Bickford Park House

This central-west Toronto retrofit sits on a tree-lined residential street just off bustling Bloor Street, packed with restaurants, stores, schools, community centres, a TTC subway station and two picturesque parks. The semi-detached Victorian home, previously dark and aging, was transformed into a spacious and bright, energy-efficient family home for our client, his partner, and their two children.

Our client bought the home in the 1990s as a university student, and over the years had lived there alongside over 50 tenants and roommates. When he met his wife, the two moved in and began saving up for the full gut, top-to-bottom renovation that the home deserved. In 2014, they hired Solares for the job, due to our mutual values and energy-efficiency expertise.

The retrofit’s new design consolidates separate apartment units into one family home. A large and sagging rear addition was completely removed, giving the family 30 percent more backyard space. The main floor was opened up to create a larger, more cohesive open-concept living space with plenty of built-in storage. The basement was left unfinished, to be completed as a separate project in a few years.

The finished home boasts a 71 percent reduction in annual heat loss, an 81 percent reduction in space heating, and an EnerGuide rating of 76 – a drastic change from the previous rating of 22, the lowest Solares had ever seen! Once the basement is finished, the score is expected to break into the 80s. The final air leakage rate sits at 4.45 ACH@50Pa, a huge difference from the pre-renovation 14.31 ACH@50Pa.

Finally, the new renovation boasts a near 15 tonne reduction in annual greenhouse gas emissions – that’s equivalent to what five Honda Civics combined produce in one year.

The home’s warm interiors reflect the family’s warmth and charm, with a dedicated room for arts, crafts, and musical instruments, and comfortable furniture and living spaces where the family can spend time together.

In the open-concept main floor, the kitchen sits in the centre of the home. The front entry and adjacent dining area stands on one side of the kitchen, with a large living room that opens to the back yard on the other. From the large, central kitchen island, the family can see and be a part of everything that happens on the main floor.

The dining area is nestled in the front of the home, with a bay window and set of French doors that lead to the front porch and garden. The north wall in the dining room and kitchen is clad with spacious, built-in, floor-to-ceiling storage, giving this growing family plenty of room for their things.

The living room sits beyond the central kitchen, with plenty of storage space built into the room’s south wall, next to the stairs. Large French doors open onto the backyard and three huge windows light the living space.

On the second floor, the stair opens to a landing, where a set of French doors brings privacy to a large playroom/music room with a small office alcove and large west-facing bay window overlooking the street. A long hallway lines the stair and ends with the master bedroom. The master bedroom includes an ensuite bathroom and a large picture window overlooking the backyard in the east. Off the second floor hallway is a centrally-located office, which can double as an additional bedroom if necessary in the future, and a spacious laundry room with a large storage closet.

The third floor is the kids’ domain. Each child has a bedroom with a large window (one north-facing, the other west), slanted ceilings, and ample floor space. A bathroom equipped with a bathtub sits between the two bedrooms on the third floor’s small landing.

The home was thoughtfully and expertly designed by Solares’ Melodie Coneybeare, who led the project and worked closely with our clients. Our General Contractor, Jesse Hayes, worked hard to ensure the project was pulled off without a hitch.

Prior to the renovation, both the interior and exterior brick wythes on the eastern load-bearing wall were crumbling, up to 30 inches from the ground, due to a lack of proper rainwater control. This brickwork was removed and replaced with concrete block. The rear and side exterior walls were then covered with an EIFS (Exterior Insulation Finishing System) material by Durock. EIFS is a lightweight wall-cladding system with integrated insulation that is applied directly to the outside of a building, which creates a highly efficient and air-tight home while still maximizing interior space.

Conventional foam provides the bulk of the insulation, with 4 in. sprayed between new wall studs that are set away from the existing brick walls, as well as on the underside of the roof sheathing. This gives us R25 walls and an R40 roof. The windows are all new double-glazed, wood-framed units from Marvin Windows and Doors.

Because of the main floor’s open-concept design, we installed 4 ft. long super-reinforced shear walls on all levels of the home, from the basement to the top floor. These shear walls help resist lateral loads and were integrated seamlessly into the design of the house.

We doubled up every floor joist, to strengthen and level the old floor’s sagging and uneven wooden joists. This was an extremely involved process, but the undertaking created a practically brand new, much more durable wood floor. The floor is also equipped with in-floor heating installed between the joists. This is an unconventional practice thought to be unable to properly heat a home, however with a house this efficient, even the most subtle changes in temperature are very effective, like the gradual heat of an in-floor system.

Besides the in-floor heating, a small combination boiler and an air conditioning system by Fujitsu is all this space requires. This air source heat pump (ASHP) by Fujitsu is also known as a “ductless mini split”, which typically only works for the room in which it’s located. However, in this case we opted to tie the heat pump into the HRV ductwork, essentially creating a fully ducted, ductless mini-split. This allows for consistent heating and cooling throughout the house, all circulated through the HRV ductwork.

To preserve budget, the basement was left unfinished, to be completed in a second phase. However, we ensured that all structural work in the basement was completed in this phase by erecting footings 3 ft. below the existing slab level. This means that when the time comes, the basement can be underpinned and renovated with ease.