Heidan Construction

Blog

By

3 Ways a Second Floor is Better than an Outward Home Expansion

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. 

By

What Sets Heidan Apart From Other Construction Companies

If you’re in Toronto and looking to hire professionals in the construction industry, Heidan Construction is the number one choice for the job. You may be wondering what sets Heidan apart from other construction companies in the area. We’ve come together today to determine the qualities that make us a uniquely good choice for the job.

Getting Started

When considering a renovation becomes planning for one, getting things started with Heidan Construction is easy. A call or email can turn into a productive discussion about your future construction project. Our professionals know the quality of communication and will have you in to discuss the project in more detail before getting started. We’ll nail down all the details and ensure we have a clear idea of what you have in mind. After all, it’s your home and your satisfaction with the resulting work is the highest priority. 

Work in Progress

While working on your home, Heidan’s team of skilled construction workers will make sure to communicate with you about progress. Getting your opinion on the work in progress will ensure our work stays on the right path. Anything that is less than satisfactory to you, we’ll take very seriously. Adjustments will be made until you feel we’re accurately following the plan we put in place before starting. Stopping deviations from the plan in their tracks before they’re completed is a great way to save time and give you the home upgrade you had in mind.

Not all construction companies communicate and operate the same way. Finding a team that will work with you to get the desired results can be tricky. That’s especially true when you consider how saturated the field of construction is. There are a lot of companies and not all of them are cut from the same quality of cloth.

Finished Product

One of the things that really makes Heidan Construction shine is our finished products. We build some of the highest quality homes and offices in Toronto. If you want to see some examples of our work, check out our portfolio where you can see high res images of some of our best work. The quality of these homes that we have on display in our portfolio could easily become a reality for you.

Getting this kind of quality is not something you’ll find from just any construction company. Delivering mediocre results is not uncommon for many groups. Heidan has set a standard for itself and we won’t stoop beneath it or cut corners to meet our previously-made precedent.

Results aren’t just in the finished product, but the finished site as well. Presentation is just as important as product. Even if we built you a fantastic addition, if we left it a mess, littered with construction leftovers and trash, it would take down the beauty of the product by several notches. Unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon occurrence within construction companies. Just know that when you hire Heidan, you get a great product and a clean work site. Turn-key is our standard for every project. So, give us a call when you’re ready to start planning your next renovation. We’ll be waiting to serve you!

By

Consider Making Your Custom House a Transitional Home

If you’re in the market for a new house and you’re considering getting one custom built, you should consider getting a transitional home. However, many people don’t know what a transitional home is or what the benefits of owning one are. Heidan Construction, one of Toronto’s leading construction companies, is here to tell you a bit more about what makes transitional homes special. 

Best of Both Worlds

To start off, let’s talk about what exactly a transitional home is. A transitional home is meant to be an in-between for old and new styles. That can mean a lot of things, but the general idea is that the outside will look traditional and the inside will look modern – or however else you want it to look.

This combination of styles is incredibly handy for those of us interested in trying out newer design styles without making our house an eyesore in a traditional neighborhood. Plus, some of us like those traditional exteriors. Tudor houses, anyone?

Old Look, New Building

The reason why transitional custom homes are better than the alternatives is because they’re new. There are a lot of old houses in the GTA; why not just gut one of them and make the inside modern? The answer to this one is simple: old buildings have problems.

While old buildings may look great, they don’t always function great. Thus, here are some traditional features of old houses:

  • Sound traveling more than desired from thin walls
  • The house wasting electricity on heating because of poor insulation
  • Aged plumbing that makes the water taste like metal or that leaves trace amounts of lead in the water
  • Rodent problems due to cracks in the foundation and other such indiscrepancies

Because transitional homes are built new, you can have that traditional exterior with all of the advancements made in modern times. Get the best insulation on the market, all new plumbing, quality interior walls, and a house that’s prepared to keep you in and the natural world out.

A Unique Transitional Home

The best part about getting a custom transitional home is that its completely unique to you. Furthermore, when using an old house in good condition, you’re limited to the existing structure. A custom transitional home allows you to work with our design team and come up with a design that feels right for you.

That can mean anything you want it to. Figuring out where you’d most like the bedrooms to be, making the bathroom as big as you like, turning the gables into a loft, open concept design, or anything else is completely up to you. We will design the entire home around you and your needs. That’s much preferred to trying to fit your needs into an existing space.

If you’re interested in a custom transitional home or want to explore other home-building options, give us a call. We look forward to working with you and making your custom home-building experience a great one.

By

Why Hiring Heidan Makes Construction Simple

If you’re planning to hire out for a construction project, you’ll want to choose a company that does what you need and no less. Unfortunately, finding a company that will meet and exceed your expectations these days can be tricky. There are so many companies competing with one and other and it’s difficult to tell who the best choice is. We’re taking some time today to go over what it is that makes Heidan the best choice for construction. How does hiring Heidan make construction simple? Here’s how:

We Listen

One of the most important things a construction company can do is listen to what their client needs. A construction company who doesn’t listen – really listen – to the needs and vision of their client will end up serving a finished product that falls short of success.

We take the time to listen to our clients and really get to know and understand what they need. When you hire Heidan, you can trust that we will give you a finished product that meets your needs and exceeds your expectations.

We Work Hard

Listening to a client’s needs is important, but won’t be enough all by itself. What makes a good construction company is taking the information they have and really putting it to use. There are two main parts to this. 

For one, we at Heidan take the understanding of what you need and we make it happen. The ability to make sure things actually get done, and in a timely manner, is not something every construction company possesses. 

The second thing is the knowledge to do it well. Knowing what a client wants and putting in the effort to make it happen is only helpful if you know your stuff. Heidan has nearly 20 years of experience in the industry. Over these two decades, we’ve been building our clients buildings they can be proud of.

We Communicate

Something that we take pride in at Heidan is our communication abilities. Many construction companies will get to work and do the whole job without consulting with their clients. It’s important to us at Heidan to check in and make sure our clients are happy with the choices we’re making. We also put an emphasis on friendliness, communicating with clients in a way that feels natural and comfortable. 

We Tie Loose Ends in Construction

Perhaps one of the things that makes us truly stand out from other companies is our ability to tie up loose ends. A lot of companies finish a building and leave behind a mess for the owners to clean up. At Heidan, we firmly believe that it is part of our job to leave you with a turn-key property. There will be no trash, no nails, no scrap wood, and no other kind of mess left behind for you to deal with. It isn’t your job to clean up after us.

If you’re interested in choosing Heidan Construction for your next project, give us a call. We look forward to setting up a consultation. If you have any questions, we’re more than happy to help answer them.

By

Interesting Design Choices that Improve Productivity

There’s a lot more to design than you might think. The design of the building you’re in can change everything from the way you work, to the way you feel, to the way you move. Heidan Construction is here today to talk about how design choice can improve productivity levels. Here’s how it happens:

Color Matters

One of the first things that can affect your behavior in design is color. Color is a surprisingly effective tool to alter people’s behavior. That doesn’t mean you can control people’s individual actions, but you can certainly control their attitudes, even just a little bit. That’s because color has a profound effect on the human brain. Our brains associate different colors with different needs and moods. If you take the effects of different colors into account when designing a workspace, you can optimize work in each area – even different types of work.

  • Calming blues can help lower stress. If you’ve ever been stressed about work, you know how stifling it can be. Being stressed about work can actually make working harder. That’s why choosing calming blue tones for high-stress work environments can keep employees calmer, happier, and more productive.
  • Bright oranges boost energy levels. This true of both orange and red. They actually can raise stress, but in a good way. A small amount of stress is what encourages people to speed up and put more energy into their work. It gives the illusion of pressure, just enough that the brain kicks things into high gear. For physically active or fast-paced work, these bright, warm colors can really do the trick.
  • Middle-tone greens can be a happy medium. Soft, earth greens help keep the balance between calm and productive. This is a great color for clinics, medical offices, and even home offices.

Improve Productivity with Lighting

The next thing that boosts productivity is lighting. Have you ever noticed how easy it is to feel sleepy in a room with dim, warm lighting? That’s because this subtle, warm lighting is similar to the hour before dusk. Our bodies equate it with the setting of the sun and the end of the day. It signals to us that it’s time to sleep.

On the other hand, bright, clear light does a great job waking us up. Have you ever sat outside when the sun rises? Perhaps you’ve had to get up at the crack of dawn to go to work? You might have noticed that the morning sunlight is bright and somewhat cold in color. That is the exact reason why bright lamps or overhead lights with little warmth to them tend to wake us up. They aren’t the coziest lights, but they sure are good at tricking our brains into staying awake.

If you want to talk to experts in the field about how you can incorporate these design choices into your next build project, give us a call. Heidan Construction looks forward to helping you make your next work space as functional as possible.

By

Make Your Medical Office Design Truly Unique

Taking your medical career to the next step by building your own office is a big deal. Not only is it the first step in moving forward in your career, it’s an investment that can define your success for the next decade or longer. Therefore, making sure you’re hiring the right company for the job is an important part of the planning process. Here’s why you can trust in Heidan to get the job done right.

Unique Medical Office Design

One of the ways you can keep patients coming back is by having a unique medical office design. So many medical offices repeat the same mistakes or make the same unfortunate design choices. You can break free of that mould and do something different and improved with your medical office. What’s worth making unique about a medical office? Here are a few things we think are worth consideration.

Open Concept

While some parts of a medical office do need to be separate from the rest, we’ve found an open concept medical office is actually preferred by clients. That’s because open concept designs:

  • Are more accessible to people with mobility aids
  • Give more breathing room to those with anxiety about visiting a doctor
  • Have less wall surfaces for spreading bacteria
  • Allow freer movement
  • Are easier to navigate

Open concept medical offices minimize dividing walls between waiting areas, hallways, and built-in pharmacies. The overall experience of an open concept medical office is one of ease. Entering the office, you can find where you need to go just by looking around. There’s no need to follow a bunch of signs down various hallways or get directions from a receptionist. Clients being able to find their own way is always going to set them at ease and make them feel more comfortable in their environment.

Plus, open concept medical offices make it easier for people with wheelchairs or walkers to move around. Too often, medical offices are made small and cozy. This can be comfortable for some people, but those with mobility aids may find there’s nowhere to park their chair or have trouble getting past coffee tables with their walker. Plus, those who struggle with anxiety may feel claustrophobic in a small space.

Softer Environment

While putting some consideration into the psychology of colors may be worth your time, you should also consider the comfort of other aspects of design. Medical offices often overlook the importance of angles and shapes in design. If you want your medical office to feel inviting and safe, and actually be inviting and safe, introduce curves and such into the design. Curved edges are safer for kids and, psychologically, feel safer to everyone.

If you’re looking for professionals who you can count on to make your medical office a success, Heidan Construction is the group for you. We’re experienced in the field of medical office design and can guarantee you’ll be happy with the results of our hard work.