Finishing the Basements and Backyards of Stouffville's Boom-Year Houses

A self-contained basement unit, whether a renter or a family member will live there, is a second suite to the Town, and its permit asks for more than a family room would: a site plan showing the house and parking spaces, floor plans of every level, cross sections, structural details and HVAC plans, usually from a qualified designer. After approval, the Town also expects the suite to be registered. A new side entrance cut through the foundation is permit work too, with drawings of the footings, underpinning and frost protection, and a foundation contractor does that dig. In Ballantrae, where residents have reported wet basements and busy sump pumps and the Town has studied the high water table, we test the sump and its discharge line before framing.

Before the subdivisions, Stouffville was a mill village on Duffins Creek, incorporated in 1877, and St. James Presbyterian Church on Main Street dates from 1894. The Town has three heritage conservation districts, around West Main Street, Church Street and O'Brien Avenue, and keeps a Built Heritage Inventory of other properties that may have heritage value. Inside, a house that old may still hide knob-and-tube wiring, which a licensed electrician replaces, and outside walls with no insulation, which we fill before the new drywall. Outside is different. New windows, a rebuilt porch or an addition on a house in a district can need a heritage permit as well, so we raise it with the Town's heritage planning staff early and order nothing until it is approved.

On a rural lot, we start with the two things in the yard that cannot move. One is the well: where its casing stands 40 cm or more above the ground, Ontario's wells regulation does not let it be cut, or the ground raised around it, to leave less than 40 cm showing, so the deck is laid out around the casing with the cap kept reachable. The other is the septic system, which the Town wants inspected every five years on lots within 100 metres of a year-round stream or most lakes; its lids stay accessible and posts stay clear of the tank and bed. Then height decides the paperwork: a deck over 600 mm off the ground needs a Town building permit; a lower wooden one does not.

In the Ballantrae bungalows, and in any Stouffville house whose owners plan to stay put, a kitchen can be built for the years ahead rather than the years behind. Deep drawers take the place of base cabinets with shelves that mean kneeling, a wall oven set at counter height saves bending to the oven door, and a dishwasher raised on a plinth spares the back. Uppers can hang a little lower or take pull-down shelves, and a stretch of counter with open knee space lets someone sit to prepare food. A licensed electrician adds the under-cabinet lighting and any circuits for a new oven or induction cooktop; we build the cabinets, counters and tile around them.

In the houses from Stouffville's growth years, bathrooms tend to be underbuilt rather than worn out. The usual complaint is the builder's fan: noisy, weak and sometimes connected to a long flexible duct that sags across the attic, collects condensation and leaves the ensuite mirror fogged. We replace it with a quieter fan on a short, insulated rigid duct to the outside, sized so it actually clears the room. Then the shower: the acrylic stall gives way to a tiled shower sloped to its drain over a waterproofing membrane, and a wider vanity with deep drawers goes in where the wall allows. A licensed plumber moves the supply and drain lines, and a licensed electrician connects the new fan and vanity lighting.

Lake houses that grew a room at a time rarely have one floor height. A hallway can cross the original boards, plywood in a later addition and a slab in a closed-in porch, so before one floor runs through we level each join, with self-levelling compound on concrete and tapered plywood where wood meets wood, and look for soft spots over any damp crawl space. In town the trouble is newer: laminate from the boom years tends to fail first at the dishwasher and the patio door, where water gets into the seams. We replace it with vinyl plank rated for water, or tile at the door, and carry hardwood through the dry rooms.

How big a backyard unit can be in Stouffville depends on the lot. On a lot under 500 square metres, the zoning caps an ancillary unit at half the main house's floor area and no more than 56 square metres, 5 metres high and out of the front yard, which suits a compact studio. Between 500 and 1,499 square metres it can reach 140 square metres, but staying at 93 or less lets it stand 1.2 metres off the interior side and rear lot lines instead of 4.5. Lots of 1,500 square metres or more allow up to 233. Our crew builds the shell on the foundation contractor's slab or footings, from the floor, wall and roof framing to sheathing and insulation, then finishes the inside.