If you’re planning on a home renovation sometime soon and you’re unsure how to go about an expansion, here’s some food for thought. Our team at Heidan Construction is here to tell you why a second floor is better than an outward expansion. There are countless points to be made but, today, we’ll focus on the three biggest reasons.
Distance from Neighbors
When you expand upward instead of outward, you maintain your distance from neighbors. This might not seem like a big deal to you if privacy isn’t your top priority, but there are other reasons it matters. Building code in different areas requires certain distances between houses. This requirement can be affected by the size of the house, the location, how many neighbors you have, and how it’s zoned. If you expand outward, you risk breaking building codes for your area. While this isn’t going to be a problem for many people, for those who cannot expand any further outward, a second floor is the best solution. Not to mention, there are other perks to going taller instead of wider.
Maintain Your Footprint
The footprint of your house may not seem like it matters. However, there are benefits to keeping it the same. For instance, if you expand outward, your renovators will have to dig up part of the yard and create more foundation. This can be very expensive.
Foundation isn’t the only thing affected by outward expansion. Creating more space on the ground floor also means building more roof. Building a second floor will also require the rebuilding of some of your roof, but the end product is different. With an upward expansion, your roof will remain roughly the same size. An outward expansion will leave you with a much larger roof. More roof means more roof maintenance. That means more gutters to clean, more attic space that can fall victim to pests, and more surface area that can be damaged by storms or other such occurrences. The maintenance costs of roofing can get pretty expensive over the years.
Save Money
Last, but not least, expanding upward can save you money. How? There are a number of ways but the most obvious is that there’s less surface area that needs heating or cooling. When you expand outward, you have to heat a whole new section of the house. When you expand upward, heat from the first floor will rise to the second, making heating more efficient. Therefore, you save more money. Plus, with the two floors being connected, less of your addition is wall to wall with the outdoors. That means less heat leaks out or in, depending on the season. The house is more self-contained, temperature-wise.
If you’re planning a home renovation soon, no matter what expansion method you prefer, Heidan Construction is here to help. If you live in the Toronto area, give us a call and we’ll be more than happy to discuss your renovation and expansion options with you.
