Home Additions

Twelve to twenty weeks on site for a typical single-storey addition, plus design and permitting ahead of it. A second storey runs longer because the existing roof comes off and the house has to be weather-protected the whole time. That protection is real work and real cost, and it belongs in the estimate rather than appearing later.

That is the target and it takes work. Siding profiles get discontinued and brick colours drift, so we source the closest match and, where nothing matches, use a deliberate transition — a corner board or a material change — instead of an almost-match that reads as a mistake. Painted siding is the forgiving case; stained cedar and face brick are the ones to check early.

Only if it is designed to be. The new floor system has its own depth, and the existing house has usually settled. We shoot elevations before framing and set the new subfloor to meet the old, rather than discovering a step at flooring time. Where the difference cannot be absorbed, a single deliberate step at the threshold beats a floor that slopes.

Almost always at the roof tie-in and the wall-to-wall seam. We use ice-and-water shield well past the intersection, step-flash where the new roof meets existing siding, and carry a taped air barrier across the joint so the two structures behave as one envelope.

Generally no. An easement gives someone else — a utility, a drainage district, a neighbour — the right to that strip, and permanent structure on it can be ordered removed at your cost. The survey tells us where the buildable area actually ends.