To Renovate or Rebuild?

You’re looking to improve your home, but you aren’t sure whether it’s better to renovate or rebuild.

Let’s dig in: For our purposes here, I define renovate as doing home improvements or putting on an addition while still living in your home. Rebuilding I’ve defined as knocking down major walls, or even all of the house and rebuilding. There is no right or wrong. My hope is that by looking at the two options you will get a sense of the best answer for you.

To Renovate

When you choose to renovate you are deciding to make improvements to your space while still living in it. You might decide to remove some walls to open up the space, transform a window into a door leading into your new addition, or you might just be looking to redo your kitchen or bathroom. You may even have decided to change your windows or add insulation to your home to save energy. Depending on the work, you may or may not need a building permit, but you’re definitely staying in the home while the work is being done.

Addition built and enclosed before the window was opened to become the doorway to the new space.

The advantages of renovating

• Retaining some of the old charm of the home and memories while improving energy efficiencies and/or usability

• Designing an artistic mixture of new and old construction or making the new work match the old

• Remaining in your home while the work is being done to avoid relocation costs

• Saving some time and money since you can focus on the areas of your home that need improvement while leaving the rest as-is

• From a sustainability perspective, you are maintaining most of the existing structure to reduce waste from disposal of materials and production of new materials

The disadvantages of renovating

• From an energy efficiency standpoint, you won’t ever get an airtight building so the efficiency will never be perfect

• It can be costly to remove, preserve, and refurbish older finishes if you want to put them up in the new space

• Unexpected problems can arise that can add time and money to the project, especially if structural issues are found

• It can sometimes be difficult to integrate the old with the new or to have pieces custom made to match antique finishes

• You may experience some disruption in your utilities as they are turned off and on by workers, limited access to certain areas of your home, and mess and noise from construction work

• You may need to go to the committee of adjustment since there may be parts of your project that go against zoning bylaws

• There may be some parts of your home that you need to bring up to code since the building code is constantly changing

To Rebuild

When you choose to rebuild you are deciding to do a major overhaul of your home by taking out walls or knocking down most (and possibly all) of your home. You would choose to do this because you are looking to make significant changes to the layout and size of your home, or would like to completely modernize an older home. In order to do this type of work you would need engineering/architectural drawings and building permits, and you would not be able to live in your home while the work is being completed.

The advantages of rebuilding

• You can make your home energy-efficient by making it airtightIt is possible to completely redesign your space to meet your needs since you have a blank canvas and fresh start

• The improvements you make to your home could result in a higher resale price

• There is an opportunity to improve your foundation and structure since everything is new or exposed and it is easier to do the work

The disadvantages of rebuilding

• You will need to relocate during the construction

• Projects can take longer than expected so you won’t be in your home for quite some time

• You may lose certain emotionally significant features that were a part of the house

• New materials that are energy efficient can be very expensive so you will likely need to find the balance between energy efficiency and affordability

• The updated building codes apply—footprint or property line setbacks will be smaller

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