Bathroom Remodeling in Baltimore City

Where does Baltimore City draw the permit line on a bathroom?

At the pipes and wires. The City’s exempt-work sheet lets you tile, paint, paper and install cabinets or countertops without a permit. Anything that adds or replaces a plumbing, gas, mechanical or electrical fixture or device needs one, and the City is explicit that this holds even when the new fixture is the same size and in the same spot. In practice, almost every real bathroom remodel crosses that line:

Part of the job	Permit in Baltimore City?
New floor and wall tile, paint	No, interior finish work
New vanity cabinet and top	No for the cabinet; yes for the new faucet and drain hookup
Replacing a toilet, tub or shower valve	Yes, plumbing permit
New exhaust fan, light fixture or added outlet	Yes, electrical permit
Moving the toilet or adding a shower	Yes, alteration with floor plans, plus trade permits

The plumbing permit can only go to a City-licensed master plumber or master gas fitter, and the electrical permit to a City-licensed electrician. Those licensed trades pull their own permits, and we tell you at the estimate which ones your project needs.

What’s behind the walls of an old Baltimore bathroom?

Usually a lot of history. U.S. Census estimates show about 41.5% of City homes were built in 1939 or earlier, and another 26% between 1940 and 1959, so many bathrooms have been redone two or three times over the original framing. When we open up a rowhouse bath, the things we look at first are:

• The floor under the tub and toilet. Decades of small leaks soften subfloor, and past plumbers sometimes notched joists to run pipes. We fix the structure before any tile goes down.
• Walls that aren’t flat or square. Old plaster and lath, or several layers of patches, get stripped so the new tile sits on a flat, waterproofed surface.
• Venting. Many older baths rely on a window. We plan an exhaust fan and a sensible route for its duct, which matters on a row where the side walls are shared.

On tub and shower walls, we roll on a waterproofing membrane before any tile is set, so the tile is a finish and not the only thing keeping water out of the wall.

Rearranging a rowhouse bath

Rowhouse bathrooms tend to be tight, and the layout is set by where the stack runs. Keeping the drain where it is keeps the job simpler. Moving the toilet or converting a tub alcove into a walk-in shower is possible, but in the City it turns the job into an alteration: a non-structural change needs existing and proposed floor plans, and a structural one needs a floor plan and a cross-section showing floor support.

Adding a powder room on the first floor or a second full bath is a common goal in a house with one bathroom upstairs. We look at where a new drain can tie in before we draw anything.

Bathrooms in northwest Baltimore detached homes

Not every City bathroom is in a row. Near our Gist Avenue office, Mount Washington, Cheswolde and Fallstaff have detached and semi-detached houses with roomier baths and more layout freedom. The same City permit rules apply, and if the house sits inside Mount Washington’s local historic district, any change you can see from outside goes to CHAP.

Finished baths we’ve built include a navy vanity with gold fixtures and a glass walk-in shower, and a marble-look tile tub surround with matte black trim. See more on our main bathroom remodeling page, or plan a Baltimore kitchen remodel or a deck in Baltimore alongside it.