Union City packs a lot of people onto a small hill, and most of its housing is two- and three-family homes and older walk-up apartment buildings. Many owners live in one unit and rent the others, so a renovation here has to work around tenants, shared utilities and narrow streets with little room for a dumpster or a delivery truck.
Owner-occupied multifamily homes
In a two- or three-family house, systems are often shared: one water service, one gas line, sometimes a single boiler for every floor. Before we open anything, we map what can be shut off and for how long, and we help you give tenants notice. We also check whether the electric service and drain lines can handle a bigger kitchen or an added bathroom before you settle on a layout. Our post Remodeling a Union City Two-Family Home goes through this in more detail.
Apartment turnovers and rentals
Between tenants, the clock matters. We handle drywall repair, paint, flooring, fixture and appliance swaps, and the plumbing or electrical fixes that turn up once a unit is empty, so the apartment can be rented again quickly.
Older buildings
Much of Union City's housing stock is old enough that lead paint, galvanized pipe and undersized wiring are real possibilities. See Lead Paint and Renovating an Older New Jersey Home for what that means for your project. Work that needs a permit is filed with Union City's construction code office, and we coordinate the inspections.
A real Union City job: two-family gut renovation
Our crew is currently renovating an older two-family house in Union City. We took the floor down to the brick walls, the old wood floor and the ceiling joists so we could see exactly what the building had to work with, then framed new stud walls, laid a new plywood subfloor and ran new electrical wiring. That rough work stays open for the town's rough-in inspections before any drywall goes up. The job is still in progress, so the photos below show demolition and framing, not finished rooms.
More photos are in our project gallery, and we cover planning for this kind of house in Remodeling a Union City Two-Family Home. See also additions and gut renovations.
Services in Union City
- Kitchen and bathroom renovations for owner units and rentals.
- Apartment turnovers: drywall, paint, flooring and fixtures.
- Plumbing, electric and HVAC upgrades in older buildings.
- Basement finishing and utility-room work.
- Leak and water-damage repair, including leaks that travel between floors.
Hoboken GC LLC is licensed (NJ HIC #13VH13409900) and insured, and we answer 24/7. The walkthrough and written estimate are free: call (201) 815-4260.