01
Exterior renovation
Roofline changes, porch roofs, covered entries and decks, detailed for the west wind before they are framed.
A Fernley addition answers to the city or to Lyon County. The parcel decides which, and we confirm it before we file.
Fernley is an incorporated city with its own building department inside Lyon County, and the county reviews the parcels just outside the line. We contract remodels, additions, ADUs and exterior renovation here.
- Jurisdiction
- City of Fernley: Building Department, inside Lyon County
- Permit counter
- 595 Silver Lace Boulevard · SmartGov portal
- Counter hours
- Monday to Friday; the permit desk closes before the office does
- Talk to us
- (775) 200-0648, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM
01Two departments, one line
City of Fernley Building Department: the parcel, the portal, and the clock.
Two jurisdictions matter in this part of Lyon County and they are not interchangeable. Addresses inside Fernley city limits are reviewed by the City of Fernley’s own building department at 595 Silver Lace Boulevard, on the city’s SmartGov portal. Addresses in unincorporated Lyon County go to the county’s community development office instead.
Which side of that line a parcel sits on is the first thing we settle, because it decides the submittal format, the portal and the inspection queue for everything that follows. An addition, a garage conversion or a wall that moves goes through whichever department the parcel answers to, and a set prepared for the wrong one is a resubmittal and the weeks that come with it. The permit desk also closes before the office does, so a submittal that leaves late lands the next business day. We build the schedule around the counter’s hours rather than ours.
02Approvals in the right order
In the 1998 to 2008 subdivisions, architectural review comes before anything is ordered.
Fernley’s tract subdivisions went up at speed between roughly 1998 and 2008 (Donner Trail Ranch, Whisper Ranch and their neighbours), and that cohort is now eighteen to twenty-eight years old. It is the volume of the remodel work here, and most of it comes with an architectural committee.
A committee approval is not a permit and a permit is not a committee approval. They run on separate calendars, and the committee’s is usually slower because it meets rather than processes. So the packet goes in first: elevations, colour, profile, and exactly what changes on the street-facing face. Ordering material before that approval turns a scheduling problem into a restocking problem, and it is entirely avoidable.
03Why the west face gets built differently
West wind out of the Truckee canyon changes how a porch roof, a deck and a roofline are built.
Fernley sits at the low, hot end of the corridor on an open plain east of where the Truckee River leaves its canyon. Sustained west wind funnels straight onto west and south elevations, and it carries dust. That is not scenery. It is the reason a covered entry, a porch roof or a deck on the west face of a 2004 house is detailed differently from the same thing on the east face, and why a footprint change out here starts with which way the house faces rather than with the floor plan.
The parts of that we own: the porch roof and the fascia return where it meets the wall, the covered entry that gives a west-facing door somewhere out of the wind, the deck framing and its ledger, and the roofline change that ties an addition into the existing eave. Wind-blown dust packs the drainage and weep paths those tie-ins depend on to shed water, so each one gets its flashing sequence drawn before it is framed. Fernley also publishes its own application for window, glass and door replacement. A window, siding or door job on its own is not work we quote.
04Scope
What we take on in Fernley.
Out I-80 east from the shop, at the far end of that corridor.
02
Additions
Rooms and second storeys on late-1990s and 2000s tract framing, tied into an existing roof line and mechanical system.
03
Garage conversions and ADUs
Scoped to the rulebook the parcel answers to: the city’s inside city limits, the county’s outside them.
04
Whole-home renovation
Interior and exterior on one contract, phased so a household can stay put where that is sensible.
More on two of them: home additions and ADUs and garage conversions.
05Permit, inspection, sign-off
We file the application, and we file it with the right department.
We confirm the jurisdiction from the parcel, prepare the submittal in the form that department wants, file it on the portal it uses, and answer review comments ourselves. Where a committee is involved, its packet goes in ahead of the permit rather than alongside it.
Inspections are booked against the trade calendar so a passed inspection is followed by the next trade that week. Distance is exactly why that discipline matters here: a missed inspection in Fernley costs more schedule than one missed in Sparks. At close-out you get the approved drawings, the inspection record and the manufacturer documentation.
06Questions
Three questions Fernley homeowners ask.
Contracts, draws and change orders are answered on the home page. These are about Fernley.
It depends which side of the city limit your parcel is on. Inside Fernley the city’s own building department reviews and issues, on its SmartGov portal. Outside it, the work goes to Lyon County’s community development office. We confirm which applies from the parcel before anything is filed.
In the 1998 to 2008 subdivisions, usually yes, and the two are independent. The committee is looking at the elevation, the colour and the profile; the building department is looking at code compliance. We submit the committee packet first because it is the approval most likely to hold up an order.
It changes the sequencing more than the price. Inspections are booked against the trade calendar so a passed inspection is followed by the next trade that week, and a submittal that would land after the permit desk closes goes in the next morning instead. A missed inspection here costs more schedule than one in Sparks, so the calendar follows the counter’s hours, not ours.
07Start a conversation
Tell us the address. We will tell you which department it answers to.
City limit or unincorporated county is the first question on a Fernley job, and it is not always the answer people expect. One call settles it, and the schedule with it.
Fastest way to reach us
(775) 200-0648
Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. A person answers, and it is somebody who has been on a job site. The form goes to the same place, one business day behind the phone.
Request received.
We will call you back within one business day to set the walkthrough. If you need us sooner than that, call (775) 200-0648 now, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.