fire sprinkler, roofing or siding, swimming pool, wrecking and solar, expire on 31 December of every even numbered year. Trade contractor licences, including every plumbing-adjacent one above, expire on 31 December of every odd numbered year.
A new licence application goes through a review the department warns can take up to two weeks, and it states that it does not reciprocate with other jurisdictions. A sole proprietor must file everything in the form applicant name doing business as company name. Nothing here is a formality, and none of it can be arranged the morning the job starts.
Water, Which Is the City Rather Than the Building Department
Cheney Reservoir, the Equus Beds, and a Permanent Watering Rule
Wichita draws its drinking water from Cheney Reservoir and the Equus Bed Aquifer. Water travels from both by large transmission pipes to the treatment plant, and once treated it is distributed to homes, businesses and wholesale customers, which makes the city a regional supplier as well as a municipal one. That wholesale relationship is why the conservation rules below reach beyond the city limits.
The outdoor watering schedule here is permanent and year round rather than a drought response. A three days per week schedule is in effect for Wichita and its wholesale customers. Addresses ending in an odd digit water on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Addresses ending in an even digit water on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Nobody waters outdoors on Monday, and no outdoor watering is allowed between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on any day of the week.
The scope is narrower than people assume. The three day schedule applies only to sprinkler and spray irrigation systems. Hand watering, hose watering, drip irrigation, well water, non-potable water, pool filling, recreational use and washing all sit outside it, and no indoor use is restricted at all. Variances cover establishing new turf seed for 30 days and new turf sod for 21 days, plus limited special circumstances. Businesses are caught by the rule unless their core economic activity derives from water use.
Backflow
An Irrigation System Here Comes With a Standing Obligation
The city states that every citizen who has an irrigation system connected to the city water system is required to have a working backflow device. The purpose given is specific rather than general: to confirm that water used for irrigation does not mix with contaminants such as pesticides and fertilizers that could flow back into the city distribution system.
Testing is handled through registered contractors and the city publishes three separate lists, one for fire sprinklers, one for lawn irrigation and one for plumbing and mechanical. It is careful about what the lists mean. Those contractors are current in their professional certifications and registered with the cross connection programme but are not specifically endorsed by the utility, the lists are not all inclusive, and prices may vary between companies. Appearance on a list implies an agreement to submit completed backflow testing within 10 to 14 days.
Testers themselves must have completed backflow certification and hold a current annual registration card with the city, and new testers are told to call 316-219-8917 before working in Wichita. The governing code sits at Title 17 Chapter 17.08 and Title 17 Chapter 17.10, with general questions taken on 316-265-1300.
The Sequence in Order
How a Wichita Homeowner Permit Actually Runs
Written as a sequence, the homeowner route is a qualification chain. Each link has to close before the next opens, and unlike a rebate, missing one does not cost money. It costs the right to do the work.
- Confirm you own and occupy the property
The department states that if you own the home but do not live in it, you must use a licensed contractor. This condition is checked before anything else and there is no exam that gets around it.
- Complete the Homeowner Declaration Form
Published in English and in Spanish, it is submitted as part of the application rather than afterwards.
- Choose, at application, between a sub-contractor and an exam
For every trade the project touches you either designate a licensed sub-contractor or schedule the homeowner exam. This choice is made when you apply, not later.
- Sit and pass every required exam at 75 per cent
Plumbing is 30 questions and the water heater a further 20, each $25, each open to the 2012 Uniform Plumbing Code Book, each started before 1 p.m. Fail one and a licensed sub-contractor is required for that trade.
- Collect the permit, which issues only after the exams are passed
The department is explicit that the building permit can only be issued once all required homeowner exams are passed, and that if arrangements were not made at application time, licensed professionals must perform the trade work.
- Book and pass every inspection yourself
Once the permit is in hand you are responsible for scheduling and passing all inspections, and the department warns you may carry the same responsibilities and liability as a licensed contractor, including to your mortgage company.
Which Test Unlocks What
Four Wichita Exams and the Door Each One Opens
Homeowner plumbing
Thirty questions, $25, 75 per cent, open book to the 2012 Uniform Plumbing Code. Unlocks plumbing work by the owner-occupier on one permit at one address.
Homeowner water heater
Twenty questions, $25, 75 per cent, same code book plus a handout. A wholly separate sitting, because passing the plumbing exam does not cover it.
Journeyman plumber
ICC K9R or 560 Plumbing with Gas, or IAPMO, at 75 per cent, on top of a year of school and a year in the field or two years in the field.
Master plumber
ICC K9F or 557 Master Plumber with Gas, or IAPMO, at 75 per cent, on top of journeyman certification and two to four further years of documented experience.
Rebates sit outside all of this and belong to the city rather than the building department. Applications have been accepted since 1 February 2026, devices must be purchased between 1 January 2026 and 31 December 2026, and an application must be postmarked no later than 90 days after purchase. The published categories include toilets, toilet repair kits, dual flush converter kits, rain sensor shutoffs, smart irrigation controllers, hose faucet irrigation controllers, rain barrels, clothes washers, dishwashers, and grasses and shrubs.
We are not quoting a rebate amount for any of those, because each category publishes its figure in its own separate document that we did not open. What is stated plainly on the city page is that City of Wichita water customers can pick up a free low-flow shower head or sink aerator, while supplies last, at the City Hall information desk, at Wichita Public Library locations, or at a city neighbourhood resource centre. The rebate line is 316-268-4470.
What This Means on a Job
How the Rules Change a Plumbing Wichita Service Call
Two things follow from all of the above and neither is abstract. First, if somebody offers to do work at your house and then asks you to pull the permit, the permit authority itself has told you what that means. Second, the certificate a plumber holds in Wichita is not a state certificate. It is issued locally after a locally approved exam, and it is renewed with locally counted continuing education hours, so a licence from elsewhere does not carry across on its own.
Drain cleaning is worth naming first here, because in this jurisdiction it is a separately licensed trade rather than a subset of plumbing. Sewer line repair touches the drain layer side of the same split, and hydro jetting answers a line coated along its length rather than blocked at one point.
Water heater repair has its own exam here, which is a fair signal of how the code treats it. Leak detection, repiping and burst pipe repair cover supply pipework that has failed, and emergency plumbing covers the first hour. We publish no response time for Wichita, because a number typed into a web page helps nobody standing in water.
Regional pages on this site cover the nearest larger markets, and none of the Wichita licensing arrangement carries to them: Tulsa and Oklahoma City sit south across the state line under a different licensing regime entirely.
Where We Work
Wichita Neighbourhoods and Corridors
These are the parts of Wichita people name when they book. They span the older near-downtown grid and the newer east and northeast growth, which is a genuine difference in pipe age and material rather than a marketing distinction.
Wichita Plumbing Questions, Answered Straight
Four exams at the same pass mark, a licence list that splits drain cleaning from drain laying, a permanent watering schedule, and one blunt warning from the permit office.
Only if you own and occupy the home, and only if you pass an exam first. The building department requires a Homeowner Declaration Form, and at the time you apply for the permit you must either designate a licensed sub-contractor for each trade or schedule the homeowner exam for each trade you want to perform. The plumbing exam is 30 multiple choice questions, open to the 2012 Uniform Plumbing Code Book, unlimited time but started before 1 p.m., $25, with 75 per cent to pass. The permit can only be issued after all required exams are passed.
No. The department states that you must own and occupy the home, and that if you own the home but do not live in the home you must use a licensed contractor to do the work. The homeowner exam route is closed to landlords by design, which removes the most common workaround before it starts.
No, and this is the detail that catches people. The water heater is a separate exam: 20 multiple choice questions, the same 2012 Uniform Plumbing Code Book plus a handout, unlimited time but started before 1 p.m., a further $25, and the same 75 per cent pass mark. Passing the general plumbing exam does not cover water heater work.
A licensed sub-contractor is required to perform that trade work. The permit itself is not lost, but the part of the project covered by the failed exam has to be done by somebody licensed. Separately, if you never arranged to sit the exams when you applied, then once the permit has been issued licensed professionals are required for the trade work regardless.
The permit authority answers that itself, and it does not hedge. It publishes the instruction to say no, calls the request a red flag, and gives 316-660-1840 as the number to call to check whether that contractor is licensed and insured. A licensed contractor pulling their own permit is the normal arrangement.
Repair or replacement of things that were already there, described by the department as paint, wallpaper, tiling, carpeting, cabinets, countertops, paneling and similar finish work. New construction, including additions and changes, requires a permit. Notice that nothing on the exempt list involves opening a wall or touching a supply or waste line. Section 2.4.020 carries the detailed residential position and the department takes questions on (316) 660-1840.
Not automatically. The building department states that it does not reciprocate with state testing and that it does not reciprocate with other jurisdictions. Trade certificates for journeyman and master plumbers are issued locally, on the strength of approved ICC or IAPMO exams passed at 75 per cent, and a new licence application goes through a review that can take up to two weeks.
Twelve continuing education units across a two year certificate, made up of three trade specific hours and three general hours each year, completed by the expiry date with no exceptions. Renewal costs $35. Letting it lapse adds hours on a published sliding scale: nothing between 1 January and 31 March, 1.5 extra hours between 1 April and 30 June, 3 extra hours between 1 July and 31 August, 4.5 extra hours between 1 September and 31 December, and a conversation with the Section Chief after that.
It depends on the last digit of your address, and the schedule is permanent rather than a drought measure. Odd numbered addresses water on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Even numbered addresses water on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. There is no outdoor watering on Monday, and none between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on any day. The three day rule applies only to sprinkler and spray irrigation, so hand watering, hose watering and drip irrigation are outside it, as is all indoor use.
Yes. The city states that every citizen with an irrigation system connected to the city water system is required to have a working backflow device, to stop irrigation water carrying pesticides and fertilizers back into the distribution system. Testing is done by contractors registered with the cross connection programme, and the city publishes three separate lists covering fire sprinklers, lawn irrigation, and plumbing and mechanical, noting that listing is not an endorsement.
Only the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, and only after testing at a certified laboratory. The city is explicit that regardless of whether the public water supplier or KDHE announced the advisory in the first place, only KDHE can issue the rescind order. Consumer questions go to the city on 316-265-1300 or to KDHE on 785-296-5514.
Kansas, and the two were separated by hand rather than by a word match, because a word boundary test keeps Wichita Falls inside a Wichita partition. Nine rows in the keyword data behind this page name Wichita Falls in Texas and every one was removed, leaving 72 rows of which 39 per cent of the volume carries an explicit Kansas token and none carries a competing state token at all. The international check returns nothing. Everything on this page is a City of Wichita and Sedgwick County arrangement.
Check the Certificate First
Plumbing Wichita Work Done by People the Local Code Has Tested
The single most useful thing about this jurisdiction is that competence is documented rather than claimed. A journeyman or master plumbing certificate here means an approved code exam passed at 75 per cent, documented field hours on company letterhead, and twelve hours of continuing education every two years to keep it. It is worth asking about, and the building department will confirm a licence over the phone on 316-660-1840. Ask us the same question and you will get the same answer.
Sources for the four homeowner exams and their formats, books, question counts, fees and 75 per cent pass mark, the own and occupy condition, the Homeowner Declaration Form, the designate-or-test choice at application, the rule that the permit issues only after the exams are passed, the no-permit finish work list, section 2.4.020, the inspection responsibility warning and the red flag statement about a contractor asking you to pull the permit: the Metropolitan Area Building and Construction Department Do I Need a Permit page.
Sources for the journeyman and master plumbing requirements, the approved ICC and IAPMO exam codes, the $35 certificate fee, the two year term, the twelve CEU requirement and its three plus three annual split, the expired certificate penalty table and the statement that the department does not reciprocate with state testing: the MABCD Master and Journeyman Trade Certificates page. Sources for the trade licence categories including Drain Cleaner and Drain Layer, the even year and odd year renewal split, the up to two weeks review and the non reciprocity statement: the MABCD Contractor Licensing page.
Sources for Cheney Reservoir and the Equus Bed Aquifer, the wholesale customer relationship and the boil water advisory position including the KDHE rescind rule: the City of Wichita Public Water Supply page. Sources for the permanent three day per week watering schedule, the odd and even day allocation, the Monday prohibition, the 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. restriction, the exempt water uses, the business position and the turf seed and sod variance periods: the City of Wichita Permanent Outdoor Watering Schedule page.
Sources for the backflow device requirement, the three registered tester lists and the non endorsement wording, the 10 to 14 day submission agreement, the annual tester registration card and the Title 17 code references: the City of Wichita Backflow and Cross Connection Control page. Sources for the rebate window, the 90 day postmark rule, the category list and the free shower head and aerator offer: the City of Wichita Water Conservation Rebate Program page.
No permit fee, plan review fee, water rate, sewer rate or rebate amount is quoted anywhere on this page. Permit fees live in a fee schedule and a fee calculator that were not opened, no water or sewer rate page was located on the city site, and each rebate category publishes its amount in a separate document that was not opened.
Nothing here states a cost, a schedule or a bill impact for the new Northwest Water Treatment Facility, because those figures sit in presentation documents that were not read. No response time, crew count or office of ours is stated for Wichita. Codes, fees, licence cycles and ordinances change, so confirm current requirements with the City of Wichita or MABCD before relying on anything above.