Basement Finishing in the Triangle

Ten to twelve weeks from signature to a finished kitchen: three to five weeks of design and permitting, then four to seven weeks on site. Anyone quoting four weeks in total is either not pulling a permit or has not counted the design phase. You are without a kitchen for the on-site portion, so plan a temporary setup with a microwave and a kettle somewhere else in the house.

Because a remodel price depends on what is behind your walls, what the county will permit, what you choose to put back, and how much of the existing structure is worth keeping. Two identical-looking 1990s kitchens in Cary can differ by tens of thousands once the cabinets come off. Every project starts with a free design and survey visit that produces a fixed written quote with every allowance stated.

An allowance is the sum we have budgeted for something you have not chosen yet, such as tile, fixtures or cabinetry. Every quote states its allowances plainly. Choose above one and the difference is itemised; choose below it and you get the difference back. Quotes without stated allowances are how a fixed price turns into a moving one.

Whether the layout changes, more than anything else. Moving a sink means moving a drain, and a drain needs fall, which on a slab-on-grade house can mean cutting concrete. Keeping the wet wall where it is saves more money than any other decision available to you. After that it is cabinetry level, whether a wall is load bearing, and whether your electrical panel can carry a modern kitchen.

No. A contractor who offers to start before the permit is issued is offering to do unpermitted work, which becomes your problem when you sell the house. Wake and Durham counties both run one to two weeks for a residential kitchen at present, longer after a storm event when the permit desk is loaded with roof work. We pull the permit, book the inspections, and meet the inspector on site.

For most projects yes, and most clients do. On an addition the majority of the work happens outside your walls, with two disruptive phases: excavation week, when you lose the driveway, and the tie-in, when we open the existing exterior wall. On a kitchen or bathroom you lose that room for the on-site phase. Water and power stay on throughout, with brief planned interruptions we tell you about the day before.

No, and three site constraints decide what is buildable. Setbacks are required distances from every boundary, and in much of Wake and Durham County the side setback is the binding one, which frequently pushes an addition to the back rather than the side you wanted. Lot coverage caps the proportion of the lot under roof and hard standing, and an existing patio counts toward it. Utility and drainage easements cannot be built over at all. All three are on your plot survey.

In most Triangle subdivisions, yes, for anything visible from the street or from a neighbour. The architectural review committee meets on its own schedule and it is frequently the single longest wait in an addition project, so start it early. We prepare and submit the package, but we cannot make the committee meet sooner.

No. Framing over a moisture problem is the most expensive mistake in basement finishing, because drywall and insulation in a below-grade room that takes water is not a room that needs repair later, it is a room that has to be demolished and rebuilt. We assess moisture first and put the findings in writing before anything is designed. Sometimes the answer is nothing at all, because plenty of Triangle basements are genuinely dry.

Only if it has a compliant egress window: minimum opening size, maximum sill height, and a window well big enough to climb out of. In a poured or block foundation that means cutting and shoring the wall and excavating outside, and it is one of the larger single line items on a basement quote. Without it the room can be an office or a den, but it cannot be called a bedroom, and calling it one anyway causes problems at sale.

Not always, and it is worth checking before you pay for drawings. Some Triangle subdivisions restrict garage conversions outright through HOA covenants, and some counties require a minimum number of off-street or covered parking spaces per dwelling, which losing your garage can put you below. If the plan involves its own entrance, kitchen and bathroom, that is an accessory dwelling unit rather than a conversion, with different rules that in much of the Triangle do not permit it.

Whenever a project removes or alters a load-bearing element, and for most structural repair work. The engineer writes the specification and we build to it, which matters because a contractor who diagnoses a structural problem and then sells you the repair has an obvious conflict of interest. We coordinate the engineer, their fee is separate and paid to them directly so nobody is marking it up, and you get both documents.

Usually not, but the way to find out is to measure it rather than guess. Draw a pencil line across each end of the crack, write the date beside it, and photograph it with a coin for scale. A crack that has not moved in three months is very different from one that has moved in three weeks. Most Triangle cracking is historic, because clay soils swell and shrink seasonally and a great many cracks opened years ago and stopped. What does need attention is horizontal cracking, stair-step cracking in block, and anything actively widening.

Most visits carry a two hour arrival window, and roofing and construction visits carry three. We quote a window rather than an exact time because a trades crew genuinely cannot promise a minute, and we would rather be accurate than optimistic. We text you when the crew is on the way.

Yes. The diagnostic fee covers the technician's time and a written fault report, and it is waived when you approve the repair. Installation and replacement quotes carry no diagnostic fee at all, because nothing is being diagnosed on an estimate visit.

Not quite. A request is not a held slot. We confirm within 30 minutes during dispatch hours, and first thing the next dispatch day if you request outside them. The availability shown on the site reflects how full a day usually is rather than a live view of the dispatch board.

We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, ACH bank transfer, and financing on qualifying projects. Payment is due on completion for service work, and on a staged schedule set out in the quote for larger projects. There are two payment methods we cannot take, which are covered in our billing questions.

Give us 24 hours notice and there is no charge. One call or one text is enough to reschedule, and we would much rather move you than charge you. Cancelling inside that window, or nobody being home when the crew arrives, carries a no-show fee.

There is a no-show fee, and it is the same figure as the late cancellation fee. It covers the slot another customer could have used and the crew's drive. If you are running late rather than absent, call us and we will usually wait or come back later the same day at no charge.

A technician arrives inside the arrival window, diagnoses the fault, tells you the repair price before touching anything, and completes the work if you approve it. You get a written report either way. Nothing is added to the invoice without your approval first, and we do not carry out extra work while you are out of the room.

The office is open Monday to Friday from 07:30, and Saturday mornings. Crews dispatch on a wider window, from 07:00 to 19:00 on weekdays and 08:00 to 16:00 on Saturday. There is no scheduled dispatch on Sunday. Emergency coverage runs 24 hours a day, every day, including holidays.

We cover Raleigh, Durham, Cary and the wider Triangle, with coverage recorded city by city because it is not uniform. Most cities have every trade and no travel fee, two have a limited set of trades and a travel fee, one is emergency coverage only, and some adjacent zip codes are outside the service radius entirely. Enter your zip code on our service areas page for a definitive answer.

No. We are residential only, including multifamily buildings up to four units. A four-unit building is the ceiling and it is a real one rather than a preference: our crews, our insurance and our licences are all sized for residential work. For anything larger, or for any commercial or industrial property, you need a commercial general contractor.

No to all three, and we will point you at the right trade for each. Pool and spa equipment sits under a separate licence, so you need a pool service company. Septic systems need a licensed septic contractor, and Wake County keeps a list of permitted installers. Solar needs a solar installer, though we will happily reroof around an existing array. We publish the full list of work we do not take on rather than making you ask.

Yes, Monday through Friday. We do not staff Spanish-speaking crews at weekends. If you need one, ask when you book and we will schedule you on a weekday rather than send someone who cannot explain the work to you.

Yes. We hold five North Carolina licences covering HVAC, general contracting, roofing, plumbing and electrical, and every licence number is published on our site rather than available on request. We carry general liability cover and workers compensation cover, and we are bonded. Certificates go to your adjuster or your HOA the same day you ask.

Twelve months on labour and parts is the standard, and several services carry considerably longer. Roof replacements carry ten years on workmanship, repiping ten years, structural repair five years, and cabinetry five years. Manufacturer warranties on equipment run separately and are often longer still, and we register them in your name before we leave.

We come back and put it right at no charge. There is no time limit on a workmanship complaint about a repair we performed. Call the office rather than the crew directly, so it gets logged and scheduled rather than depending on one person remembering.

Secure them away from the work area before we arrive. This is genuinely for their safety rather than ours: crews prop doors open, carry sharp and heavy things through the house, and use tools that frighten animals. Tell us when you book if you have a dog that needs handling carefully, and we will note it on the job.

For most visits, no, provided we can get in and reach the work. Inspections, maintenance visits and outdoor work frequently happen with nobody home. You do need to be there for anything where we will be quoting work, making decisions with you, or entering occupied rooms. We will tell you which yours is when you book.

A clear path to the work area, clear parking for a van near the house, and unlocked side gates where the job is round the back. Roofing and outdoor work need the driveway, sometimes for a skip. If parking is difficult where you are, tell us when you book, because a crew circling for twenty minutes is time on your job.

Two separate operations with separate rules. Scheduled work runs inside published dispatch hours, is booked into an arrival window, and carries the ordinary diagnostic fee. Emergency work runs around the clock on a fixed shortlist of eight services, targets a 90 minute response, and carries a call-out fee on top. Ringing the emergency line about something outside that shortlist does not upgrade it; you get booked into the next ordinary window instead. Our emergency questions list exactly which eight services qualify and set out what to do while you wait.

Thirty days from the date on it. Beyond that we will re-price rather than honour a figure that no longer covers the materials, and material prices on roofing and lumber in particular move enough that a quarter-old quote is not meaningful. Re-pricing an expired quote is quick, because the survey work is already done.

It depends on how much work you expect to need. The plans bundle seasonal visits with priority dispatch and a standing discount on repairs, billed monthly, and the discount alone pays for the cheapest tier if you have one significant repair a year. If you rarely call anyone out, paying per visit is the better arithmetic and we will say so.

No. Cedarline Home Services is a fictional company used for demos. Every price, policy, licence number and phone number on this site is invented for that purpose, and none of it should be relied on as a real quotation or a real business record.