Home Renovation Design Services

What Kinds of Renovations Need a Permit

A few high-level categories cover most of the residential work we do:

• Income property: converting a basement or portion of the home into a secondary suite
• Growing family: adding a bedroom, expanding a living area, or finishing an unfinished space
• Outdoor living: building a deck, covered patio, or sunroom extension
• Interior transformation: opening up a kitchen, removing a load-bearing wall, or reconfiguring the floor plan
• Major systems: moving plumbing stacks, upgrading the electrical panel, or replacing the mechanical system

A note on cosmetic work: painting, flooring, replacing cabinets without layout changes, and similar cosmetic updates do not require a building permit. The permit threshold starts when you alter structure, plumbing, electrical, fire separations, or the building envelope.

Step 1: Define Your Scope and Budget

Before anything else, get clear on what you're actually trying to do. The building permit process hinges on this answer, so it pays to be specific. The clearer your scope, the faster the feasibility check, the more accurate the quote, and the fewer surprises during the permit review.

A note on budget: it pays to have a rough number in mind before the design starts. The energy step code and code-compliance upgrades often add 5-10% to the construction cost of an older home. Better to know that up front than after the drawings are done.

Step 2: Request the Original Drawings

The next stop is your local city hall's building department. Request a copy of the original house drawings (the ones your builder or previous owner used to get the original permit). There may be multiple record sets if renovations were pulled in the past — get them all. The cost is usually nominal.

Why this matters:

• It tells us what was approved. We can compare today's code requirements to what was permitted at the time of construction. Sometimes what was allowed decades ago no longer applies, and that affects your scope.
• It saves field time. If we have the original drawings, we don't need a full as-built measuring visit just to confirm dimensions.
• It catches previous unpermitted work. If the home was renovated without permits, the city records won't reflect the current state. That's when we need an as-built survey before we can design.

If no original drawings exist — common with homes built before the 1980s — we perform an as-built measuring service to capture the existing conditions with millimeter accuracy using a LiDAR scanner.

If your scope goes beyond the existing footprint (an addition, second storey, or attached garage), you'll also need an up-to-date land survey from a BC Land Surveyor (BCLS). The original survey from when the house was built is almost always out of date.

Step 3: Purchase a Land Title

Before you send anything to us, get a current land title from ltsa.ca. It costs a small fee and arrives by email within minutes.

The land title reveals two restrictions that can kill a project if you don't know about them early:

1. Right of way: A section of your property that the city recognizes as yours but reserves for access to underground services — water, sewer, storm, or utilities. Even though it's your land, you typically cannot build over a right of way. The city may need to dig there in an emergency.
2. Covenants: Legal agreements registered on title by a previous owner, the developer, or the city. Covenants commonly restrict building height, require specific architectural styles or materials, or prohibit subdivision. They override zoning in many cases.

We review the land title alongside the original drawings and your scope of work. If there's a right of way cutting through your proposed addition, we need to know before you've paid for architectural plans.

Step 4: Send Everything to Us for a Feasibility Check

Once you have your original drawings, land title, and a clear scope of work, send them over. We review the package against the local zoning bylaw and BC Building Code to confirm the renovation is even feasible before you spend money on design.

If something doesn't comply, we tell you upfront. That's the whole point of the feasibility check — to surface issues while they're still cheap to fix, not after you've committed to a design.

If everything is in order, we send you a detailed quote with a list of the drawings included, the professionals who may need to be involved (structural engineer, energy advisor, geotechnical), and a pros-and-cons breakdown so you can make an informed decision.

Step 5: What Happens Behind the Scenes

Once you sign off, we go to work. Here's what we do with the information you've provided before we put pen to paper on the design.

Site Plan and Setbacks

We review the site plan from your original drawings or land survey. The site plan shows the setbacks — the required distance between your home and the property lines, easements, and rights of way. Every addition or new structure must respect the setback rules in your zone.

Building Calculations: Lot Coverage and Square Footage

We run the lot coverage and gross floor area calculations against today's zoning. Two important things to know:

• The maximum allowable square footage under today's bylaw is often less than what was approved decades ago. A home that was legal at 3,200 sq ft in 1975 may be over the current maximum in 2025.
• If you're planning to add square footage based on a previous calculation, the new calculation may not allow it.

This is one of the most common surprises in renovation projects and the reason we run the numbers before design starts.

Land Title Review

We dig into the covenants and rights of way in detail. As mentioned above, these can override zoning. A covenant that limits building height to 25 feet, for example, applies even if your zone allows 35.

Zoning Bylaw Compliance

We check your proposal against every applicable section of the local zoning bylaw: setbacks, height, lot coverage, parking, secondary suite requirements (if applicable), and any use-specific provisions.

BC Building Code Compliance

We review the technical requirements under the BC Building Code. The key areas for renovations are:

• Construction assemblies for energy efficiency and structural performance
• Fire separations between dwelling units, between the garage and living space, and around mechanical rooms
• Egress — window sizes, door widths, hallway dimensions
• Spatial separation (more on this below)
• Stair geometry (more on this below)

Step 6: BC Energy Step Code

The BC Energy Step Code came into effect at the end of 2018. It requires new construction and major renovations to meet progressively stricter energy-efficiency targets, with the province aiming for net-zero energy-ready homes by 2032.

For renovations, this typically means:

• Bringing an energy advisor onto the project to model the home's energy performance and confirm it meets the required step
• Upgrading wall assemblies to higher R-values
• Upgrading window types to lower U-values
• Upgrading the mechanical system to higher-efficiency equipment

The energy advisor's report becomes part of the permit submission. The cost of the upgrade work is often partially offset by lower long-term operating costs, but it does add to the upfront construction budget. We account for this in the feasibility stage so there are no surprises.

Fire Separations

Fire separation requirements are non-negotiable and especially critical if your renovation involves a secondary suite. The suite must be fully fire-separated from the rest of the home — including walls, ceilings, floors, and any penetrations for plumbing, electrical, or HVAC.

The reason this matters beyond code compliance: if you didn't pull a permit for a secondary suite, your home insurance can void your coverage in the event of a fire. We have seen cases where a fire in an unpermitted suite caused severe damage to the rest of the home, and the insurance company denied the claim because the suite was not built to code. A permit is not just a piece of paper — it's the proof that the work was done safely.

For non-suite renovations, fire separation requirements also apply to attached garages, mechanical rooms, and shared walls in multi-family buildings.

Spatial Calculations (Window Sizes and Placement)

Spatial calculations determine the maximum permitted glazed (glass) area on each side of your home. The logic is two-fold:

1. Privacy for your neighbours. Big glass walls facing a side yard can put your living room on display.
2. Fire spread prevention. In a fire, large glazed openings allow flames to radiate to neighbouring properties. The building code limits how much of each wall can be glass to reduce this risk.

The calculation looks at the distance to the property line and the proposed window-to-wall ratio. If your design exceeds the limit, we either reduce the glass area or add fire-rated glazing. Either way, we run the numbers during design so the permit reviewer doesn't catch it after the fact.

Stair Design

Stairs are one of the most common items that get flagged in plan review, usually because an early client sketch doesn't allow enough space for a code-compliant staircase.

The BC Building Code specifies:

• Maximum rise per step (typically 200mm / 7-7/8")
• Minimum run per step (typically 254mm / 10" between faces)
• Minimum width of the stair (typically 860mm / 34" for residential)
• Required landings at the top and bottom
• Handrail height and graspability on at least one side

One specific change worth noting: winder-style staircases (pie-shaped steps that turn without a landing) have not been permitted in BC since the 2012 update to the code. If your renovation involves replacing or modifying an existing winder stair, the new code-compliant replacement almost always takes more floor area than the old stair. We design around this from the start.

As-Built Measuring (When Original Drawings Don't Exist)

If your home has no original drawings on file with the city, or if significant changes have been made since the last permit set, we need an as-built survey before we can design.

What counts as a "significant change"? Anything that would be hard to mark on the existing drawings — finished a basement, removed a wall, added a bathroom, reconfigured the kitchen.

We use a LiDAR scanner that captures 360° photos and millions of measurement points per room. The process that used to take us 8 hours of hand-measuring and sketching now takes about 3 hours, with significantly less human error. The output is a dimensionally accurate 3D point cloud that we convert into CAD-ready floor plans, elevations, and sections for the design.

A clarification that comes up often: as-built measuring is not the same as a land survey. As-built measuring documents the interior of the building — walls, doors, windows, finishes, fixtures. A land survey documents the exterior — property boundaries, grades, building setbacks, utility locations. We do as-built measuring. A BC Land Surveyor (BCLS) does land surveys. The two services are complementary for additions and major renovations.