Killeen plumbing permits: the water heater named on the fee line, and a sewer test the city says was not being done right

Most Texas cities make you work out whether a water heater needs a permit. Killeen prints the answer on the fee line itself: Plumbing (Includes Water Heater Replacement), $50. Then it publishes four pages on exactly how your sewer line will be tested, opening with its building official saying the test had not been being done properly in Killeen.

This page is built from those documents: the current fee schedule, the permit-trigger handout, chapter 8 of the code, and the sewer testing spec.

Who issues the permit

City of Killeen Building Inspections, a division of Development Services, issues residential plumbing permits.

The counter is at 100 E Avenue C, Killeen, TX 76541, not city hall, which is at 101 N College Street. General questions go to 254-501-7762 or buildingpermits@killeentexas.gov, and the directory gives the hours as Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A residential plans examiner is on staff and can be asked for by role.

Permits and inspections run through MGO Connect, a third-party portal, and that is the only route the city publishes. There is no downloadable plumbing permit application, no homeowner affidavit and no contractor registration form on the city’s forms page; the city publishes a how-to for creating an MGO account, a how-to for applying, and a how-to for adding your registration and paying its fee. If MGO gives you trouble the city points at its help desk on 985-851-0760, which is not the city.

On the code cycle, Killeen is in the newer half of the cities we have read. Its Building Inspections page announces the 2024 ICC codes and the 2023 NEC, and its own sewer handout says so in the building official’s words: “This is a 2024 IRC requirement, and this code was adopted by the City of Killeen.” That puts it in the 2024 group with Austin, Plano, Frisco, Mesquite, Waco and McAllen, ahead of the 2021 cities including Dallas and Lubbock, and a long way ahead of Garland, still on the 2015 plumbing code.

The code itself confirms it. Section 8-240 of Killeen’s code of ordinances adopts the 2024 International Plumbing Code, by Ordinance 25-068 of 2 December 2025. One leftover to know about: the chapter 8 PDF the city still posts is headed “ORDINANCE NO. 21-XXX” and adopts the 2021 edition, so if a document you are handed says 2021, it is that old file. Every city’s edition is on Texas plumbing code by city.

Bell County has no residential plumbing permit authority of the kind a city has, so an address inside the city limits is a city matter start to finish. The statute and the county position are on Texas plumbing permits.

Can a homeowner pull a plumbing permit? Yes, and the rule is in the ordinance

Killeen issues permits to a homeowner doing their own work on their homestead, and the exemption is written into the code rather than left on a handout.

Section 8-60(d) of the Killeen Code of Ordinances:

“No construction registration shall be required for a construction operation solely performed by a homeowner in a building owned and occupied by him or her as his or her homestead. Requirements for applicable permits, inspections, and fees remain in effect.”

The handout says the same thing from the permit side, under the heading WHO CAN OBTAIN PERMITS: “Homeowners performing their own work whose property is listed as their homestead. Rental property does not apply. Contractors registered with the City of Killeen (General Contractor, Plumbing Contractor, Electrical Contractor, Mechanical Contractor, etc. may apply for permits).”

Two things in that pair are worth having straight. The exemption is from registration, not from permits. The ordinance says so in its own last sentence, and the handout agrees. And it is the homeowner’s own labor that is exempt: “solely performed by a homeowner”. Killeen does not extend it to family the way Lubbock does, and it does not require a sworn affidavit the way San Antonio does.

A rental is out. Both documents say so, and the ordinance’s “owned and occupied by him or her as his or her homestead” does the same work as the handout’s blunter “Rental property does not apply.”

Holding the permit is not the same as being allowed to do the plumbing. State licensing under Texas Occupations Code chapter 1301 governs who may perform plumbing for others, and the city’s own ordinance says a registration “nor does it substitute for any license required under this chapter or under state law.” See who can legally do plumbing in Texas.

What needs a permit, and the four replacements that do not

Killeen publishes a plumbing trigger and a plumbing carve-out, in one sentence each.

The trigger:

“Plumbing. Cutting into existing plumbing pipes or the Installation of new plumbing pipes (water, sewer, or gas), including yard lines.”

And in the same breath, the carve-out:

“(The replacement of sinks, toilets, bathtubs and showers in the same location using the same original plumbing does not require a plumbing permit).”

That is a real published no-permit rule, and it is more generous than the state floor. Section 1301.551(c) requires a city with a plumbing ordinance to require a permit for plumbing “other than the repairing of leaks, the replacement of lavatory or kitchen faucets, the replacement of ballcocks or water control valves, the replacement of garbage disposals, or the replacement of water closets.” Those five are the only jobs the state keeps off the compulsory list, and a city may still require a permit for any of them. Killeen keeps water closets off, as the state does, and adds sinks, bathtubs and showers, on two conditions the state does not impose: same location, same original plumbing. Move the fixture or touch the pipe and you are back inside the trigger, cutting into existing plumbing pipes. Our fixture-by-fixture read of this is on fixture and faucet permits in Texas.

Water heaters are not in the carve-out. They are named on the permit side, twice. The handout lists “Water Heater (new or replacement, both gas and electric, including under sink heaters)”, and the fee schedule prints the permit as “Plumbing (Includes Water Heater Replacement)”. That is about as unambiguous as a Texas city gets; the statewide picture is in do you need a permit to replace a water heater in Texas?

One tension to know about rather than trip over. The same handout’s WORK NOT NEEDING A PERMIT list reads: painting or wallpapering, hardwood floors or carpeting, new countertops, appliances, swings and playground equipment, holiday lights. A water heater is an appliance in ordinary speech. The specific line beats the general one and the specific line names the water heater, so get the permit. If someone quotes “appliances” at you, that is where it comes from.

Three more plumbing items from the same handout. Yard lines are permit work, named in the trigger. Lawn irrigation needs a permit and a backflow preventer: an atmospheric vacuum breaker, pressure vacuum breaker or reduced-pressure principle assembly, and the city says a double check valve assembly “is not allowed”. It must be tested after installation by a state licensed tester, with the test documents sent to the Water Department at 501 West Jasper, 254-501-6500, before the final inspection can happen. And foundation repair has needed a permit since January 2022 under section 8-187, which matters to anyone whose slab leak turned into a foundation job.

Sewer lines and repipes are never exempt anywhere in Texas: big-ticket plumbing permits in Texas. What happens if you skip a permit is in skipping a plumbing permit in Texas.

What a plumbing permit costs

$50 for the permit, plus a $10 technology fee, so $60 at the window.

From the FY 2027 Fee Schedule, effective October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027:

• Residential plumbing permit, per unit, “Plumbing (Includes Water Heater Replacement)”: $50
• Tech / Application Fee, per application: $10, charged in addition to the asterisked permits, and the plumbing line is asterisked
• Residential plan review, where required: $90
• Commercial and multi-family plumbing permit, per unit: $60
• New construction and additions, single family, duplex and townhouse: $0.20 per square foot, minimum $200

That last line is the one that saves money on a new build or an addition, and the schedule spells out why: “This fee includes permits for structure, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, and required inspections.” Read the exclusions, though, because one is a plumbing job. The same note says the fee “DOES NOT include permits for fences, storage buildings, accessory structures, lawn irrigation, temporary pole, landscape, whole house water softener units or swimming pools or plan reviews.” A softener on a new house is its own permit. See water softeners in Texas.

Then the figures for when something goes wrong, which is where Killeen is less gentle than it looks:

• Failed Inspection Penalty of Any Kind, per inspection: $60
• Partial Inspection: $50
• After-hours inspection: $200 for the first two hours, then $145 per hour or fraction
• Construction Board of Appeals: $275

And if the city main is involved, that is a different table and a different order of magnitude. The FY 2027 schedule sets the sewer tap fee at $500, and a water meter with the tap charge included, where the city installs the service line, meter and box in an established subdivision, runs from $1,056 for a short 3/4-inch service to $3,360 for a long 2-inch. If the builder installs the tap, the base meter charge is $450 for 3/4-inch and $550 for 1 inch.

One thing to check before you quote any of this back to the city. The Building Inspections page links its fee document as “2025-2026 Permit Fees”, and that document is the FY 2026 extract, effective October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026, so eight days expired when we read it on 8 October 2026. It sits at a URL whose own text says “effective-Oct-1-2023”. Finance publishes the FY 2027 schedule separately. We compared the two line by line: forty lines are identical, the $50 residential plumbing permit and the $80 registration among them, so nobody pricing a water heater off the department page is being misquoted. Three figures a plumbing reader would care about did move: the commercial and multi-family plumbing permit from $50 to $60, the failed-inspection penalty from $50 to $60, and the partial inspection from $35 to $50. Price off the FY 2027 document.

Registration: required by ordinance, and the fee has a condition on it

Killeen requires a plumbing contractor to hold a city construction registration, and its own ordinance subordinates the fee to state law.

The requirement is not subtle. Section 8-60(a): “Before any person shall perform, contract to perform, or obtain a permit to perform a construction operation within the city limits for which a permit is required under this chapter, he or she shall first obtain a construction registration issued by the city.” Section 8-60(c) makes performing without one unlawful. Section 8-64 confirms plumbing is its own registration type: the registration “shall show on its face the restrictions placed thereon by reason of the types of construction operations to be performed, including but not limited to, general, electrical, plumbing or mechanical.”

Section 1301.551(h) lets a Texas city require this, so the requirement is lawful. The fee is where it gets interesting.

The FY 2027 schedule prints one line, “Construction Registration* Each Per Year 80.00”, with no breakdown by trade, and the asterisk adds the $10 technology fee. Against that, section 8-62 of the ordinance reads:

“Fees for registrations shall be paid at time of application. Unless prohibited by state law, Contractor Registration Fees shall be in accordance with the adopted fee schedule, paid per calendar year, renewable each January first.”

Unless prohibited by state law. Section 1301.551(g) is that prohibition: a plumbing contractor required to obtain a permit “is not required to pay a plumbing registration fee or administrative fee in a municipality or any other political subdivision.” So Killeen’s ordinance carries the escape hatch without naming the statute, and its fee schedule prints a single figure without naming the exception.

We are not going to tell you how that resolves at the window, because the city has not written it down. What we can tell you is that both texts exist, the statute is the statute, and a plumbing contractor asked for $80 a year should raise section 1301.551(g) and section 8-62 together before paying. This is a third shape in the series: El Paso and Lubbock name the statute in their own documents and print $0; Fort Worth prints a fee with no exception while its ordinance exempts state-licensed plumbers; Killeen puts the exception in the ordinance and leaves the schedule silent.

The rest of a Killeen registration is lighter than most. The application asks for “proof of state license where required”, and across all ten sections of article III there is no insurance minimum, no bond and no certificate requirement. The city takes an indemnity instead, under section 8-60(b). Registration expires on 31 December whatever month you take it out, renewable each January first.

Worth reading if you are choosing a contractor: section 8-69 lets the Construction Board of Appeals suspend a registration for up to a year for, among other things, having “taken out a permit in the name of a person authorized to do the work and thereafter permitted a person not authorized by this code to do the work”, having “employed any person not licensed as provided in this chapter to do work which requires a license under state law”, or being a habitual violator, which the ordinance defines precisely as failing “to first obtain the required permits prior to work being performed on two (2) or more projects within a twelve (12) month period.”

One insurance number does bind a Texas plumber, and it is a state number. Section 1301.552 requires the city to verify through the board’s website that the responsible master plumber holds commercial general liability coverage “of not less than $300,000 for all claims arising in a one-year period.” Check that one with the state board: how to verify a Texas plumber’s license.

The sewer test, spelled out

No other city in this series publishes anything like Killeen’s sewer inspection spec, and it opens with an admission.

The city’s Sanitary and Building Sewer Testing handout begins with a note from the building official saying that testing the newly installed underground pipe from the building to the sewer tap “has not been being conducted properly for building inspections in Killeen”, and that under the 2024 IRC “ALL plumbing be tested, inspected, and approved by the building official BEFORE backfilling.”

Then it gets specific, and this is the part to hand your plumber:

• The plumbing rough is tested with a five-foot head of water on all stacks, measured “from the top of the ninety (90) degree fitting at the last stack in the house.” If the last stack is too high to see water in the pipe, the inspection “is subject to receiving a disapproval tag.”
• The water test “must include the sewer yard line. A test-tee must be installed within 5 feet (5′) of the sewer tap.”
• The sewer tap “must be exposed to one foot (1′) from either side of the sewer connection”, which the city glosses as one foot of its own green lateral line adjacent to the tie-in exposed at the time of inspection.
• A CT adapter at the sewer relay “must be stainless steel shielded or be wrapped in plastic with a saddle of concrete beneath it for support to prevent horizontal displacement.”
• “A full size double clean out must be installed.”
• “No flat venting will be allowed unless the flat portion is washed by a minor fixture such as a lavatory.”
• Horizontal drain lines passing through foundation beams “must be sleeved a minimum of two pipe sizes larger.”
• Holes dug for sewer taps deeper than four feet “must be protected by a temporary construction fence.”
• Don’t overfill: “Overfilling the stacks to the point that the ground is wet around sewer piping will cause the inspection to fail.”
• And the sequencing trap: request the foundation inspection before the plumbing is backfilled and “the foundation inspection will be classified as ‘not ready’ and will fail.”

The code test the handout quotes for the building sewer itself is a different one, so keep them apart: 2024 IRC P2503.4 wants a test plug at the point of connection with the public sewer, the sewer filled and pressurized “to not less than a 10-foot head of water”, holding for “not less than 15 minutes”, watertight at all points.

Every item on that list is a way to fail an inspection and pay $60 for the next one. A contractor who has read this document will not trip over them, and asking whether they have is a fair question.

What we could not verify

Two things, stated plainly so nobody reads silence as an answer.

Whether a plumbing contractor is actually charged the $80. The ordinance says “unless prohibited by state law”, the statute prohibits it, and nothing the city publishes closes the loop.

What “Appliances” covers on the no-permit list, given that the same handout requires a permit for a water heater.

All three are the same phone call, to 254-501-7762. If the city tells you something different from what is above, we want to know.

Sources, and when we read them

Every figure on this page comes from one of the documents below, each published by the body that sets, measures or administers the thing it describes. We record the document’s own date and the date we read it, because published pages change without notice.

Source	Document date	We read it
Killeen Code of Ordinances sec. 8-240 Adopted	Municode version Sep 30, 2026 (current); section history ends ‘Ord. No. 25-068, § I, 12-2-25’	2026-10-20 (browser, page text; read for NP-P16)
City of Killeen — FY 2027 Fee Schedule, effective October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027	effective October 1, 2026 to September 30, 2027; PDF created 8 July 2026	2026-10-08 (all 48 pages read as raw PDF text; the Development Services building and inspection tables are pages 15 to 17 and the water and sewer table is page 48)
City of Killeen — Projects That Require A Permit	dated September 19, 2024 on its own pages; references the then-adopted 2021 energy code	2026-10-08 (read in full; the plumbing trigger, the same-location replacement carve-out, the who-can-obtain-permits answer and the work-not-needing-a-permit list transcribed verbatim)
City of Killeen — Code of Ordinances chapter 8, Building and Construction Regulations (full ordinance)	Supp. No. 24, created 2021-08-24; article III cites amendments through Ord. No. 19-047 (9-17-19) and division 5 adopts the 2021 International Plumbing Code	2026-10-08 (41 pages read as raw PDF text; article III, Construction Contractors, sections 8-60 through 8-69 read in full and searched for an insurance, bond, surety or certificate requirement)
City of Killeen — Sanitary and Building Sewer Testing, 2024 IRC	undated; cites the 2024 International Residential Code as adopted by the city	2026-10-08 (read in full; the file is a Word document served from a URL ending -PDF, and its text was extracted from the document itself)
City of Killeen — Building Inspections	undated city web page; announces the 2024 ICC and 2023 NEC code adoption and links its fee document as ‘2025-2026 Permit Fees’	2026-10-08
City of Killeen — Development Services fee extract, effective October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026	effective October 1, 2025 to September 30, 2026; PDF named ‘FY 2026 Fee Schedule.pdf’ and created 2 October 2025, at a URL whose own text says 2023	2026-10-08 (both pages read as raw PDF text and compared line by line against the FY 2027 schedule)
City of Killeen — Permit Applications, Forms & Reports, Refunds, Handouts	undated city web page	2026-10-08 (read in full for a plumbing permit application, a homeowner affidavit and a contractor registration form; it publishes none of the three, and it is where the two sewer handouts are)
City of Killeen — Building Inspections staff directory	undated city web page	2026-10-08 (address, hours, general number and named plans examiners)
Texas Occupations Code ch. 1301, §1301.551 Municipal Plumbing Ordinances and Permits	current online codification; §1301.551 last amended by Acts 2013, 83rd Leg., R.S., Ch. 981 (H.B. 2062), Sec. 7, eff. September 1, 2013	2026-10-08 (subsections (a) through (j) read)
Texas Occupations Code ch. 1301, §1301.552 Certificate of Insurance for Plumbing Permit in Political Subdivision	current online codification; last amended by Acts 2011, 82nd Leg., R.S., Ch. 526 (H.B. 2376), Sec. 5, eff. September 1, 2011	2026-10-08