Plumbing and Heating Upgrades in New Westminster Heritage Homes: What Owners Should Know

Queen's Park is the best known, because it is the city's only Heritage Conservation Area. The City classifies each house there as either Protected or Non-protected, and the rules for renovating depend on that category.

Brow of the Hill is the other big pocket of older houses. According to Canada's Register of Historic Places, it began to fill in during the late 1880s with modest homes and is known for steep topography and views over the Fraser River.

Sapperton, named after the Royal Engineers' camp of the 1860s, mixes older houses with much newer buildings. Outside these areas, individual houses across the city can be on the Heritage Register, carry a Heritage Designation, or be protected through a Heritage Revitalization Agreement.

In most cases, work inside the walls is not what heritage rules focus on. The City of New Westminster says a Heritage Designation generally applies only to the exterior of the building. In the Queen's Park Heritage Conservation Area, the City states that no Heritage Alteration Permit is required for interior alterations, paint color changes, routine maintenance, or exterior alterations to the rear of the building.

Where it can matter is anything that changes the outside. For Protected houses in Queen's Park, a Heritage Alteration Permit is needed for renovations to the front or sides of the home, or to the roof visible from the street. The City's heritage and climate page adds that a permit may be required for retrofits that affect the exterior appearance of a protected property or any protected interior features.

For plumbing and heating, that means a new roof vent, a sidewall exhaust for a high efficiency boiler or water heater, or an outdoor heat pump unit on a front or side wall can fall into heritage review. The City does not list mechanical equipment specifically, so check with its heritage planning staff before you lock in a location. Normal plumbing, gas and building permits still apply on top of any heritage permit.

Most heritage homes have been replumbed in pieces, so you rarely find one consistent system. Common finds include galvanized steel water lines that narrow inside as they corrode, which shows up as weak flow and rusty water at the first draw. Cast iron drain stacks and horizontal lines are also typical. They can last a long time, but they rust through from the inside along the bottom of the pipe and at joints.

Later owners often added copper, ABS or PEX branches without replacing what was upstream, so a fixed bathroom can still drain into a tired cast iron line in the basement. Some houses also have abandoned pipes, capped gas lines from old appliances, and vents that were cut off during earlier renovations. A camera inspection of the drains and a walk through the basement usually tell you more than any single symptom.

Many older New Westminster houses were built around hot water heat, and some still run cast iron radiators. Early systems often moved water by gravity through large pipes, with no pump. Over the decades many were converted to a pumped system with a newer boiler, and the original radiators were kept because they hold heat well and suit the rooms.

If your radiators work, they are usually worth keeping. The weak points tend to be the boiler, leaking valves, air in the system and old piping in the basement. A boiler swap is often the most practical upgrade, and the new unit may vent differently from the old one, which brings the exterior question above back into play. Our guide to boiler replacement cost in BC explains what drives the price, and if the system is acting up now, see boiler repair. For a broader look at radiators and aging pipes across Metro Vancouver, read our guide to older homes, boilers and radiators.

The homeowner is. The City's Sewerage and Drainage Regulation Bylaw makes owners responsible for maintaining, cleaning and unplugging the storm and sanitary service connections between the house and the public sewer main, including the costs.

When a drain backs up, the City asks that your plumber root cut or flush the line all the way to the City main, or to the inspection chamber at the property line if one exists. Where there is no inspection chamber, clearing the blockage to the City main is the homeowner's job. City crews step in when a plumber cannot clear it and there is evidence of structural damage on the municipal portion. The City lists tree roots, grease and foreign objects as the usual causes, and mature street trees are part of what makes these older blocks attractive.

On the slopes of Brow of the Hill and Queen's Park, gravity helps sewage leave the house but also sends surface water toward basements on the low side of a lot. Perimeter drains in very old houses may be clay tile, missing or connected in ways nobody documented, so it is worth checking them when you have the floor or yard open anyway.

The basement is your best friend. Most new water lines and drains can be run up from below through closets, chases or the backs of cabinets, which avoids opening plaster walls in main rooms. Old plaster and lath does not patch like drywall, so planning the route first saves trim, moldings and finishes.

Route new vents through the rear or the roof slope that is not visible from the street when possible, and size openings so an original stair, built-in or fir floor does not need to be cut. Before anything is opened, finding leaks precisely matters more in a heritage house than in a newer one. Leak detection with thermal imaging can narrow down a hidden leak so only one small section of wall or ceiling has to come apart.

If you are weighing a switch from gas heat to electric, note that New Westminster runs its own electrical utility, and the City's Energy Save New West program and its guide to energy retrofits for heritage homes are good places to check current incentives first.

Encano Plumbing is a family-owned plumbing and heating company based in Richmond. We work on boilers, furnaces, water heaters, drains and leaks in New Westminster and across Metro Vancouver. See our New Westminster service page for the areas and services we cover there.

Call or text (604) 764-2031, any hour. Travel time from Richmond is quoted before we come out, you get one flat price in writing before work starts, and the team speaks English, Portuguese and Spanish.