Avoid finishing your basement for a year after it is built

Today's Ottawa Citizen ran several interesting stories in its Homes section on renovating basements.

As I have remarked before, basements in older homes were often not designed for daily living. That was certainly the case in the home that previously occupied our lot. Even though the basement had been finished, there was no waterproofing around the basement walls, beams and ductwork were hung at only six feet above the floor, and the stairway to the basement was hidden away in the back of the kitchen - hardly making it feel like part of the main living space.

The stories in today's Citizen note the trend toward taller basement walls, fully waterproofed and insulated walls and integrating the basement space into the main living space. Here are some tips the stories offer:

• If you are buying a newly-built production home, says Bruce Nicol, VP of Tartan Homes, wait at least a year before investing money in the basement. Some settling of a house is inevitable in the first year, and the standard warranty won't cover upgrades if your basement develops problems like water seepage.
• Don't give too much credence to reality television shows that trumpet low-cost upgrades. If you are adding 1,000 square feet to a house, why would you think you could do it for $15,000. For a good basement upgrade integrated with a home's ovearll flow, be prepared to pony up $50 to $60 per square foot.
• To ensure a basement reno is successful, it's not smart to scrimp. Make sure you continue all of the finishings downstairs, using the same carpeting and similar moldings.
• It helps if the ceilings are higher, because the feeling of space is immediate, but paint and lighting can work wonders too. Donna Corey, the owner of Ottawa's KISS Design Group says she has often gone with a dark wall or two because darker colours seem to recede, creating the illusion of more space. Adding wall sconces at a little over six feet so that they will cast light downward can also create the illusion of greater ceiling height.
• Upgrading your basement likely will not yield a financial payback. According to Jennifer Skuce, president and broker at RE/MAX metro-city realty, the return depends on the style and design of the house. Owners of a smaller home, such as a two bedroom, one bathroom bungalow, can expect a far greater return on their investment if they add a third bedroom, den or family room and a second bathroom in the basement because they will have effectively doubled the size of the home. With decent finishes, a 70% return would not be unreasonable. However, the payback is not nearly so lucrative in a larger two or three storey home. In that case, the return is more likely around 25 to 30%.

Finally, what's hot in the home's coolest area? According to the Citizen, here's what the pros consider to be the top 10 must haves:

1. Home theatres - with big screens and bigger sound;
2. Watering holes - not the 1960's rec-room style bar, but full on pub style bars with pull-taps, granite counters and subtle lighting;
3. Wine cellars - temperature controlled with glass doors;
4. Full kitchens - reserve the main floor kitchen for show or entertaining (this seems ridiculous to me);
5. Playrooms - with play structures and toy storage;
6. Games - foozeball, air hockey, pool etc. To this list I would add space to set up an electric train set and a race track;
7. Fitness rooms - complete with all your necessary excercise equipment (or you could just go outside);
8. Home spas - spa-like bathrooms with steam and body jets (for after all that excercise, or after all that buttery popcorn);
9. Concrete floors - if heated. Also in vogue is ceramic tiles and engineered wood;
10. Bright colours - accent walls can splash your basement with colour and character.

Reader question - Should I hire an architect?

Today I recieved an email from a reader with the following question:

I was wondering if it is a necessary evil & even more critical to hire an architect before you hire a Contractor to build a couple of major additions on your house (estimated at $100K), and just as importantly, is it the architect who takes your wish list to redo the whole interior with high end, cedar, tresses, stone etc.; or does the contracting company have the structural engineers and designers working for them to do this. When you hired your architect, how much did she charge? Did she have the exact knowledge of the structural supports, readjusting H&V, electrical or is that the Builder? Before you did any of that did you have to make a trip to the municipality to ask what the land regulations were? What did you learn from your process, if you had to do it over.

These are all really good questions and exactly the questions I had when we embarked on our little house renovation/building adventure almost a year ago now.

First, let's deal with whether or not it's critical to hire an architect before hiring a contractor. The short answer is no, it is not absolutely necessary, but chances are you will almost certainly need to have an architect at some point in the process given the size of your renovaton.

In my earlier post Architect, Designer or Design-Build? Lot's of choices for renovating a home I talk about the differences in the qualifications and services provided by architects, designers and design-build companies. Basically, all of the advice that I received boiled down to the fact that if you are doing something really complicated, or if you want to preserve a certain look, then hire an architect first. In any case, if you are adding square footage to your house or your are doing major structural changes, then you will most likely need an architect to sign off on the drawings before you can even submit them to the municipality for a permit.

That said, it does not mean that you must hire an architect before hiring a builder. If you know a builder with a stellar reputation who you have upmost confidence in, and you know exactly what you want, then you could take the cheaper route of hiring an architectural technologist to produce the drawings and then hire an architect just to review and approve the drawings for the permit application. A slightly more expensive route is to hire an architect just to do a design and construction drawings and then take these to several builders to get a quote. The most expensive option is to hire an architect to do the design, produce the construction drawings, run the tendering process and oversee the administration of the builder contract. This last option could cost 15% or more of the overall construction cost in architect fees, but it's a great way to go if you don't feel like going toe-to-toe with a builder because they haven't done their work correctly.

The bottom line is that before you start anything you need to have some sort of drawings or specifications that you can give to a builder to get a quote. The more detailed these specifications are, the more accurate the quote will be. If all you have is a vague, very general description of what you want, then I think you run the risk of a builder either giving you a very high quote in order to cover off many different possibilities, or worse, a very low quote for the most basic of work that will quickly ramp up as you start to specify details. If you really trust the builder, then you could have them design and build it, in which case I think you should pay them produce the design first before you sign a contract with them to build it. In any event, someone is going to have to design the final product and produce the construction drawings, and nobody is going to do that for free. No matter what you do, follow Mike Holmes advice and check lots of references before you hire a builder.

Second, let's deal with whether it's the architect who takes your wish list to redo the whole interior with high end, cedar, tresses, stone etc. or whether it is the contracting company that has the structural engineers and designers working for them to do this.

Architects are certainly capable of doing interior design, as are designers. If you look at the work of Linda Chapman or Chris Simmonds, they do a lot of their own stunning interior design. Again, the benefit of producing a very detailed design first with an architect is that you will then have a specific set of drawings to take to builders to get a quote, which means the quotes you receive will likely be more accurate and more competative. You could also get an architect to design the basic structure of the addition and then have a designer design the interior finishes, but not all architects like to work that way. Finally, a lot of builders do have a good design sense and can put together a pretty nice interior. The only down side is that it is too late to find out that their design sense does not mesh with yours once you have signed the contract with them.

In my research, I certainly heard lots of stories about how architects will design a fabulous house that cannot possibly be built for the budget you provided. Mostly, I heard these stories from design-build companies, so the veracity of the statement is somewhat dubious in my mind. I think that most architects actually have a pretty good idea of how much it costs to build a house and if you give them a budget, they will design a product that fits within that budget. Furthermore, many architects work directly with builders to get more accurate cost estimates. In fact, it is wise to factor in a couple of thousand dollars so that the architect can hire a builder as a consultant to help estimate the costs. In terms of keeping the construction costs down, your biggest enemy is probably yourself. You see a fancy kitchen island or bathtub in a magazine and you tell the architect to add it in and the next thing you know you planned renovation is thousands of dollars over budget.

Third, let's deal with the question of how much an architect costs, whether they have exact knowledge of the structural supports, readjusting H&V, electrical or is that the Builder?

The cost of hiring an architect varies. Some of the more established architects charge a set fee. We interviewed one architect that wanted 15% of the final build cost. The one we settled on cost 10% of the final build cost. Other, mostly younger architects that we interviewed charge a set fee for each service. So, for instance, the initial design drawings might be $5,000. Construction drawings would be$ 5,000 - $10,000. Running the tender process to hire a builder might cost $5000. and so on. The younger architects argued that this was a fairer fee schedule because the amount of work to design and draw a house with cheap fixtures is the same as the amount of work to design a house with expensive fixtures. After all, just because you decide to put in $60,000 worth of exotic wood kitchen cabinets, there is no reason the drawings should now cost $6,000 more. It's a fair point, however, I think for an average quality house the cost will work out about the same whether one hires an architect for a set percentage of the build cost or based on a fee per service. It's when you get into a house with lots of expensive finishing that the price will sky rocket with the former fee schedule. In my blog post Picking an architect for our renovation I talk about some different ways to pick architects and how much they cost.

It's absolutely true that architects will have knowledge of structural components, H&V and electrical, often better knowledge than the builder. For anything really tricky, they may call upon the advice of a structural engineer. In any event, most structural changes to your house must be signed off by an architect or a structural engineer.


Fourth, let's deal with whether we had to make a trip to the municipality to ask what the land regulations were.

Fortunately, I did not need to go to city hall because the City of Ottawa has a pretty good website. However, depending on what you want to do, it's wise to check things out with city hall first. For example, if you wanted to open a B&B, or put in a rental apartment in the basement, your zoning may not allow for that. Similarly, you may not be able to add a floor on to your house because you are already at your zoning's height limit. Before even thinking about doing renovations on our house, I checked out our zoning and the required setbacks to make sure we had enough room to put on an addition. Still, that said, any architect or builder worth their weight in salt should know where to find the relevant regulations and one of the first things they should do before they start to design your renovation is look up the relevant regulations. I talk more about this in my blog post Getting zoning information and old air photos of your property.

Fifth, let's deal with what I have learned from the process so far.

I think going into our renovaton project we vastly underestimated the cost of bringing the home up to the standard we wanted. Part of that was because we came across expensive problems, like the foundation, that there was no way to predict. But part of it was because we really had no idea how much renovations could cost. If I had known from the begining that the cost to renovate would be almost as much as the cost to build new, then I think we would have gone straight to Uniform to begin with and skipped everything with the architect. That said, I loved the process of working with the architect, I felt a good connection with our architect, Linda Chapman, and when I do it again, I will go into the project with a much more realistic budget and the intention of building a new house with an architect.

I would also say that I feel the cost of hiring an architect is worth it, especially for big custom jobs. I had lots of builders tell me it is a waste of money to hire an architect, but I don't think it is. With an architect, you do all the planning up front and end up with a very specific design which can then be taken to a builder for a quote. In turn, the builder's quotes will be accurate and competative, saving you money. Certainly, I did not get the sense through my research that it is any cheaper to go with a build-design company or a designer, at least for big jobs. However, for smaller jobs, where there are no structural changes, then I think a designer would be just fine for the job. It also depends on how confident you are reviewing the work of your builder. If you feel that you have both the time and the technical skill to check the work of your builder on a regular basis, then it may not be worthwhile hiring an architect. But most of us don't have the time or knowledge, which is where hiring the professional expertise of an architect comes in.

Foundation repairs

Here are a few pictures of the foundation problems we discovered in the house after we were able to rip down some of the walls in the basement. These and some other problems are what conviced us to build new rather than renovate. While anything can be fixed for a price, it was hard to justify the cost of these repairs while still ending up with a seven foot basement and a sloping floor.



In the image below, this crack was directly beneath a window. The wall did not have enough strength to hold back the force of the ground on the other side. To fix it would have required pulling out the window and pouring a new concrete sill heavily reinforced with steel, which would prevent the wall from buckling in. The cost was estimated to be as high as $5000.









In the two images below, a large crack (about 1" wide) can be seen running down the wall from the ceiling to the floor. Amazingly, the basement window is also bent, but the glass is not broken.

The image below is from the garage, where frost has made its way under the insufficiently insulated floor. It's hard to tell from the photo, but this whole section of wall is buckling inwards due to the uplift of the floor and the force of the ground on the other side of the wall pushing in. To fix it would require supporting the house above while the entire wall is ripped out and rebuilt. The cost for this repair alone was estimated at $15,000 - $20,000

It was interesting to hear from our builder some of the history of these types of cinder-block foundations. Apparently, when these houses were built in the '50s, poured concrete foundations were available, but were more expensive and required a trained crew. A builder could save some money by using cinder blocks because the blocks were cheaper than the equivalent volume of poured concrete and the builder's own workment could usually do the job.

Interestingly, today the situation is reversed and it would now cost more to build a cinder-block foundation (not that I think you ever would want to).

How much does it cost to renovate a house in Ottawa?

It's encouraging to see that my December post, How much does it cost to renovate a house in Ottawa anyway? is the second most visited page on this blog (first place goes to 10 examples of Modern architecture in Ottawa).

Recently, I came across another source for estimating renovation costs at Ontariocontractors.com. The site breaks down the estimated cost of just about everything you might want to do to your home, like roofing, exterior finishes, interior renovations, electrical, HVAC, structural modifications, etc. I am not sure how accurate the prices are, but they seem to be in the ballpark. That said, the site also has a build-a-home calculator that seems to be way out of line with what I have been told so far. The calculator uses a set value of $100/sq ft. to build a new 2-storey house. I haven't heard anyone say it would be less than $200/sq ft.

Other useful items on the site also include a flowchart for general steps to take into account when building a house, although again, the prices they quote seem low. It is also possible to search for contractors on the site, and to post a tender for a job in order to hire a contractor.

Cost estimates creeping up

It's been a while since I posted anything about the renovation, but not a lot has happened since the last post.

One thing we did do is find a builder. We have retained Rex Engel of Engel Construction. He has worked with our architect for about nine years, and the people we talked to who have used him raved about him.

Once we had Rex, we were able to start figuring out accurate cost estimates for the design that Linda Chapman, our architect, had drawn up. Unfortunately, those cost estimates came in well above what we had budgeted. In fact, in order to achieve what we want from the house, the renovation cost is starting to approach the cost of building new. There are also some issues with the house settling after it was originally built. This has led to some foundation problems that would need to be fixed as well as producing a slight slope to the entire house toward the front corner. Last week we brought Rex and Linda back to the house to take a closer look at the foundation and try to estimate the costs of fixing these problems. We also asked Rex to give us an estimate to simply build the place new from scratch. We are still waiting for those estimates to come in. In the meantime, I have spoken again with the bank about financing the building of an entirely new house. We hope to hear back about that this week.

It's been discouraging to see the costs escalate so high. But, we'll forge ahead and see where we come out.

Five more examples of Modern Architecture in Ottawa

If you read my previous post on 10 examples of Modern Architecture in Hintonburg and Westboro, or the latest edition of Ottawa Magazine, you will know that the Modern style is seeing a resurgence in new residential infill developments in Ottawa.

In this post, I provide five more examples of Modern Architecture, mostly from in and around the Glebe, including two houses that show that this style has been around for a long time.

First is this house at 716 Golden Avenue, near Westboro. Built in 1975, the entire house is clad in brick, rather than the corrugated galvanized steel seen on so many Modern houses built today. If your interested, this house is currently up for sale by the original owner for a cool $1.1 million. For a short time, at least until it sells, you can check out the real estate brochure to see pictures of the inside.

Now over to the Glebe.

Freen House at 5 Clemow Avenue is not only one of the best examples of Modern Architecture in the city, it is also testament to the fact the despite its name, Modern Architecture dates back to the first half of the 1900s. Originally built in 1958 in the Modern style, architect John Donkin went to work on it in 2006 re-cladding the exterior and adding tons of new windows to vastly improve the connection to the outside. He also gutted the 2200 square foot interior to create what the owners describe as fluid spaces that are open to interpretation. Below you can see pictures from both before and after the renovation. The total budget for this renovation in 2006 was $435,000 - under $200 per square foot. If you would like to see more pictures of the inside of Freen House or read about this project read Capitalizing on the basics on the Canadian Architect website, or visit John Donkin's website.

Further south in the Glebe, there are a number of newer houses in the Modern style. Close to Freen House are these newly built semi-detached houses 171 First Avenue.

This house at 135 Glen Avenue was built in 2009.

And here is another at 341 Sunnyside Avenue.

I have updated my map of the locations of these Modern style houses in Ottawa. It's a bit too far on foot to visit all these houses in one day, but it might make for a great Sunday afternoon bike tour once summer arrives.

Cost update: January 2010

There has only been one major expense related to the renovation since my last cost update in December 2009, and that was the land survey. Here are the updated figures:

Land Transfer Tax - $6477.00

House Inspection - $414.75
Sewer Inspection - $322.41
Change Locks - $70.00
Legal fees to register mortgage, etc - $2005.10
Energy Audit - $149.50 (after $150.00 gov't rebate)

Land Survey - $2625.00

Total: $12063.76

Energy Audit Rebate recieved

Woot!

We recieved our Home Energy Audit Rebate last week for $150 from the Government of Ontario. So the total out of pocket expense to have the audit completed was only $150. Really, there is no reason not to have a home energy audit done if you live in an older home. The most common air leakage problems can be fixed with caulking, weather stripping and plug covers, and you will make back the $150 you spent in saved energy bills in just a couple of years. Plus you'll have the moral beneift of reducing your greenhouse gas emission footprint.

Home Energy Audit

I was pleasantly surprised recently to find out that our new house is actually a lot more energy efficient than other houses of its age.

After an evaluation conducted by a home energy advisor, the house rates 69 points on the EnerGuide scale (a scale from 0 - 100, with 80-100 points being the most efficient category). The 69-point rating only puts the house in the mid-efficiency range, but when compared with other houses of its age, its quite good. The average energy efficiency rating for a house of this age in Ontario is 42, whereas the highest rating achieved by the most energy efficient houses in this category is 83.

With some relatively minor fixes of air leaks in the house, increasing the insulation in the attic, and changing to a high-efficiency furnace and a tankless hot water system, we can improve the energy efficiency rating of the house to 74, allowing us to save money on fuel bills, and reduce our GHG emissions by 1.5 Tonnes/year! Of course, we are planning some fairly major upgrades to the house, and sustainable living is a big theme of ours, so it will be really interesting to see what the EnerGuide rating is after the renovation.

The home energy audit program is sponsored by the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources Canada. For about $300, a licensed home energy advisor will perform an audit on your house showing how the home uses energy and where it is being leaked. The audit identifies improvements you can make to your home's heating, cooling, hot water heating and other energy uses that could result in hundreds of dollars in energy savings each year.

The Government of Ontario will pay 50% of your Home Energy Audit, up to $150.

The audit will explain your home's energy use – attic to basement. A typical audit involves the following steps:
- A walk-through assessment of your home's insulation, heating and cooling systems and other energy uses
- A “blower door” depressurization test to identify leaks and drafts
- A personalized Energy Efficiency Evaluation Report

Many of the energy-saving upgrades identified by your Home Energy Audit will qualify you for rebates under the Home Energy Retrofit Program. These rebates from the Governments of Ontario and Canada can reimburse you up to $10,000 when you complete improvements identified by your audit. We have 18 months, or until March 31, 2011 to complete the improvements in order to qualify for the rebates.

To get started, go the the Ontario Ministry of Energy's website and search for a certified home evaluation company in your area. An appointment with a home energy advisor can usually be set up within two weeks. There is virtually nothing to loose by having it done, but just remember to do it before you start any renovations. Otherwise, you cannot claim the rebates.

Post Script: After publishing this post, I came across the my-green-home.ca - a site that tells how a local Ottawa home owner, Bill Eggertson, took his house built in 1985 and brought it up to 85 points on the EnerGuide scale. That's within the top 2% of all houses in Canada and even beyond the 80 point rating required for an R2000 home. In the future, the owner hopes to make the home completely energy neutral and carbon neutral by installing a photo-voltaic system on the roof and selling electricity back to the grid during periods when the power is not needed at home. It's a reminder that even older houses can be renovated up the highest energy efficiency standards. there is an article about Mr. Eggertson's home renovation journey in the December 12 issue of the Ottawa Citizen.

Cost update: December 2009

Home ownership, and in particular, purchasing a house can be expensive. Here is a summary of bills we have paid so far after one month of owning the house:

House Inspection - $414.75
Sewer Inspection - $322.41
Change Locks - $70.00
Legal fees to register mortgage, etc - $2005.10
Energy Audit - $149.50 (after $150.00 gov't rebate)

Total - $2961.76

Oh, and don't forget the land transfer tax, which varies based on the price of the home. At the time of writing, the published land transfer tax rates in Ontario were:
- 0.5% of the value of consideration for the transfer up to and including $55,000,
- 1% of the value of the consideration which exceeds $55,000 up to and including $250,000, and
- 1.5% of the value of the consideration which exceeds $250,000, and
- 2% of the amount by which the value of the consideration exceeds $400,000 for land that contains at least one and not more than two single family residences.

In addition, the buyer usually has to reimburse the seller for the portion of any property tax they have paid for the remainder of the year.

All in all, be ready to shell out up to $10,000 just to complete the purchase of a house in Ontario.

How much does it cost to renovate a house in Ottawa anyway?

When we purchased the house we really did not have a good idea of how much it would cost to renovate. We figured it was cheaper than building a new house, but by how much was anyone's guess.

One of the first sources of information on renovations that we turned to was the book "Make It Right" by Mike Holmes. Besides providing good information about how a house is built, it was one of the only books we found that gave pricing guidelines for a home renovation in Canada. For example, Mike says that a kitchen reno can cost $10,000 to $40,000, bathrooms are between $10,000 and $20,000, basements cost $30,000 on average, while an addition is from $90 a square foot up to $360 a square foot. The average for an addition, he says, is $120 a square foot, which will give you the minimum code requirements - carpet, vinyl, possibly some ceramic in the bathroom, etc. Decks run about $5 a square foot while fences are about $12 per foot of fence.

Mike's estimates seem to be in line with information we got from architects and builders that we talked to in Ottawa. Most Architects we talked to said that renovating an existing space runs about $100 a square foot, while new construction (e.g. an addition or adding another floor) runs about $200 a square foot for decent quality construction. Oakwood, a design-build company with a long history in Ottawa, told us their new construction runs about $235 a square foot.

In the Fall/Winter edition of Ottawa Renovates magazine, a magazine produced in conjunction with the Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association, there is an article where several Ottawa area builders are asked about construction costs. Depending on the builder, cost estimates were anywhere from $100 to $450 per square foot. Engel Construction, for example, councils that when budgeting for a whole-house renovation, plan for $100 per square foot, and then add costs for kitchen and bathrooms. Starting with a gutted space, a new kitched will range from $10,000 to $15,000 excluding counters and cabinets. Cabinets cost from $7,000 to $50,000 or more. A new bathroom can run from $10,000 to $15,000, says Engel. Similarly, Lagois Drafting and Construction ballparked costs at around $200 to $400 per square foot, plus their design fee. Luxury Renovations says that their projects usually run between $250 and $450 per square foot.

Don't forget that these costs are just for the construction. You also need to add on costs for landscaping and for the architect (if you use one), who sometimes cost as much as 15% of the overall construction budget.

What's your experience with the cost of a renovation? Was it cheaper or more expensive than the figures given above?

The home inspection

Once we decided that we wanted to make an offer, we commissioned a home inspection. A home inspection costs about $400, but is essential, especially for older homes. By having an inspection done, you can be informed about potential additional expenses you will incur once you own the home. This in turn will affect your offer on the house. There is nothing wrong with buying a house that needs repairs. But it's essential to know what the cost of those repairs will be so that you can figure out how much you are willing to pay for the house.

In our case, the inspector said the home was in good shape except for a couple of expected problems. For one, the roof needs re-shingling and second, as might be expected with a house built in the '50s, the basement was not waterproof. You can see it in the picture below, which was taken after three days of constant rain. On one side of the house, the floor is damp and the foundation wall is discoloured. This discolouration is called efflorescence and it is an accumulation of crystalline salts on the masonary walls. This mineral residue is what's left after moisture, which seeped through the walls, has evaporated. There is moisture on this wall because the grading of the soil outside the wall slopes in toward the wall. Hence, water that falls on the ground drains toward the wall and then seeps down into the ground against the foundation. It would be easy to fix this problem by fixing the grading outside. However, to be sure the basement will stay dry, it really should be wrapped in a plastic membrane.



In modern homes, the basement is wrapped in a waffle-like plastic membrane, which allows water to flow down the wall to a perforated plastic drain tile that sits beside the footings of the basement. The drain tile (weeping tile) is usually covered with coarse gravel or crushed stone and, in urban areas, is connected to the city storm sewers to take water away. This keeps the basement of modern homes nice and dry. But in older homes, this type of treatment was not done. Before our basement can be properly finished, it should be waterproofed, otherwise water that may seep through the walls will cause mold to form inside the newly drywalled basement walls. Besides being smelly and unsightly, it is also a health hazard.



Waterproofing the basement requires digging out the dirt outside the basement walls and installing the plastic membrane and weeping tile. This will cost about $20,000. Re-shingling the roof will cost about $10,000.

In addition to this, the inspector told us that it would not be unusual for the sewer line from the house to city sewer to be in rough shape and may need replacing (it is 50 years old after all). For about $400, we had Mr. Rooter inspect the sewer with a camera, which confirmed that the sewer, while not blocked, was corroded in several places and had holes in it. While it is not really a problem right now, if we ever had a tree root grow into the sewer, the necessary cabling or pressure flush to clear the way would most likely cause irreparable damage to the sewer. The cost to replace the sewer line could be as high as $10,000.

So, we see that there are a fair number of expenses that we should plan on after we take ownership of the house. However, given that we are planning on renovating and may be adding an addition on to the house, the cost of the waterproofing and sewer repairs could be cheaper because the heavy equipment required for digging will already be on site.

As mentioned above, a home inspection is essential before you make an offer on a house. However, it also pays to educate yourself. A great book that I really liked was "The Holmes Inspection: Everything You Need To Know Before You Buy or Sell Your Home", by Mike Holmes. It is quite informative about what to look for in a house, but is also quite informative about the actual home inspection process as well.

Mike Holmes was on the radio recently talking about picking a home inspector. According to him, the biggest mistake people make when buying a new home is waiting until the last minute to pick a home inspector and they end up with someone who they know nothing about. As it turns out, not all inspectors are created equal. In fact, it takes only two weeks of training to become a licensed inspector. For all you know, that person may never have even picked up a hammer before. Mike suggests lining up your inspector as soon as you decide to start looking for a home. That way, you can check him/her out thoroughly before you need to call on him/her. As with all contractors, Mike suggests asking lots of questions and checking references. Mike says you should pick an inspector who has worked in the building trade for some time before becoming an inspector. If you live in Toronto, you can use Mike, who runs his own home inspection company. His inspections cost between $1000 and $1500 and take all day to complete. He brings a thermal camera and a snake camera with him so he can find all kinds of surprises behind walls that normal inspections could not find.. He is more expensive than any inspector I have ever heard about before, but you know with Mike that it is going to be extremely thorough.