Typically $250,000 to $400,000
Whole-Home Renovations
Down to the studs, or close to it. Structure, envelope, mechanical and finishes sequenced as one project rather than a series of separate trades.
Mid-Island Renovation Group builds whole-home renovations across Nanaimo and the corridor from Ladysmith to Qualicum Beach, and they commonly run $250,000 to $400,000, or roughly $200 to $350 per square foot for a full gut. A complete project takes 7 to 14 months from the start of design to occupancy. If your home was built before 1990, a qualified person has to inspect for asbestos before we start demolition, under section 20.112 of the BC Occupational Health and Safety Regulation.
Typical range $250,000 to $400,000. A mid-range whole-home renovation runs about $150 to $250 a square foot, and a full gut $200 to $350. We build your range from measured drawings and a structural review, not a square-foot multiplier.
A whole-home renovation runs as one sequence from start to finish. We do structure first, then mechanical, then insulation, then finishes, and an inspection has to pass before we move to the next one. Skip that order and a nine-month project turns into a fourteen-month one. Most homes on this corridor going through a whole-home renovation date from the 1950s to the 1980s, so what we find behind the wall is often not what the drawings show.
What we take out
We strip the finishes, the cabinets, the flooring and usually the ceilings, so the framing, wiring and plumbing are open across the whole house. That's what lets us do the job properly. We get wall removals engineered instead of guessed at, replace mechanical systems as a whole system instead of patching them, and bring insulation up to current levels while the cavities are already open. That is also the worst time to find a problem, so we do the structural review during design.
What moves your price on an older home
Four line items account for most of the gap between a $200,000 renovation and a $400,000 one, and none of them are finishes. Whole-house rewiring where knob-and-tube or aluminum is present runs roughly $12,000 to $30,000 on a 2,000 square foot home. Poly-B replacement runs about $8,000 to $16,000, and galvanized supply lines in a pre-1950s home $9,000 to $18,000. Seismic work ranges from about $15,000 for straightforward anchor bolts and cripple wall bracing to $60,000 and beyond where foundation reconstruction is involved. An electrical service upgrade from 100 to 200 amps adds roughly $3,500 to $6,500. We carry a contingency of 10 to 20 percent on a project this size. We price whichever of the four apply to your house during design, as named lines you can see.
The point where a renovation becomes a new home
BC Housing treats a project as substantially reconstructed when 25 percent or less of the original structure above the foundation remains, or when 75 percent or more of the finished home is new. Past that line the project is a new home in the eyes of the province: it requires a licensed residential builder and 2-5-10 home warranty insurance, or a formal exemption such as an Owner Builder Authorization. On a big whole-home renovation you can cross that threshold without meaning to. We check which side of the line a project sits on during design, not during demolition.
The asbestos check before demolition
Section 20.112 of the BC Occupational Health and Safety Regulation requires that before demolition, salvage or renovation, a qualified person inspects for hazardous materials — and places that duty on you as the owner as well as on the employers doing the work. Since 1 January 2024 WorkSafeBC has also required asbestos abatement employers to hold a licence and abatement workers to be certified. Pre-1990 construction is where this comes up most often, and we treat it as a survey and a written report before the permit application, not a discovery mid-project.
How a whole-home renovation runs
Measured drawings and structural review
We start by surveying what is actually there, because old drawings rarely match the building. Our structural review establishes what we can remove and what has to be engineered.
Hazardous materials survey and permit application
The pre-1990 survey happens here, and we file your permit application with the authority that governs your address.
Demolition, structure, mechanical, envelope
The inspection-gated sequence. We close nothing in until the inspection covering it has passed.
Finishes, deficiency walk, handover
We build the deficiency list with you and clear it before your final payment and before your 10 percent holdback period ends.
Renovating older stock on this coast
Homes along the corridor from Ladysmith through Qualicum Beach carry a mix of eras and a mix of retrofits, and the retrofits are frequently what we find. An addition framed in 1988 bolted onto a 1962 house, and nobody has opened the wall where they meet. We open that wall during design rather than during demolition.
What a whole-home scope typically includes
Structural and envelope
Wall removals with engineered beams, foundation and seismic work where required, insulation to current prescriptive levels while cavities are open, windows and exterior finishes.
Mechanical replacement
Electrical service and full rewiring, supply and drain plumbing, heating and ventilation, sequenced ahead of insulation and inspected before anything is closed in.
Interior finishes and millwork
Kitchen and bathrooms, flooring, doors and trim, built-in cabinetry, finished after the mechanical inspections have passed.
What tends to show up behind the drywall
- The problem
- On a mid-century house we usually find the drawings are missing or wrong. Permits for alterations weren't tracked well back then, and much of the work was owner-built and never recorded.
- What makes it harder
- Three things move the budget most: old ungrounded wiring, poly-B or galvanized water lines, and a wall that's holding load when no drawing says it is.
- What we do
- None of the three is unusual, and we know roughly what each costs. We put them in your design-stage budget as line items instead of burying them in a contingency.
People also ask
- How long does a whole-home renovation take?
- A full gut renovation takes 7 to 14 months from the start of design to occupancy, and a mid-range whole-home renovation 5 to 9 months. Design and permitting alone account for roughly 8 to 20 weeks of that. We give you a schedule with the permitting block held open rather than a date we cannot hold.
- Is it cheaper to renovate or to rebuild?
- It depends almost entirely on your foundation and your structure. A sound foundation and a workable footprint favour renovating, and we tell you which you have after the structural review rather than before it. Once a project approaches BC Housing's substantial reconstruction threshold it is being treated as a new home anyway, at which point the licensing, warranty and cost structures of new construction apply and the comparison changes.
- Can I live in the house during the work?
- Rarely, on a genuine down-to-the-studs project. Once we have the mechanical systems out and the building envelope open, your house is a construction site rather than a dwelling. We can sometimes phase occupancy where the scope is confined to one floor or one wing, but it extends your schedule, and we would rather tell you that at the design stage than in month three.
- What happens if something unexpected is found?
- Change orders — priced, documented and signed before the work proceeds. The three most common findings on older stock along this corridor are wiring, supply plumbing and undocumented structural changes. We know roughly what each costs, so we put them in your design-stage budget.
Related: home additions · kitchen renovations · basement renovations · the renovation process · Ladysmith · Cedar · Nanoose Bay · Parksville · Qualicum Beach
A whole-home project starts with your scope, not with a price. The questionnaire takes about two minutes and tells us enough to say whether we are a fit.
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Planning a major renovation?
Start with the project questionnaire — five questions covering scope, budget, timeline, and property. That tells us whether we're a fit for your project before either of us books a visit.