If you are looking for a house to rent in Lethbridge, or are a landlord trying to rent your Lethbridge house, this is some good info. I originally posted it to my Lethbridg real estate blog several months back, but wanted to bring it back to the front page, as Christmas season seems to be a time of the year that fire safety is a big concern. So here goes....
I am asked by both clients and real estate professionals on a weekly basis for information and advice regarding basement suites. This is a very serious issue here in the Lethbridge Alberta real estate market as our basement suite marketplace is prime for investors who are looking for maximum return on their real estate investment, and also for home buyers who wish to supplement their income and help make their mortgage payment with a little revenue out of a secondary suite in their property.
So, as a matter of interest and public benefit, here is a link and the original text of the Alberta Fire Code which governs these suites. It is pretty important to read it and understand it before buying or selling a property with a suite in it. It is also very important the all real estate professionals familiarize themselves with the code prior to listing, marketing, or showing such properties as they may accidentally walk into some liability due to being uninformed. I did write a similar post on these suites which you may be able to dig up with a little effort, or you could just give me a call directly if you need some assistance.
So here it is. It is pretty dry reading and unless you have the personality of a lawyer or a rock (sorry rocks), your likely going to be speed reading and skipping lines before you get one third of the way through it. Enjoy.
Requirements of the Alberta Fire Code 2006 Section 2.16 Secondary Suites: 1. 2.16.2.1. Height of Rooms and Spaces 1)Unless acceptable to the authority having jurisdiction, the height of rooms or spaces in a secondary suite over the required minimum area in accordance with Table 9.5.3.1. of Division B of the Alberta Building Code 2006 shall be not less than 1.95 m. 2. 16.2.2. Bedroom Windows 1)Except as permitted in Sentence 9.7.1.2.(1) of Division B of the Alberta Building Code 2006, each bedroom within a secondary suite shall have at least one outside window that meets the requirements of Articles 9.7.1.2. and 9.7.1.3. of Division B of the Alberta Building Code 2006. 3. 16.2.3. Exit Stairs 1) Exit stairs shall have a clear width of not less than 860 mm. 4. 16.2.4. Landings 1) Landings for stairs shall be at least as wide as the stairs and not less than 900 mm in length. 5. 16.2.5. Handrails and Guards 1) Handrails and guards shall conform to the requirements of Subsections 9.8.7. and 9.8.8. of Division B of the Alberta Building Code 2006. 6. 16.2.6. Public and Exit Corridor Width 1) The clear width of every public corridor and exit corridor shall be not less than 860 mm. 7. 16.2.7. Unenclosed Exterior Stair or Ramp 1) Where an unenclosed exterior exit stair or ramp provides the only means of egress from a secondary suite and is exposed to the hazards of fire from unprotected openings in the exterior wall of another dwelling unit, the openings shall be protected in conformance with Articles 9.10.13.5. and 9.10.13.7. of Division B of the Alberta Building Code 2006. 8. 16.2.8. Exit Doors 1) Every exit door or door that provides access to exit from a secondary suite shall be a) not less than 1 980 mm high, b) not less than 810 mm wide, and c) permitted to swing inward. 9. 6.2.9. Means of Egress 1) Except as permitted in Sentence (2), each dwelling unit shall be provided with at least one exit that leads directly to the outside. 2) Dwelling units may share a common exit meeting the requirements of Article 2.16.2.10. 10. 16.2.10. Protection of Exits 1) Every exit, other than an exit doorway, shall be separated from adjacent floor areas by not less than one layer of 12.7 mm thick gypsum wallboard or equivalent material on each side of the walls. (See Appendix A.) 11. 16.2.11. Dwelling Unit Separations 1) Dwelling units shall be separated from each other by not less than one layer of 12.7 mm thick gypsum wallboard or equivalent material on the ceiling and on each side of the walls. (See A-2.16.2.10.(1) in Appendix A.) 12. 16.2.12. Protection of Public Corridors 1) A public corridor shall be separated from the remainder of the building by not less than one layer of 12.7 mm thick gypsum wallboard or equivalent material on each side of the walls. (See A-2.16.2.10. (1) in Appendix A.) 13. 16.2.13. Furnace Room Separations 1) A furnace room shall be separated from the remainder of the building by not less than one layer of 12.7 mm thick gypsum wallboard or equivalent material on the ceiling and on each side of the walls. (See A-2.16.2.10. (1) in Appendix A.) 2) A door shall be provided to each furnace room.- 14. 16.2.14. Heating and Ventilation Systems 1) For an existing secondary suite, a single heating and ventilation system may be used to serve both the secondary suite and main dwelling unit. 15. 16.2.15. Smoke Alarms 1) Smoke alarms conforming to CAN/ULC-S531, “Smoke Alarms,” installed in accordance with Subsection 9.10.19. of Division B of the Alberta Building Code 2006 shall be provided in each dwelling unit. 2) Smoke alarms shall be installed by permanent connections to an electrical circuit and wired so that activation of one smoke alarm will cause all alarms within both dwelling units to sound. 3) Smoke alarms shall be installed in areas that are common to both dwelling units and connected in conformance with Sentence (2). 16. 16.2.16. Inspection, Testing and Maintenance of Smoke Alarms 1) Smoke alarms required by this Section shall be inspected, tested and maintained in conformance with the manufacturer's instructions.
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
When you want to buy a car, the pressure’s on to make the deal with that salesperson at that car dealership. You won’t hear about what’s being offered at the competing lot down the street.
That’s the exact opposite of the MLS® used by REALTORS® across Canada. In fact, MLS® is all about REALTORS® cooperating with each other, no matter what company they work for. MLS® is a complex system that boils down to big advantages for consumers: cooperation and marketing among REALTORS® mean better chances for you to succeed.
MLS® was created 50 years ago to help Canadians wanting to buy or sell properties. You’re probably familiar with REALTOR.ca, the online property guide, but what began as reams of paper chock full of listing information and photos has become an online database of properties from across the country.
REALTOR® members of the local real estate board pay for the MLS®. That board operates the local system, while the umbrella group – the Canadian Real Estate Association – owns the MLS® trademark.
Only REALTORS® can list on the MLS® and REALTOR.ca, so if you’re selling your property, you’ll benefit from the wide exposure the listing will enjoy. Other REALTORS® use the database to present the possibilities to their clients, potential buyers for your home.
If you’re in the market to buy or looking to sell, remember that the MLS®, REALTOR.ca and your REALTOR® can help make your dream a reality.
You can now search directly on the internet and access ALL MLS listed properties. Go to:
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
Lethbridge rental property and houses for rent in Lethbridge are 2 of the things I receive a lot of general questions about. I dug up this blog post I made to my Lethbridge Real Estate Blog about 10 months ago and wanted to repost it becuase it answers several questions that I receive from Lethbridge landlords.
For many years, illegal and non-conforming basement suites have been the bane of many real estate transactions and mortgage applications. The City of Lethbridge has tried to deal with the situation several times in the past few decades, at one time allowing suites that were in existence before 1969 to remain in their non-conforming condition and making exceptions onf suites which were constructed after 1969.
As 2008 drew to a close, a new fire code amendment required all existing basement suites to be improved to meet a minimum safety level including smoke and fire detectors, proper egress windows on all bedrooms, free access to exits from the suite, and containing all HVAC systems behind moderately fire retardant walls.
To the bestof my knowledge, most landlords made no effort to comply.
A recent house fire in Calgary this past week is certain to bring this issue to the front page of the newspaper and encourage more discussion in the community and City Council chambers.
Now, a new grant program eliminates all excuses for a landlord to fail to improve the conditions of their properties and comply with the fire code. Here is a recent article which details the grants.
City to offer incentives for secondary rental suite safety upgrades
Written by Gerald Gauthier
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
The City of Lethbridge will soon be offering cash incentives to encourage landlords to upgrade pre-existing secondary rental suites to comply with updated safety codes. Grants of up to $2,500 could be available by spring to reimburse homeowners for improvements they make to suites in existence before 2007 within singe-family homes. The goal is to ensure such suites are safe for tenants and meet provincial fire and building codes. A total of $260,000 has been set aside for the grant program, and an application process is still in the works, said Ald. Tom Wickersham. In December, a new bylaw was enacted that makes compliant pre-existing suites a permitted use in residential areas where they previously required special permits from the city. The measures are part of a larger effort to address a critical shortage of affordable housing in Lethbridge. Chief Fire Marshal Ken Knox said he hopes property owners with pre-existing secondary suites will see the benefits of complying with the new regulations and contact the fire prevention office to arrange for assessments of their rental units. “If people have secondary suites and they don’t call us, they’re (effectively) saying they don’t want to get them to a level of life safety,” he said. Safety inspections can be requested by property owners, tenants or owners’ agents such as property managers, realtors or lawyers. A fire prevention officer will conduct a 16-point inspection, Knox said, but the focus will be on three critical elements: smoke alarms, unobstructed escape routes and bedroom windows at least 38 centimetres in width and height to serve as emergency exits. Heating and ventilation systems will also be checked. Once upgrades have been completed as required, the city will issue a permit making the suite legal. In 2006, the province announced owners of pre-existing suites had until December 2008 to bring their properties into compliance with the new Alberta Fire Code. The intent of the new fire code, he said, is to make it easier for owners to affordably achieve an equivalent safety level in pre-existing suites rather than insisting on strict conformance to the updated 2006 Alberta Building Code. New suites in existing residential areas are still subject to an inspection and approval process, however, and must fully comply with building and fire codes. Property owners who want to apply for the local grant once it becomes available are advised to keep receipts for materials and labour pertaining to suite improvements. To arrange a safety inspection, call 403-320-3811 or email: fireprevention@lethbridge.ca.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it More information is available at the city’s website www.lethbridge.ab.ca.
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
I wanted to make a new Lethbridge real estate website that I could use for doing some testing of some fancy geek technology that I have been messing around with lately. Of course, when you are setting up a website primarily for experimentation and it is in total development, you don't want to spend a ton of money on it. I have other Lethbridge real estate websites, but wanted one specifically for syndicating listings out.
I chose to use a point2 real estate template site, bought a godaddy domain, did a redirect, and spend an hour putting up the following website:
Now I will admit the site isnt pretty and sure wont win any awards the way it looks and functions yet, but it does have a few key components in it that I plan to build upon and see what I can achieve with them. It is about 2am on the 5th of November, 2009 and I am curious how long it will take to get that website spidered into google and ranked. I plan to spend about 2 hours this weekend doing some optimization, and then let the site sit for a week. I figure it should take a month to get it ranked, and about 3 months for it to have decent indexing.
The end of November I will tweak the site and add more content to it and see if I cant push it into the top 20 searches for my local real estate market. That will be quite an accomplishment if I can do that within a month, but it is a great goal and I think I have a plan and the tools to achieve it WITHOUT spending a single dime on marketing.
Testing 1 2 3, lets give this a shot.
I would love feedback from anyone who clicks on it. What parts need work, what parts look okay the way they are. I am a bit of a rookie HTML programmer, but can do enough to clean it up if suggested.
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
Hey activerain friends, I entered a travel contest and was hoping that you would help me out by giving me a vote. Its a pretty simple thing, you might even want to enter it yourself (but if you win, you really should feel obligated to take me on the holiday with you, lol, no seriously take me with you)
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
Today I had a meeting with Doug, a salesman for Clearly Lethbridge, a new online directory and marketing website that has launched in Lethbridge. The intention of the site seems to be to create an online directory of local businesses and to act as a central hub which will help to increase the search engine optimization and placement of each of the advertisers through the cooperative efforts of all. This is much like many of the online directories which attempt to do the same thing for businesses within specific categories, except that in the case of Clearly Lethbridge, the common thread is that all of the businesses are local to Lethbridge.
The company has some solid backing and is an extension of Clear Sky, who is a media company which operates several local radio stations. This should help Clearly Lethbridge enjoy some longevity while it attempts to build an advertiser base. There have been other Lethbridge business directory websites that have come and gone, some are still sitting dormant on the internet. A few of them have been good ideas, but have not continued due to the constant need to solicit advertisers and to keep content updated. Hopefully Clearly Lethbridge will have better luck.
At this point in time I declined to purchase advertising on the Clearly Lethbridge site, primarily because I accomplish much the same goals through my blog here, in addition to my other websites:
I also do a substantial amount of social media marketing through twitter, facebook, and other sites. My web content is often syndicated out via over 400 directories and another 400 RSS feeds. Because of the combined reach of these sites and their syndication, the content that I publish reaches thousands of people.
As a simple test, I am writing this blog at 1am, Friday Nov 20th, 2009. I would expect that if you were to search "clearly lethbridge" tomorrow on your favorite search engine that this very post would already be indexed and ranking at or near the very top. Try it out and see if my marketing is as effective as I claim it to be.
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
Lethbridge real estate, mortgage, and open house info. Stop by this property and talk about Lethbridge real estate, mortgage financing options, or about real estate investment options. I am glad to talk about what is going on in Lethbridge with anyone who finds it as interesting as myself. Come check this home out and lets meet face to face.
Open House
Saturday October 17th, 2-4pm
2509 18 ST North LETHBRIDGE
2509 18 ST North LETHBRIDGE
Come check out this Lethbridge open house, this is a great family home in an excellent location. The home features a large fenced and treed backyard for the kids, 2 car parking off the rear lane for dad, a freshly renovated kitchen, living room, and dining room with sliding doors out to the deck for mom. Upstairs, the master bedroom has a full 3 piece ensuite, 2 more bedrooms for the kids, and a renovated main bath.
The 2 lower levels feature a large playroom for the kids, laundry area, storage area, a rec room, and a 4th room which can be used as a bedroom or office, plus a brand new 3 piece bath too.
This great family home is in move in condition and ready for a new family. It is located at the very end of a cul-de-sac and so the street is free from traffic and safe for the kids. This nice and quiet location yet close to shopping and tranportation and is great for those who want peace and security and know the value of location location location.
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
I wanted to make a new Lethbridge real estate website that I could use for doing some testing of some fancy geek technology that I have been messing around with lately. Of course, when you are setting up a website primarily for experimentation and it is in total development, you don't want to spend a ton of money on it.
I chose to use a point2 template site, bought a godaddy domain, did a redirect, and spend an hour putting up the following website:
Now I will admit the site isnt pretty and sure wont win any awards the way it looks and functions yet, but it does have a few key components in it that I plan to build upon and see what I can achieve with them. It is about 2am on the 5th of November, 2009 and I am curious how long it will take to get that website spidered into google and ranked. I plan to spend about 2 hours this weekend doing some optimization, and then let the site sit for a week.
The end of November I will tweak the site and add more content to it and see if I cant push it into the top 20 searches for my local real estate market. That will be quite an accomplishment if I can do that within a month, but it is a great goal and I think I have a plan and the tools to achieve it WITHOUT spending a single dime on marketing.
Testing 1 2 3, lets give this a shot.
I would love feedback from anyone who clicks on it. What parts need work, what parts look okay the way they are. I am a bit of a rookie HTML programmer, but can do enough clean it up if suggested.
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
Lethbridge real estate, mortgage, and open house info. Stop by this property and talk about Lethbridge real estate, mortgage financing options, or about real estate investment options. I am glad to talk about what is going on in Lethbridge with anyone who finds it as interesting as myself. Come check this home out and lets meet face to face.
Open House
Saturday October 17th, 2-4pm
2509 18 ST North LETHBRIDGE
2509 18 ST North LETHBRIDGE
Come check out this Lethbridge open house, this is a great family home in an excellent location. The home features a large fenced and treed backyard for the kids, 2 car parking off the rear lane for dad, a freshly renovated kitchen, living room, and dining room with sliding doors out to the deck for mom. Upstairs, the master bedroom has a full 3 piece ensuite, 2 more bedrooms for the kids, and a renovated main bath.
The 2 lower levels feature a large playroom for the kids, laundry area, storage area, a rec room, and a 4th room which can be used as a bedroom or office, plus a brand new 3 piece bath too.
This great family home is in move in condition and ready for a new family. It is located at the very end of a cul-de-sac and so the street is free from traffic and safe for the kids. This nice and quiet location yet close to shopping and tranportation and is great for those who want peace and security and know the value of location location location.
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
Lethbridge limousine service is one of the coolest ways to celebrate your special event. Most people in Lethbridge think of limousine rental when they think of Weddings or Graduations, but limo service can be special for many events beyond Lethbridge grads and Lethbridge weddings.
Lethbridge limousine service can compliment an anniversary, an event like a concert or sporting event, even a trip to the airport if you want to arrive in style. Lethbridge limo rentals can make any event special.
Check out the size of that limo in the pic above. It is built on a Ford F-650 chassis and is the largest limousine of its kind in Canada. The truly amazing thing about it is that it is based here in Lethbridge! It is true! There are more pictures of it and many other Lethbridge limousines at 4starlimo.com
I would like to thank Dave and the staff over at Executive 4 Star Limousine for not only offering the newest and most highend limousine service but also for their attention to detail and service. Thanks!
Let me share my 15 years experience in the local Lethbridge real estate and financing market with you! It is the first step towards making a profitable real estate decision.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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