Home remodelingin Pike Township, Indianapolis
Bathrooms, kitchens and basements in Pike Township. We are a 35-minute drive away in Fishers, we pull the permit through the Marion County Department of Business and Neighborhood Services, and the crew that walks your house is the crew that builds the job.
We have been opening walls in Marion County since 2012
Pike is the northwestern township, running from Traders Point across to Eagle Creek Park. It is a mix of 1960s and 70s subdivisions, later 1990s building, and pockets of larger properties on the western edge near the reservoir.
- Houses near Eagle Creek on sloping ground, which produces genuine walkout lower levels rather than below-grade basements
- 1970s subdivision stock with original kitchens and single primary bathrooms as the two standing constraints
- Larger western-edge properties where an addition is realistic because the lot allows it
What each of them means in Pike Township
Bathroom remodeling in Pike Township
The 1960s and 70s subdivisions through Pike hand us the same hall bath: about five feet by eight, a sixty-inch alcove tub, a thirty-inch vanity, and a window in the wall over the tub. That window is the first decision. It was the room's ventilation when the house was built, and an openable window of the right size still counts as bathroom ventilation, but it also puts a wood frame and a sill inside a wet enclosure, and it is usually what has rotted. We either move the glass out of the wet zone or rebuild the opening so the surround can be waterproofed around it. Behind the wall, the era decides the labor. In that older Pike stock the tub is steel or cast iron and the tile is often set in a mortar bed rather than over board, so the strip-out is slower than in a newer house, and on the slab-on-grade ranches around New Augusta the waste line is in the concrete, so moving a fixture means cutting slab. In the houses built into the mid-1990s nearer the Zionsville Road corridor we look for gray polybutylene supply line with crimp fittings; an open wall is the easiest chance that house will get to be rid of it. Every shower valve we set is a pressure-balancing or thermostatic mixing valve, with the stop set so the outlet cannot exceed 120 degrees.
Kitchen remodeling in Pike Township
Two different kitchens sit under one township name here. In the 1960s and 70s subdivisions off Michigan Road it is a closed room with a soffit boxed in above the wall cabinets and often a pass-through cut to the dining side later. The soffit is worth opening before anything is priced: sometimes it is hollow and the room gets a foot of cabinet height back, and sometimes it carries a bath vent or a duct run that has to go somewhere else first. The ceiling framing decides the rest. A conventionally framed ranch of that era often lands its ceiling joists on the wall between the kitchen and the living room, so taking that wall out means a beam and a load path down to something that can carry it. The 1990s houses nearer Eagle Creek were more often trussed wall to wall, which can leave that same wall carrying no roof load, though it may still be doing bracing work. We open the ceiling and confirm rather than assume. The other early check is the panel. A kitchen from 1972 was wired for a kitchen from 1972, and where the service is still the original hundred amps with no spaces left, that belongs in the estimate rather than in week two. Houses built from roughly 1965 to 1973 can also carry aluminum branch wiring, which does not stop a remodel but changes how connections are made up.
Basement finishing in Pike Township
In Pike the basement answer changes with the lot. On ground falling toward Eagle Creek and the reservoir, lower levels come out at grade on one side; that end is a framed exterior wall and gets built and insulated like one, while the other three sides are still below grade and take a different detail. Two assemblies in one room, and the estimate should say which is which. A walkout door that meets the requirements can serve as the emergency escape and rescue opening for the basement, but a bedroom down there still needs an opening of its own inside the room. Away from the slope, the 1960s and 70s houses sit on block foundation walls with trunk duct hung under the joists, and often a rec room somebody finished in the 1970s: paneling on furring strips glued to the block, a dropped ceiling, and nine-by-nine floor tile. Tile that size, and the black adhesive under it, can contain asbestos in a house of this age. We do not guess at it and we do not scrape it. It gets tested, and a positive result goes to an abatement contractor before we frame anything. Marion County is EPA Radon Zone 1, the highest, where roughly one home in three tests at or above the action level, so the test goes in before the layout does.
What we plan around in Pike Township
Two things change a job here more than the house does: heavy clay that holds water against a foundation instead of letting it drain away, and ground that falls toward Eagle Creek and the creeks feeding it. Neither shows up in a set of finish selections, and both decide what the first week on site is spent on. We plan a Pike Township job around the ground before we plan it around the tile.
Clay, frost and where the downspouts end
Central Indiana frost depth runs roughly thirty to thirty-six inches, and the clay under these subdivisions holds water against a wall rather than letting it drain. Freeze and thaw move it seasonally. Before we quote anything below grade we walk the grade itself and find where the downspouts actually end.
Radon Zone 1
Marion County sits in EPA Radon Zone 1, where roughly one home in three tests at or above the four picocurie action level. That is a different question once a basement becomes a bedroom or an office, so the test goes in before the layout, not after the drywall.
The fall toward the reservoir
Toward Eagle Creek and the reservoir the ground drops, which is what produces the daylight and walkout levels there. It is also why a lot sitting in a creek bottom can fall inside mapped floodplain. We check the mapping before anyone plans living space below grade.
We drive out from Fishers
We have no office in Pike Township and no yard on that side of the county. The crew drives out from Fishers, so on a narrow 1970s subdivision drive the dumpster position, the material drop and where the trucks park are settled at the walkthrough, not on the first morning.
We pull the permit. You do not chase the Marion County Department of Business and Neighborhood Services.
Permits inside Marion County go through the Department of Business and Neighborhood Services at 200 E Washington Street, and residential review typically runs ten to fifteen business days — longer than any of the Hamilton County offices. DBNS also requires the applicant to be either a licensed Marion County contractor or the property owner.
All of it is built to the 2020 Indiana Residential Code — the 2018 International Residential Code plus the 2020 Indiana amendments, and we meet the inspector on site rather than leaving you to.
Pike Township and around it
- Traders Point
- Eagle Creek
- Crooked Creek
- New Augusta
- Zionsville Road corridor
We are based in Fishers, about 35 minutes from Pike Township. That is a drive we make constantly and there is no travel charge — what distance changes is scheduling, not price. We block work in one area into continuous runs rather than splitting a crew across the metro in a day.
What Pike Township homeowners ask us
Pike Township is thirty-five minutes away. Do you work there?
Yes, and there is no travel charge. Distance changes scheduling rather than price — we run Pike Township jobs in continuous blocks rather than splitting a crew across the county in a day.
Does sloping ground help a basement project?
It usually does. A slope that produces a walkout or daylight lower level solves egress and natural light before we start, which are two of the four things that drive a basement number.
Can I add on out here?
On the larger western lots, often yes. Whether you should depends on what an addition costs against finishing space you already have. We will give you the honest comparison rather than the bigger job.
Who actually applies for the permit, you or me?
Marion County requires the application to come from either a contractor licensed in that county or the property owner, and Pike has no excluded city inside it, so every address in the township goes through DBNS downtown. We confirm before anything is scheduled who the applicant on your job will be, and we prepare the scope, the permit paperwork and the inspection sequence either way.
Do the historic district rules downtown apply to my house?
No. The Historic Preservation Commission's thirteen historic districts and five conservation areas all sit in and around the older city, and none of them are in Pike Township, so there is no Certificate of Appropriateness step on a house here. Interior work sits outside that review in any case. What your job needs is the county permit and nothing stacked on top of it.
We're on a septic system out near Traders Point. Can we still add a basement bathroom?
Possibly, and it is the first thing we ask rather than the last. A field sized for the bathrooms a house was built with is not automatically sized for another one, and on the unsewered lots out that way that is a question for the county health department before it is a layout question. We get the answer before anyone settles a floor plan.
The panel is the original 100 amps and I think the house has aluminum wiring. Does that kill a kitchen remodel?
No, it moves two lines onto the estimate. A hundred-amp panel with no spaces left usually means a service or subpanel upgrade, and a kitchen of that era predates the circuits a modern one needs, so most of the kitchen wiring is new either way. Aluminum branch wiring, common in houses built from about 1965 to 1973, changes how connections are made up. Both are easier to deal with while walls are open.
There's 1970s paneling and old floor tile down in the basement. Can you just build over it?
We would not. Paneling on furring strips glued to block hides whatever that wall has been doing for fifty years, and nine-by-nine floor tile with black adhesive under it can contain asbestos at that age, so it gets tested rather than scraped. Once the block is bare and dry we can tell you what the basement actually needs instead of guessing at it through a wall.
Four steps, from the first call to the last walkthrough in Pike Township
Call or send the form
Tell us the room and roughly what you want done. We answer our own phone.
Walkthrough & estimate
We measure on site and send a detailed, transparent estimate — materials and labor itemized.
Build
Our own crew, code-compliant work, the site swept at the end of every day.
Final walkthrough
We go through the finished room with you and clear the punch list before we invoice.
What Pike Township homeowners are actually choosing between
The person who quotes it runs it
The same crew that walked your house builds the job. You are not handed to a project manager who was not there.
Seven trades in-house
Tile, carpentry, flooring, trim, fireplaces, decks and finish work. One point of contact instead of a general contractor and five subs.
An itemized written estimate
Materials and labor, line by line, before anyone picks up a tool. You know the price at step two of four.
We answer our own phone
Call 317-427-8162 and you get the company, not a call centre. Working across Central Indiana since 2012.