Interior Renovations · Barrie
Home renovation in Barrie, in a waterfront condo or a house in Allandale, Painswick, Holly or Ardagh Bluffs: kitchens, bathrooms, basements and the beam that lets a wall come out. One team designs, permits and builds the work, and a house’s drawings go to the City of Barrie Building Services through APLI.
What’s included
Most interior work we build starts with a wall someone wants gone. The rest follows from that: the beam, the systems behind the drywall, the finishes, and the inspections in between. In Barrie the package goes to the City of Barrie Building Services, and it is drawn to that department’s checklist.
The wet rooms
New layouts, plumbing moved to suit them, and the ventilation and electrical brought up to code while the walls are open.
Rooms combined
Combining rooms, widening openings and moving a stair so the main floor works as one space.
Engineered in-house
The beam, its posts and the footing under them designed and stamped by our P.Eng, with shoring in place before a stud is cut.
Behind the drywall
Systems updated while the walls are open: supply and drains rerouted, ducts resized, circuits added.
The package
Find your situation below. If it’s there, this is the service, and the card underneath is everything you get from our one office.
06 common situations
07
items in your package, all from one P.Eng and BCIN team.
Drawn & stamped in-house
How it runs
Four steps, one contract. The office that draws the beam is the one that installs it.
We look at the house, listen to what you want changed, and tell you which walls carry load and what the permit will cover.
Layout, structural and mechanical drawings come from one office, then go to the city. We answer examiner comments at no extra charge.
Our crew does the demolition, structure, rough-ins and finishes. When something unexpected turns up behind a wall, the engineer decides on site.
Framing, plumbing, electrical and final inspections are booked as each stage is ready. You get the closed permit with the keys.
Case files
Open any file for the scope, the disciplines involved, what we delivered and what the owner came away with.
A compact two-storey suite in a Toronto backyard. Architectural and structural drawings, zoning review and a framing package that makes every square foot count.
Delivered
New living space on a lot the owners already had.
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Structural walls came out and rooms were added to open the plan. Beam and column design, permit drawings and renovation coordination through to final inspection.
Delivered
An open layout where the load-bearing walls used to be.
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A code-compliant second unit with its own entrance, fire separations between the units, HVAC design and the full permit package.
Delivered
A legal second unit that brings in rent and adds property value.
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A new build taken from the client’s sketch to occupancy, with the architectural, structural and mechanical design done by one team.
Delivered
Built to the client’s own plan, with one team answering for every discipline.
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A two-storey garden suite laid out to get the most usable space from the footprint, designed and permitted as a rentable unit.
Delivered
Rental income and a higher property value.
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A dental office converted into a supermarket. Interior renovation, a new plumbing system and fire separations upgraded to the Ontario Fire Code.
Delivered
A dental office reopened as a supermarket, compliant with the Ontario Fire Code.
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A custom covered porch that turns the front of the house into usable outdoor space. Addition design and structural drawings for the permit.
Delivered
More usable outdoor space and added home value.
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Site grading to manage drainage and prepare the land for a new driveway, drawn as a grading plan for the site alteration permit.
Delivered
Drainage handled and the land ready for a new driveway.
Start a project like thisPhoto plates
Additions, basements, kitchens, new builds and commercial fit-outs. Drag a row to scrub through it, or open any photo full size.Tap any photo to see it full size.
21 platesResidential, commercial & new build
The drawing set
Framing schedules, wall assemblies, dimensions and a city review stamp, as issued. Client title blocks are trimmed off to protect the people we drew them for.
Drawing set
Sheets in this set
Sheet title
Existing basement plan
The existing house recorded before any design: beams, joists and bearing walls.
Drawing no.
2 of 5
Service area
From the office we cover the whole GTA, north to Barrie and Orillia, east to Peterborough and Cobourg, west to Kitchener and Brantford, and down through Niagara.
46 across 8 regions
York Region
Toronto & Peel
Halton
Durham
Simcoe & Dufferin
Waterloo, Wellington & Brant
Hamilton, Niagara & Haldimand
Kawarthas & Northumberland
Past the 90-minute line
We've also completed projects in London and Strathroy. Farther out than that? Call (416) 990-9179 and ask.
Permits filed with municipalities including
Before you call
Anything we haven’t answered here, we’ll answer on a call. The first consultation is free.
(416) 990-9179Yes, once walls or plumbing move. Barrie is a single-tier city, so the City of Barrie Building Services issues the building permit and inspects the work with no regional layer, and that is where we file it.
Not for work inside the existing walls. Our Barrie page names the conservation authority that covers your lot.
Yes. We take on interior renovations across Barrie, including Allandale and Painswick, within an hour of our Richmond Hill office. The first consultation is free, by phone or on site.
Three things to start: property address; photos of the rooms you want to change; and any existing drawings or a previous permit. Send those and we tell you what the City of Barrie Building Services will ask for before we quote.
Usually, but what the wall between them carries decides how. In Barrie’s established suburban houses that wall can hold up the joists above and hide a duct or a plumbing vent, so our P.Eng sizes a beam and posts for the load and we reroute whatever runs through it. The City of Barrie Building Services has to issue a permit before the wall comes down, and the beam, its posts and their footings are all on the set we file.
Yes, though the building sets more of the limits than the unit does. Barrie’s high-density waterfront condos have gone up since the 1980s, and in any of them the walls between suites are fire separations that stay where they are, while a kitchen or bathroom can only move as far as its drain can reach the building’s stack. Work that moves plumbing or alters walls still needs a building permit from the City of Barrie Building Services, so we work out what your plan triggers before it is drawn.
Usually, as long as the new drain can slope down to the main stack. In one of Barrie’s established suburban houses that line runs under the basement slab, which has to be cut, or through the floor joists, where our P.Eng checks every notch and hole. New plumbing needs a permit from the City of Barrie Building Services, so the plumbing drawing goes into the same APLI application as the new layout.
Yes, if the finish leaves room for it. Barrie lets a house in a residential zone take up to three additional units, and one inside the basement is among the options, so we keep new bulkheads from pulling the ceiling under the 1.95 m minimum, leave a route for a separate entrance and run the drains where a second kitchen could use them. The unit needs its own permit from the City of Barrie Building Services when you add it, and planning now means less of today’s work comes out then.
It could. Barrie allows the main home plus up to three additional units on a residential lot, and those units can be inside the house as long as the zone’s standards are met, so two new units within the existing walls make a triplex the rules allow. The conversion needs a building permit from the City of Barrie Building Services, with fire separations, exits and heating for each household. One Barrie review on our site is from the owner of a triplex whose mechanical and HVAC design we did, with a boiler system for the three units and radiant floor heating.
Rarely, unless the work adds space, a unit or a different use. Once a unit is part of the plan, the zone’s standards apply: for most Barrie houses they are in Comprehensive Zoning By-law 2009-141, but the Allandale Major Transit Station Area uses a Community Planning Permit System, and some land that came from Innisfil, Springwater or Oro-Medonte is still under its old by-law. We find out which governs your lot before the City of Barrie Building Services reviews the set.
Searched & answered
Short answers to the interior renovations questions people search most, and the broader topics they lead to.
Not covered here? Book a free consultationIt takes out or widens the walls between rooms, most often between the kitchen, dining and living areas, to make one open main floor. A wall that carries the floor above can still come out once a beam is sized to carry its load. Fine Engineering designs the structure and builds the opening.
The price follows what the basement has to become. Open space finished for the house is mostly framing, insulation, drywall and floors. A bathroom with no rough-in under the slab adds plumbing, and moving a post adds structure. A second unit costs more again, with the fire separation, exit and 1.95 m ceiling a suite needs. Fine Engineering prices it from what the first site visit finds.
Start by settling what the space is for, because that decides the permit. Living space for the household usually needs none unless the plan changes the structure, the plumbing or the heating. Any of those, or a second unit, goes on a building permit first. The layout then works around the posts and drains already there. Fine Engineering draws that layout and files the permit.
Usually a whole floor, or the whole house, taken back to the framing and rebuilt: a new layout, structural changes where walls move, plumbing and ducts rerouted and new wiring, then insulation, drywall and finishes. Fine Engineering starts from the house measured as it stands, so the new plan fits the framing already in place.
Once a complete application is in, Ontario’s Building Code gives the municipality 10 business days to issue a house permit or refuse it with reasons. Larger and more complex buildings get a longer period. The count only starts when nothing is missing, so an absent sheet or an unresolved zoning issue holds it back. Fine Engineering checks zoning and code before anything is submitted.
The application form, the drawings the Building Code calls for, and every other approval the project depends on. Zoning counts as applicable law, so a needed minor variance has to be granted before the permit can be issued, and a lot in a conservation authority’s regulated area may need that authority’s permit first. Fine Engineering assembles the whole package, with the designer’s registration details on the drawings.
Good to know
In Barrie the reviewer is the City of Barrie Building Services. Every Barrie lot sets its own terms: the framing and drains of the house on it decide how far a renovation can go.
We walk the site with the survey on a scheduled visit before anything is drawn, then file the interior renovations package to the City of Barrie Building Services’s own checklist.
Barrie mixes high-density waterfront condos built since the 1980s beside established suburban neighbourhoods, so two kitchens a few streets apart can be different jobs. In the established neighbourhoods we measure what is there and open the framing where it is hidden.
For a Barrie house, the renovation goes to the City of Barrie Building Services as one APLI application. It holds the existing and proposed floor plans, a framing plan for the floor over any wall that comes out, our P.Eng’s stamped beam and post details, and the plumbing and heating changes, so the examiner reviews the whole job at once.
APLI emails an update whenever the file changes, so an examiner’s comment reaches us by email rather than through a call to the City. We answer it, upload the corrected sheet to the same application, and the permit stays open until the last inspection passes.
Some renovation work happens outside: a bigger basement window with a new well, a drain line across the yard, a bin on the lawn for weeks. Barrie’s Private Tree By-law 2014-115 is concerned only with trees that make up part of a woodlot of half an acre or more, so on most house lots none of that needs a tree permit. We still keep the bin and the trench off the roots of trees you want to keep.
Land regulated by the LSRCA, or by the Nottawasaga Valley Conservation Authority in the west of the city, is different. Ontario counts grading and the removal of material as development there, so even a new window well can need the authority’s permit, and we check the mapping for the address before any outside work is drawn.
Contact us
Tell us what you want changed and we’ll tell you what it involves, on a free first call.
First consultation free(416) 990-9179