Building Permit Drawings in Ontario: What You Need and Who Can Draw Them

For a typical house, addition, or accessory building: a scaled site plan with property lines and setbacks, floor plans with dimensions and room uses, exterior elevations, and at least one building section showing the assemblies. Structural work adds engineered details, and a new home adds heat-loss and SB-12 energy documents plus mechanical layouts. Small interior jobs may only need a floor plan and a section. The rule of thumb: the more structural or the bigger the build, the more sheets and detail you need.

Usually yes. Since 2006, most permit drawings in Ontario must carry the BCIN of a registered designer, or be prepared by a licensed architect or professional engineer. There is a limited Building Code exemption that can let an owner prepare drawings for their own home, and some municipalities accept owner-prepared drawings for simple work – but the drawings still have to be scaled, complete, and code-compliant, and you carry the responsibility if they are wrong.

In some cases, yes. The Building Code includes an exemption that allows an owner to design their own house, and you declare that exemption on the application. For a simple, non-structural project some building departments will accept a clean, scaled, owner-prepared set. But being allowed to draw them does not lower the standard – the set has to meet the same Code and zoning requirements, and a missing detail still bounces. For anything structural or a new build, a qualified designer usually saves more than they cost.

It varies widely by project size and complexity. A small deck or shed set is at the low end; a garage or basement-apartment set is in the middle; a full custom-home set with structural, mechanical, and energy documents is the most. The fee is not just drafting – it is making sure the set passes review the first time, which is where the real savings are. Tell us what you are building through the “Get your plans drawn” button and we will give you a real number.

Not the whole set – but the structural portions often do. Beams carrying significant load, large openings, unusual or deep foundations, and retaining walls are commonly designed and stamped by a professional engineer, even when a BCIN designer prepares the rest of the drawings. Whether you need a stamp depends on the structure, not on whether it is a house. If you are unsure, that is exactly the kind of thing a quick review will tell you.

Permit drawings are the set the city reviews to confirm Code and zoning compliance – enough detail to approve the build. Construction drawings (or “working drawings”) are the fuller set the trades build from, with finishes, schedules, and connection details. There is a lot of overlap, and on a house the permit set and construction set are often nearly the same document. The renderings a designer shows you to sell the look are neither – they are not submittable.

Almost always because something was missing or unclear, not because the design was bad. The usual culprits: no section to show the assemblies, setbacks not dimensioned on the site plan, a structural element with no size or span, missing energy or heat-loss documents on a new build, life-safety items (egress, smoke and CO alarms) not shown, or the drawings referencing a detail that is not on the sheet. The fix is to add the missing detail, label it, and resubmit – not to argue. See our common rejections and fixes guide.

Often, yes – especially for additions, new structures, or anything close to a lot line, where the site plan has to be based on an accurate survey to prove the setbacks. Some simple interior projects do not need one. If you have an existing survey, bring it; if your lot has changed or the survey is very old, the city may want an updated one. Building a site plan on a wrong or outdated survey is a classic reason a file gets sent back.

Yes – that is one of the things we do. We prepare complete, BCIN-registered permit sets for everything from decks and garages to garden suites, additions, and full custom homes, arrange engineering where it is needed, sort the heat-loss and energy paperwork, and pre-check the set against your town’s submission standard before you file. We have done it across Simcoe County and Georgian Bay for 45 years. Use the “Get your plans drawn” button and tell us what you are building.