Calgary home-service permit atlas

Findings at a glance

Calgary Reviews calculated every figure from City of Calgary Open Data records extracted August 25, 2026. The electrical and plumbing datasets include homeowner and contractor permits. The HVAC result excludes automatic fire extinguisher permits that appear in the same mechanical dataset.

How many electrical, plumbing and HVAC permits did Calgary issue?

Calgary's three permit streams contained 57,886 unique permit numbers in 2025. Electrical permits accounted for 61.6% of that total, plumbing permits accounted for 20.9%, and contractor HVAC permits accounted for 17.5%.

The 2025 electrical count was 0.2% lower than the 2024 count. Plumbing increased 10.3%, while contractor HVAC increased 16.4%. The seven-year series shows administrative activity in each permit stream. It does not explain why a permit was requested.

For provider research, see the Calgary electrician directory, Calgary plumbing directory and Calgary HVAC directory.

What work did the 2025 permits cover?

The City classifies most 2025 electrical and plumbing permits under either `Improvement` or `New`. Improvement permits made up 59.8% of electrical permits and 67.6% of plumbing permits. The City's contractor HVAC records classified 42.7% as `Improvement`.

The `Other` column contains records classified as `Home Occupation`. Calgary Reviews preserved the City's WorkClassGroup labels. `Improvement` is an administrative classification rather than a synonym for repair or replacement.

The electrical dataset covers more than standard wiring permits. Its 2025 records include photovoltaic, fire alarm, annual electrical, communications and sign-installation permit types. The plumbing dataset also includes hydronic and cross-connection-control permit types. Those records remain in the permit-stream totals because the datasets do not provide a reliable residential-only field.

Who obtained the 2025 permits?

Contractors obtained 33,914 of Calgary's 35,631 electrical permits in 2025, or 95.2%. Homeowners obtained the remaining 1,717. Contractors obtained 10,851 of 12,124 plumbing permits, or 89.5%, while homeowners obtained 1,273.

The City's mechanical data identifies 10,131 contractor HVAC permits in 2025. The dataset also contains 249 automatic fire extinguisher permits, which this atlas excludes from the HVAC count.

Applicant type does not identify the building as residential or commercial. A contractor permit can cover either setting. A homeowner permit indicates who applied, but it does not show the number of dwellings or the value of the work.

Calgary's permit review guide explains that homeowner electrical or plumbing permits and contractor trade permits help the City check work against applicable safety codes. Our guide to Calgary electricians explains what to ask before booking electrical work.

Why is roofing absent from the permit total?

Routine roof replacement cannot be measured from Calgary's building-permit data. City guidance says repairing roof materials or replacing them with a similar type does not require a City permit. A City regulation bulletin gives the example that re-roofing a single-family residence with the same type of roof covering does not require a building permit.

Building permits that mention a roof therefore represent a narrow and inconsistent subset. They can include structural alterations, heavier replacement materials, roof anchors, rooftop equipment and multi-residential work. Counting those descriptions would miss much of the residential roofing work readers expect an atlas to measure.

Calgary Reviews does not publish a roofing-permit trend from this dataset. The Calgary hail and roof repair report uses insured-loss and City program records instead, with the same limitation stated prominently. Readers comparing providers can use the Calgary roofing directory.

Can the data support a community map?

The three trade-permit datasets do not carry a consistent community field. Plumbing records may include CommunityName, but the electrical and HVAC records do not provide comparable community coverage. OriginalAddress appears in the data, but Calgary Reviews did not geocode private addresses or infer communities from them.

This edition does not rank communities or publish a neighbourhood map. A future map needs a City-provided community identifier that is consistent across all three streams. The absence of a map avoids turning uneven field coverage into a false local comparison.

What this data does not measure

Permit counts do not measure service demand, contractor workload or the number of completed jobs. The datasets contain inspection rows, so Calgary Reviews counted each PermitNum once. A permit may have several inspections or no completed inspection in the extracted record.

The three-stream total is not a count of unique projects. One renovation can require separate electrical, plumbing and HVAC permits. The data does not provide a shared project identifier that would allow those permits to be joined reliably.

The permit records do not offer a consistent residential-only flag. They also do not provide a common application date, estimated project cost or community field across the three streams. This edition therefore omits residential shares, processing-time medians, project-value medians and community rankings.