Exterior Work in the North Hills

Working in the North Hills

What North Hills houses actually need

The North Hills is a region rather than a municipality — Ross, Shaler, McCandless, Hampton and their neighbours — and each of those runs its own permit office. There is no North Hills building department to call: Ross has a Building Department, Shaler a Building and Zoning Department, McCandless a Building and Planning Department, Hampton a Department of Community Development.

• These are the inner-ring northern suburbs and they built out early. Ross went from about 12,000 people in 1938 to 24,871 by 1949, and McKnight Road was completed as a four-lane in 1951. Shaler’s two biggest decades were the 1950s and 1960s, at 2,885 and 2,734 homes. That is a replacement market, not a new-construction one.
• Water is the recurring theme on the Shaler side. Shaler publishes its own flood protection page naming the Pine Creek and Little Pine Creek floodplains, and the township bought thirteen homes near Pine Creek after the remnants of Hurricane Ivan in 2004. The Girty’s Run watershed runs through Ross, Shaler, McCandless, Reserve, Etna, West View and Millvale.
• It is a real drive from Bethel Park, so we schedule North Hills work in blocks. We would rather tell you that up front than pretend distance costs nothing.

Permits in the North Hills

North Hills is an informal region rather than a municipality, so it has no permit office of its own. Your permit comes from Ross, Shaler, McCandless, Hampton and neighbouring municipalities.

Permits for work here are issued by whichever of Ross, Shaler, McCandless, Hampton or their neighbours your address actually falls in. The North Hills is a regional name, not a government. Permits come from whichever municipality your address is in: Ross has a Building Department, Shaler a Building and Zoning Department, McCandless a Building and Planning Department, and Hampton a Department of Community Development. Ross requires contractors to supply a certificate of insurance for general liability and Pennsylvania workers’ compensation, and has adopted the Pennsylvania UCC at the 2021 I-Codes with amendments.

We pull the permit and meet the inspector. We deliberately do not publish permit fees — municipalities revise them, sometimes annually — so we confirm the current figure with the office while we are writing your estimate rather than quoting you something out of date.

Getting there

Roughly 17 to 22 miles, and a genuine trip across the city from our shop on 4607 Library Rd in Bethel Park.