Remodel vs. Build New: What to Do?

Remodel an Existing Home or Build a New House?

Some of our favorite projects are complete home overhauls. As a homeowner, there’s some sense in waiting to do major work until most of your home’s components are cooked, and then do a whole house project that makes your house like new. Do it once, do it right, instead of piece-mealing projects that are chaotic and disruptive over many years.

But this approach can get tricky. Once the wish list gets long enough, people commonly ask us if it would just be better to scrape the house and start over instead of doing the extensive remodel they have in mind. In our experience, here are the major factors you must consider when comparing a major remodel to a complete rebuild.

Is the current house in the right spot?

Sometimes the existing house is in a funky spot on the property; or perhaps there’s a more advantageous spot that would be better than the house’s current location. Several years ago we built a new custom house and demolished the existing house because it was located abnormally way in the back of the property. It just didn’t make sense for the home to be where it was. For smaller lots in a city (eg-Boulder, Louisville, Lafayette) there usually is only one obvious spot for the home. Homes in Boulder County with acreage tend to have more location options to consider.

Are there any Landmarks or Historic considerations on the existing house?

The City of Boulder has a mandatory Landmarks review for any structure over 50 years old. For basic 50’s and 60’s ranches this is an easy hurdle to jump, but one that must be navigated nonetheless. If your home is cute, unique, and old you may be required to keep some or all of it in tact.

How good or bad are the bones of your house?

In general, we find that homes built after WWII are very well made. These single family homes are often very simple, but have solid framing and quality concrete foundations. Conversely, pre-WWII buildings often have crumbling rubble foundations and hodge-podge framing. Adding on to homes like these is difficult. If you’re planning a major addition or structural work, you can quickly hit a point where a rebuild is the right call. As the old adage goes, you don’t want to put a $500 saddle on a $50 horse.

What’s the environmental impact of the project?

Demolishing an entire home and building a new one creates a tremendous amount of waste. A remodel can be more environmentally friendly than a new home because it avoids putting the entire structure into the waste stream. Even with the most aggressive salvage and deconstruction efforts, most of the existing home will end up in a landfill. Digging up and removing an old foundation also creates massive amounts of concrete waste as well as requiring heavy fossil fuel usage by the machines that do the work. Lastly, a new home will require more raw materials since you’re starting from scratch. In other words, a new house has a much bigger carbon footprint than a remodel. Even if your new home is a net-zero energy home, you must consider the embodied energy to create this home.

Money: which costs more?

At the end of the day, you have to consider the costs of the remodel to the costs of a new build. Remodeling isn’t cheap. It can be complicated to work on an older existing home. It’s not a certainty that a remodel will cost less than a scrape and rebuild. Without engaging with building and design professionals it’s impossible to know which would cost more.

As a design-build firm, we look at the budget as an equally important factor as the design. Considering what you are willing to invest in the project is as important as imagining sitting at the new island in your kitchen. Then we can have a more meaningful conversation about what your options are, and how to make the best home possible.

Emotional investment

One common denominator of people who are considering this level of project is that they love their neighborhood. A major house project requires a ton of energy and money; only people emotionally invested in the property are going to be motivated to embark on a huge home construction project.

These types of projects are our specialty. We love collaborating with people who love their homes. It brings us tremendous joy to work with people to solve the puzzle to make their home sing. We engage our listening skills so we can truly hear how you are living in the space and what the changes mean to you.