Lynn's older city housing, rebuilt with care

Half owners, half renters, mostly old

Census figures put Lynn at about 100,650 people in roughly 37,300 homes. About 49 percent of homes are owner-occupied and about 36 percent are single-family detached, so the rest is two-families, triple-deckers, condos and apartment buildings. The median home was built around 1944, and 47 percent of the housing predates 1940. Only about one home in sixteen dates from after 2000.

That makes Lynn two kinds of work at once. Owner-occupants in older single-family houses and two-families want kitchens, baths and the repairs that make an old house comfortable to live in. Landlords want units turned over well and buildings kept sound. We do both, and each is priced from what the building itself shows us. The split also means many owners are landlords of the unit above or below them, so we are often working in a home and a rental at the same address.

Of the North Shore cities, Lynn is the nearest to us, about 38 miles north of Raynham on the coast just above Boston. Being that close lets us look at a building, write the scope and get started without long gaps, though deliveries still get planned around city traffic.

You get clear updates as each inspection passes, a clean site at the end of every day and one person who answers your calls.

Salt air on the outside, plaster on the inside

Lynn sits on the ocean, and houses near the water take wind and salt that wear on siding, trim, porches and roofs faster than inland, and where a house faces open water the weather side gets checked closely before anything is priced. Exterior repairs are planned for that: flashing that sheds water, fasteners and materials suited to the exposure, and porch framing rebuilt rather than patched once the posts and ledgers have gone soft. Ice dams on older roofs are common through the winter, and the fix usually involves insulation and ventilation as much as shingles.

Inside, a pre-war house brings plaster walls, balloon framing and wiring from more than one era. Lead-safe practices apply to anything built before 1978. Before work starts we tell you what we expect to find, then we show you what we actually found, and any added work is priced and agreed before it goes on.

Two-families and triple-deckers from this era often have each floor wired and plumbed differently, the result of decades of separate repairs. When we remodel one unit, the licensed trades trace what feeds it before anything is cut, so work in one apartment does not leave another without heat, water or power.

Working in a dense city

City lots are tight. Before a Lynn job starts we settle where the dumpster or trailer sits, where materials are staged, how the neighbors keep their access and how tenants in other units are told what is coming. Those details decide whether a job runs smoothly more than any finish choice does.

Permits go through the city building department under the Massachusetts State Building Code, and the inspector comes back several times: for framing, for the electrical and plumbing roughs done by licensed trades, for insulation and for the final. Steve is licensed as an unrestricted Massachusetts construction supervisor, the license that governs structural work on the city's one- and two-family houses. You get clear updates as each inspection passes, a clean site at the end of every day and one person who answers your calls.

For landlords, the goal is a unit that holds up to tenants: solid cabinetry, tile set on a properly prepared base, and fixtures that can be serviced. For owner-occupants, it is usually the room they have put up with for years. We write the scope around which of those you are.