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Century Home Renovations
In many countries in Europe, wood frame homes have been lived in for centuries, and are still standing strong after 500 or more years!
Here in Canada, our wood frame structures are much younger.
Even so, we are fortunate to have several founding communities here in Calgary where there are beautiful homes that are over a century old!
As building technology has advanced through the years, the methods we use to build homes have changed.
When renovating your century home it is important to work with a general contracting firm that thoroughly understands how your house was originally built, in order to preserve the original structure, while updating features that are out of date or no longer meet current City of Calgary Building Code requirements.
We love educating our homeowners on how your century home was built, and how it can be adapted to perfectly suit your needs and lifestyle.
We love century homeowners who have a view that they are a steward of these beautiful homes, and are happy to help you better understand how your century home can be renovated and preserved to reflect your unique personality!
Because one of our Core Values is Coachability, through continual learning and educating our clients, we love sharing our knowledge with you on how your century home is functioning. Interesting things that we have found, updated or repaired, and worked with while renovating century homes here in Calgary are:
- Knob and tube wiring.
- Finishes/materials containing asbestos (these are generally not original to the home).
- Balloon framing methodology (vs. our nowadays platform framing methodology).
- Horse hair as a binding agent in finishes (yes… we humans are resourceful!).
- Radiator/boiler heating systems.
- Lead water pipes.
- Cast iron stacks, drains, etc.
- Canned goods (hidden in a wall cavity!).
- Unlevel floor systems.
- Mice infestations (during a whole home or main level renovation, we have a system to completely eradicate the ingress of mice into homes).
- Hand mixed and poured concrete (this method of installing concrete, and the presence of sulphur in some soils can produce issues with crumbling and irregular settling of the foundations in century homes).
- Crumbling foundation walls.
- 20” thick basement foundation walls.
- Heating systems designed around a basement wood stove (where heat was intended to rise through the home instead of being circulated).
- A time capsule (which we added to and put back into the wall!).
- Floor plans that were ordered through a Sears Roebuck catalogue!
- Many more interesting items which have educated us through the years!