5 Tips For Renovating a Historic Commercial Building

Rehabilitating historic commercial buildings has a variety of benefits such as restoring run down neighbourhoods, tax benefits and cultural appreciation. Since the benefits of bringing historical commercial buildings back to life are numerous, there is a great deal of interest in doing so.

However, it is important to make sure you are picking the right vendor for the job when it comes to rehabilitation projects. This will ensure that you are getting the best quality work, while keeping costs and time spent to a minimum.

Do Your Research

When you begin the process of adding modern appliances and pieces to the historical building, it is important to make sure you are maintaining the history of the building and not taking away from it.

That is why taking a look at historical blueprints, past owners, and the time period of the building is important to ensure you still honour the past while you make the building more modern.

If you can't access these above items, try taking a look at the information from other buildings built in a similar time period. This will give you insight into which architectural pieces you should preserve, and those that can be changed or updated without losing the building's unique charm.

Repair Before You Replace

When dealing with historical buildings there will definitely be things that are beyond repair, that will need to be replaced. However making the effort to repair instead of replace wherever you can will help keep the charm of the building alive.

Additionally, many historical buildings have items in them that are very difficult to find due to their age, and therefore replacing them may be tricky. Regardless of item rarity within the building, repairing is generally a much more cost effective way to rehabilitate a building then that of replacing.

Saving money on making repairs rather than buying new items will help free up some budget for you to spend on any unexpected problems that come up.

Begin with the Exterior

When it comes to older buildings the exterior of the building often tends to be in rough shape in comparison to the internal, structural components of the building. This is due to elements like wind, rain, hail, snow and ice which the interior of the building is not exposed to.

These elements over time can cause a lot of wear and therefore the exterior tends to be the portion of the building that needs the most work. Starting with the exterior not only gets the hard part out of the way first in most cases, but also gives you a solid foundation to work with before moving to the interior.

Look for Water Damage

Since the exterior of many historical buildings are subject to weather events, it is very common for them to suffer from some form of water damage. These water damages must not be avoided, as they can cause a variety of issues like rot, mold, bug infestation and structural damage.

Damage caused by leaks gets considerably worse over time, so it is important to tackle these problems as soon as possible to ensure they do not get out of control by the time you get to them.

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