Character & heritage home inspections

Why it takes a different eye

An older house has usually been renovated several times, by different people, to different standards. Reading it means knowing what the original construction looked like and spotting where it has been changed. Before inspecting, Nick spent years on heritage restoration in Vancouver and on the North Shore, opening up these houses and putting them back together.

What we pay close attention to

• Foundations and drainage: older concrete and rubble foundations, clay perimeter drains, basement moisture
• Framing changes: removed walls, added suites, sagging floors, balloon framing
• Older wiring types, including knob-and-tube and aluminum branch wiring, and panels past their service life
• Signs of past oil heat, such as fill or vent pipes, which point toward an oil tank scan by a specialist
• Original wood windows, siding and trim, and what it takes to keep them
• For West Coast moderns: flat and low-slope roofs, exposed beam ends, large glazing and single-wall construction

Materials of the era

Homes of a certain age can contain materials, such as some insulation, flooring and textured ceilings, that can only be identified by lab testing. We note what we see and tell you when testing is worth doing before a renovation.

Where these homes are

Kitsilano, Mount Pleasant, Grandview and Shaughnessy in Vancouver; Queens Park and Sapperton in New Westminster; and the West Coast moderns of West Vancouver and North Vancouver.