Boulder County's EZ BP program covers common replacement permits

When the water heater quits on a Sunday night, the last thing you want is a stack of plans and a long review. Boulder County built a faster lane for exactly that kind of work.

The Easy Building Permit, or EZ BP, covers the everyday replacements a house needs over the years: air conditioning, electrical-only work, furnaces, gas lines, heat pumps, mini splits, re-roofs, siding, stoves, water heaters, boilers, evaporative coolers, and window replacements. The window and door swaps come with their own required form, but the path stays the simple one.

This is the lane that fits most home upkeep on the Front Range and up in the foothills. A reroof after a hailstorm, a furnace that died mid-winter, a tired stretch of siding: each still needs a permit, but not the full plan review that a new addition would trigger. The aim is not to dodge the county. It is to match a routine job to the route built for routine jobs, so a same-day fix does not get treated like new construction.

There is a quiet trap on the other side, too. Skipping the permit on a job that needs one can surface later, at resale or after a claim, as unpermitted work. So before deciding a repair is too small to bother, check the EZ BP list. If the work is on it, take that path. If it is not, a quick call to Building Safety sorts out which permit the project actually needs before a contractor starts cutting.