Hire a general contractor in Seattle, WA who plans around the permit

The contractor, under their own registration. If someone asks you to take it out as the owner, they are moving responsibility for code compliance onto you and thinning your recourse if the work fails inspection. There are narrow situations where owner permits make sense, but a contractor proposing one for their own convenience is a signal worth reading.

It depends entirely on the route your work takes. Some permits are issued quickly across the counter; anything needing plan review runs in weeks and stretches further with each round of corrections. Ask each bidder what route they expect, how many review cycles they have budgeted, and what would push it. The variation between their answers tells you who has done this recently.

That the business met a legal threshold and carries financial backing — a bond and liability cover you could claim against. It is not a quality assessment and there is no state exam on craft. Registration removes a class of risk. Choosing well among registered contractors is still your job, and references on comparable recent work are how you do it.

Yes. Washington applies retail sales tax to construction services, so labour is taxed alongside materials, unlike in some neighbouring states. Your contractor collects and remits it. The practical point is to make sure every bid you are comparing treats it the same way, because a tax-exclusive number will always look lower than a tax-inclusive one.

If the work already opens the crawlspace, basement or foundation perimeter, it is worth pricing. The retrofit itself follows a standard plan set, so the design cost is low, and the expensive part is usually access rather than the bolts and plywood. Doing it separately later means paying twice to reach the same places.

It gets replaced in the area disturbed, and sometimes further, because insurers and inspectors take a dim view of active knob-and-tube in modernised spaces. Agree beforehand what the process is: stop, document, price, get written approval, continue. The moment to settle that is at contract signing, not with the plaster already down.

Nothing at any point. Describing the job and hearing back from contractors is free, and there is no fee if you go ahead and hire one of them. Your only financial relationship is with the contractor you choose, for the work they actually carry out.

Two to four as a rule, chosen for the trade, the size of the job and whether they genuinely take work in your part of the city. Your details go to those few and nobody else — the request is not resold and it does not go onto a list.