Home remodelingin Washington Township, Indianapolis
Bathrooms, kitchens and basements in Washington Township. We are a 20-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
Washington Township is the northern-tier township that contains Nora, Broad Ripple, Meridian-Kessler and Butler-Tarkington, and residents describe where they live by township as often as by neighbourhood. Its housing spans 1920s pre-war streets in the south to 1970s ranches in the north.
- Two distinct eras inside one township, so the same project costs differently at the north and south ends
- Mature tree cover and established landscaping that constrains where material can be staged and where a skip can sit
- Mid-century ranches with the bearing wall between kitchen and living room that defines the era's remodel
What each of them means in Washington Township
Bathroom remodeling in Washington Township
Washington Township hands us two different bathrooms depending on which end of it you live on. From 38th Street up through Broad Ripple the rooms are pre-war and small, often five feet by seven, one of them serving the whole upstairs, hex tile set in a mortar bed over a plank subfloor and a cast-iron tub against the wet wall the kitchen plumbing shares. The strip-out is heavier than it looks. The mud bed comes off in slabs, the tub usually leaves in pieces rather than down the stairs whole, and once plaster and lath are gone the studs sit back roughly an inch from where the old finished face was, so backer board and a new tub flange need furring rather than a straight swap. North of about 71st the same room is a 1960s or 70s hall bath: steel alcove tub, one-piece surround, vanity screwed to drywall, supplies coming up from a basement you can stand in. Demolition there is a fraction of that. What both ends share is one vent stack serving the whole house. The code caps how far a trap can sit from its vent and the cap changes with pipe size, so the moment a plan moves the toilet or the sink more than a little, we work out how it gets vented before we put a number on it. The alternative is finding that out with the ceiling below already open.
Kitchen remodeling in Washington Township
The pre-war kitchens at the south end, through Meridian-Kessler, Butler-Tarkington and the Broad Ripple bungalow streets, sit at the back of the house, organized around a rear door, the basement stair and a pantry, with the sink under a window on an uninsulated exterior wall. Floor area is rarely the problem; circulation is. The usual answer is borrowing the pantry or the back hall rather than rearranging inside the original four walls, and any supply line inside that exterior wall gets moved inboard while the plaster is off, because that is the pipe that splits in February. Wiring is the other pre-war constant: two-wire circuits with no ground, knob-and-tube still live in a ceiling here and there, and a panel never sized for a kitchen. North of 71st, in the Nora and Allisonville ranches, the room is newer and the surprises are different. A soffit over the wall cabinets may carry a duct, a vent, a wire run or nothing at all, so we cut an inspection hole and look before anyone promises full-height uppers. Houses built between roughly 1965 and 1973 can also have aluminum branch wiring, which changes how every device in the room gets terminated. None of that is an upgrade we are selling you. It is what the rough-in inspection looks for, and it belongs on the estimate at the start rather than arriving later as a change order.
Basement finishing in Washington Township
Most of Washington Township has a full basement, which is not true everywhere in Marion County, and the two eras give you two different ones. The pre-war basements at the south end were built to hold a coal furnace and a laundry sink, not people: masonry or poured walls, a floor drain running off to an old lateral, usually no perimeter drain and no sump unless a later owner added one, and joists set at a height nobody planned to walk under. Ducts and the main waste line went wherever suited the furnace. We measure headroom bay by bay on the first visit, because that answer decides whether there is a project at all rather than what it costs. The 1950s to 70s basements further north are more workable: poured walls, more height, a stair whose geometry is already close to what living space needs, and sometimes a rough-in nobody ever used. Two things get settled before either one is framed. Water first, which means grade, downspout runouts and what past water has left on the wall. Then radon, because Marion County sits in EPA Zone 1 and the chase for a passive stack is cheap while the slab is open and awkward once the walls are closed. A wall that leaks gets its own line on the estimate and its own week on site, ahead of the framing rather than behind it.
Clay, radon and a river running through the middle of it
Washington Township runs from 38th Street north to the county line at 96th, with the White River and the Central Canal cutting down the west side and Fall Creek along the east. The subsoil is heavy clay that holds water against a foundation instead of letting it drain, frost goes down roughly thirty to thirty-six inches, and Marion County sits in the highest EPA radon zone. None of that changes what a finished room looks like. All of it changes what has to happen before the framing starts.
Radon Zone 1
Marion County is in the EPA's Zone 1, the highest of the three, where roughly one home in three tests at or above the 4 pCi/L action level. It becomes a design question the moment a basement turns into a room somebody sleeps in.
Clay that holds water
Expansive clay keeps water against the foundation rather than draining it away, and freeze-thaw down to thirty to thirty-six inches drives seasonal movement. Grade, downspout runouts and where a window well actually drains get settled before anything is framed against that wall.
The river and the canal
Warfleigh, Rocky Ripple and the streets off the canal towpath sit low and close to water. We check the address against the current flood map, and the foundation walls for what past water has already left behind, before quoting a below-grade room.
Towns inside the township
Meridian Hills, Williams Creek, Crows Nest, North Crows Nest, Wynnedale and Rocky Ripple are incorporated towns sitting inside Washington Township. The building permit still comes from the county, but street and right-of-way use is worth a call to the town rather than an assumption.
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.
Washington Township and around it
- Nora
- Broad Ripple
- Meridian-Kessler
- Butler-Tarkington
- Allisonville
- Williams Creek
We are based in Fishers, about 20 minutes from Washington 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 Washington Township homeowners ask us
Why does the township matter?
It is how Marion County residents actually describe where they live, and it lines up with the assessor and the school district. For permitting it does not change anything — Marion County's DBNS issues throughout.
Does the age of the house change the cost?
Substantially, and Washington Township spans both ends of it. A pre-war house near Kessler and a 1970s ranch further north are different jobs with different risks behind the wall, even for the same finished room.
How far is Washington Township from your shop?
Fifteen to twenty-five minutes depending on which end. It is one of the areas we work in most often outside Hamilton County, with no travel charge.
My neighbor's radon test came back low. Do I still need one?
Zone 1 is a county-wide rating, not a street-by-street one, and the number varies house to house with the soil, the slab and how your own heating pulls air through the place. A neighbor's result tells you nothing about yours. Get a test before the plan is fixed rather than after, and if a passive stack is wanted, the chase is cheap while the slab is open.
I have a Meridian Hills address. Do I get my permit from the town?
No. The incorporated towns inside the township were folded into the consolidated city-county for building purposes, so a remodel there takes the same county permit and the same review time as any other Washington Township address. What a town office can still have a say in is street and right-of-way use, a dumpster or a delivery blocking the road, so we ask before the container arrives rather than after.
Is Meridian-Kessler or Butler-Tarkington a historic district?
Not in the regulatory sense. Neither is one of the thirteen districts the Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission designates, so a kitchen or bathroom here does not need a Certificate of Appropriateness, and IHPC review is aimed at the exterior in any case. A neighborhood association or a deed covenant can still have a view on windows, siding or a rear addition. We check the address against the district map rather than the neighborhood name.
Should I do the kitchen and the upstairs bathroom at the same time?
In these pre-war houses the two rooms often stack on one wet wall, so frequently yes. One demolition, one trip through plan review, one round of dust, and the plumbing in that wall gets opened once instead of twice. It is more in one year and less across both. We tell you at the walkthrough whether your two rooms are genuinely related or only adjacent.
Can an egress window be cut in the middle of winter?
Interior work runs year-round. The excavation does not always. Frost reaches roughly thirty to thirty-six inches here, this clay comes out in frozen lumps that are slower to dig and heavier to haul, and a machine on saturated clay does its own damage to a lawn. We schedule the cut around a thaw and say so at the walkthrough rather than once the schedule is agreed.
Four steps, from the first call to the last walkthrough in Washington 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 Washington 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.