Remodeling contractor in Chicago, IL

Building permits in Chicago come from the City of Chicago Department of Buildings. There are two routes that matter for house work. The Express Permit Program, launched in November 2023, is an online process for repairs and a limited range of small improvement projects. The Standard Plan Review Permit Program is the main route for anything that needs architectural plans, including additions and most alterations to single family homes and apartments. Those applications go through E Plan, and each one is assigned a project manager.

The city says every Standard Plan Review project needs zoning approval first. Zoning is a separate office, the Department of Planning and Development, and it is where a Chicago addition is usually won or lost.

Long term senior homeowners aged 65 and over who meet the income rules can have building permit fees waived for repairs, alterations and additions to a one to three unit building they live in. Ask us and we will check before we apply.

Chicago licenses general contractors itself, through the Department of Buildings. A general contractor licence is needed to bid on, run or supervise most permitted building work in the city, and it comes in five classes set by project value. Plumbing and electrical work need their own city licensed contractors listed on the permit.

On an Express permit, any licensed contractor named on the application gets an email and has to click to accept the job before the permit is issued. The city does this to stop people using a contractor's licence without their knowledge. You can look up any contractor on the city's licence lookup before you sign anything.

A typical Chicago lot is 25 feet wide and 125 feet deep, according to the Chicago Public Library's guide to how the city was subdivided. That narrow lot shaped almost everything built on it.

The Chicago bungalow, built from about 1910 to the mid 1930s, is a brick house one and a half stories tall over a full basement, narrow at the street and long down the lot. The Chicago Bungalow Association counts more than 80,000 still standing, nearly a third of the city's single family houses, in a ring it calls the Bungalow Belt. Older stock sits closer in. Workers cottages from the 1870s to the 1910s, in brick or frame with a gable facing the street. Greystones from about 1890 to 1940, with limestone fronts, brick sides and usually two or three stories. And the two flat, which the zoning code treats as its own building type.

In practice that means a lot of plaster, original attics sold unfinished, kitchens at the back of the house, and in the bungalow a full basement under the whole footprint waiting to be used.

The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District says most of Chicago has a combined sewer system, with sewage and rainwater in the same pipes. When rain enters the local sewer faster than it can drain, water backs up into streets and basements. MWRD notes this can happen even when its deep tunnels have room, because the bottleneck is often the local sewer.

So every basement we finish starts with where the water goes. Floor drains, the building sewer, downspouts tied into the sewer and the sump all get looked at before drywall goes up. If water backs up in your basement, the Department of Water Management takes reports through the city's Water in Basement service request, and asks where the water came from and how deep it got.

Most bungalow blocks are zoned RS3. There the floor area ratio is 0.9 and a detached house keeps a rear setback of 28 percent of the lot's depth, capped at 50 feet. On a 125 foot lot that is 35 feet of back yard. Finished attic space with 6 feet 9 inches or more of headroom counts toward floor area, so dormers use up allowance just like a rear addition does.

Chicago also has dozens of official landmark districts, among them the Logan Square Boulevards, Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village, the Villa District, Old Edgebrook, Pullman and Jackson Park Highlands. In those districts the Commission on Chicago Landmarks reviews permits for work that affects significant features, which for districts usually means the elevations you can see from the street. It does not add a separate permit. It reviews as part of the normal building permit process.

We are based at 3222 W Grenshaw St in 60624 on the West Side and work across the city, from the bungalow blocks of Portage Park, Hermosa and Gage Park to the greystone and two flat streets nearer the centre. City ZIP codes run from 60601 through 60661, plus the Chicago portions of 60707 and 60827.