01Basement apartments
We turned the basement into a unit for my mother-in-law. She has her own entrance and her own kitchen, and we still get Sunday dinners. The paperwork I was dreading turned out to be the part I thought about least.
Rooms · 08 · A second unit, made legal
Legal Basement Apartments in Mississauga
Legal basement apartments in Mississauga are plumbed and wired as a home of their own, with drains and supply lines kept apart from the floor above and an electrical permit for the unit itself.
- Licensed builder
- WSIB
- Years building
- 15+
- Houses completed
- 300+
What’s included
What a second
unit takes.
Taken in turn, these parts make a second dwelling out of a finished basement.
A separate entrance
A separate door and stair sit at a spot zoning permits for an entrance, so nobody crosses the house above to get in.
Its own kitchen and bathroom
Drains and supply lines for the unit run apart from the floor above, and it has plumbing and electrical to itself.
Fire separation, smoke alarms and egress windows
Bedroom windows big enough to get out through, interconnected smoke alarms, and a rated separation dividing the two units.
Permits and inspections for a legal unit
On a lot zoning allows, a building permit comes with staged inspections, plus a separate electrical permit.
How it runs
One bay of it,
stage by stage.
Rooms and whole houses share five stages in an identical order, and one builder answers for each.
- 01
Permits
Zoning is checked first, then the building permit, because not every lot qualifies.
- 02
Structure
Framing is where the walls and ceiling that sit between the units become fire separations.
- 03
Trades
The house above stays separate: supply lines, drains and shut-off valves are run, then the unit’s wiring.
- 04
Finishes
Alarms are wired through both units, then the kitchen, bathroom and floors go in.
- 05
Handover
Until the permit is closed at the final inspection, no one moves in.
Why Hanna Homes
Why one builder
for all of it.
Up front, a builder settles what a second unit expects.
Work is scheduled toward the final inspection. Until the unit passes it, nobody can occupy it, and the tenant’s date takes second place.
Like any dwelling, the unit has a fire separation, plumbing and an electrical permit of its own. Putting a kitchen into a finished basement would not give it those.
A single plan covers the fire separation with the interconnected smoke alarms, and a single inspection does too, so neither is left to the end.
A street-facing elevation may have no more than one exterior entrance, which puts the separate door ahead of the stair and grading.
Start with a call.
Client reviews
Their house,
their words.
Whole homes and single rooms, in the words of the people who live in them.
02Whole home
We put off the whole house for years because we couldn’t picture living through it. Akram walked us through every stage before it started, and each week went the way he said it would.
03Kitchens
The crew covered the floors and cleaned up at the end of every day, which mattered with two kids at home. The new kitchen is the room everyone ends up in now. Worth every week of takeout.
04Custom homes
Building a new house was the biggest decision we’ve ever made, and it never felt rushed. We walked the site most Saturdays and always knew exactly where things stood.
05Additions
We needed more room but didn’t want to leave the street. The second storey went on over the summer, and from the sidewalk you’d think the house was always built that way.
06Bathrooms
One bathroom is a small job for a builder, but they treated it like the whole house. The tile lines up, the door finally closes properly, and they finished the week they said they would.
07Knockdown & rebuild
Our old bungalow wasn’t worth saving, so we took it down and built new on the same lot. They kept the neighbours in the loop from demolition to the final walk-through. We love coming home to it.
08Basements
The basement used to be storage and a furnace. Now it’s a family room the kids actually want to be in. A clear quote, no surprises, and the site was swept every night.
09Whole home
We bought an older house knowing it needed everything. Akram was straight with us from the first visit about what was worth keeping. Every room is new to us now, and it still feels like the house we fell for.
10Kitchens
Third builder we spoke to, and the only one who returned every call. When we changed our minds about the island halfway through, they made it work without any drama.
01 / 10
Projects
Selected work,
inside and out.
Three rooms are done: a kitchen, a basement and a bath. So are two whole homes, a new house and a bungalow.
01Whole-Home Renovations
A bungalow, renewed in limewash.
Brick is limewashed, windows go floor to ceiling, cedar is under the eaves and an oak door faces a limestone forecourt.
01 / 05
Gallery
From the street
to the basement.
Every service is covered, street to basement. A tap on any picture shows it whole.Each picture opens in full. Whole homes lead in street views, then come kitchens, bathrooms and basements.
Seen one
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you like?
13 pictures: Whole homes · Kitchens · Bathrooms · Basements
Service area
Within an hour
of Burlington.
Towns we build in
- 01BurlingtonHaltonHome base
- 02HamiltonHamiltonby Hwy 403, 15 min, 18 km by road, approximately
- 03OakvilleHaltonby the QEW, 20 min, 24 km by road, approximately
- 04AncasterHamiltonby Hwy 403, 25 min, 28 km by road, approximately
- 05MiltonHaltonby Hwy 407, 30 min, 30 km by road, approximately
- 06MississaugaPeelby Hwy 407 and Hwy 403, 30 min, 41 km by road, approximately
- 07CambridgeWaterloo Regionby Hwy 8 and Hwy 5, 45 min, 51 km by road, approximately
- 08KitchenerWaterloo Regionby Hwy 6 and Hwy 401, 55 min, 72 km by road, approximately
And anywhere else inside the line.
Common questions
Common questions
in Mississauga.
What Mississauga homeowners ask about basement apartments: what it costs, how long it takes and what the city asks for.
Mississauga says creating or registering a second unit can mean paying for a building permit, fire inspection fees and professional design work, on top of the free registration. Those sit beside the construction costs: the separate entrance, the unit's kitchen and bathroom, and the fire separation. No figure is quoted until the plan exists.
Three review steps sit in front of the build: the design work, the building permit and the fire inspection. The city asks for scaled drawings of the existing basement and the proposed unit before applying, so the drawings come first. Construction follows approval, and registration with the city closes the job.
A building permit, because Mississauga lists finishing a basement to create living space as permit work, and a unit is more than a finish. The unit must also meet the Ontario Building Code and Fire Code, which brings fire inspection, and it is registered with the city. Hanna Homes sees the permit through.
Mississauga's own steps are a building permit, a fire inspection that can carry fees, and registration of the unit with the city, which is free. The permit comes from scaled drawings of the existing basement and the proposed unit, so those are prepared first. The build then follows the Building Code and Fire Code that Mississauga says every second unit must meet.
On the proposed side of the scaled drawings, because the door is a change to the house. The house as it stands is drawn first, and the entrance, with any stair or walkout it needs, is drawn as the change. That drawing also settles whether ground outside the house is opened, since the entrance shapes the plan of the whole unit.
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Get a free estimatePeople also ask
Before you build,
people in Mississauga ask.
What people in Mississauga search before basement apartments, answered for the town.
Registration is free, but Mississauga says creating or registering a second unit can mean a building permit, fire inspection fees and design work. The unit has to meet the Ontario Building Code and Ontario Fire Code first. Whether a house qualifies is checked before design.
Drawings to scale, in metric, that clearly show what exists in the basement and the changes proposed. For a unit those changes are the entrance, the kitchen and bathroom and the fire separation, so all of them are drawn before the application goes in.
It is a fee as well as a check: Mississauga says a second unit can mean paying fire inspection fees. The inspection looks at the unit against the Fire Code, which is why the fire separation, the alarms and the exits are drawn in at the design stage and built to match.
Good to know
Good to know
about legal basement apartments in Mississauga.
What changes the work in Mississauga: the rules, the houses and the ground.
Legal basement apartment permits in Mississauga
Mississauga lists finishing a basement to create rooms or living space as work that needs a building permit, and a second unit is more than a finish. The city also says all second units must meet the Ontario Building Code and Ontario Fire Code, so the scope carries code-driven fire and construction details that a standard basement does not.
On top of the permit there can be fire inspection fees and design work, and the unit is then registered. Those are separate steps, each with its own lead time, which is why the drawings and the permit come before construction.
Building a secondary suite in Mississauga, entrance to egress
The suite has its own entrance, kitchen and bathroom, and its plumbing, electrical and ventilation are sized for a second household and scheduled by the builder. That puts it closer to a small home built inside a house than to a finished basement, and it is why the work is planned as its own job, with the entrance, the kitchen and bath and the fire separation decided together.
Mississauga's drawings requirement asks for scaled drawings that show what exists and what is proposed, which adds a design step ahead of demolition. Fire separation, smoke alarms and egress windows are drawn in at that stage.
Source: City of Mississauga: residential interior alteration drawings
Basement second unit in Mississauga: where the cost sits
Creating or registering a second unit can mean a building permit, fire inspection fees and professional design work on top of the free registration. Add the entrance, the unit's kitchen and bath and the fire separation, and the cost is one that a plain basement finish does not carry.
The permit, fire inspection and design steps add scope and lead time before construction. The schedule is therefore front-loaded: the design and permit stages come first, ahead of any construction.
What a legal unit adds to a basement finish in Mississauga
A finish adds rooms to the house. A legal unit makes a separate home inside it, with its own entrance, a fire separation from the house above, smoke alarms wired to each other and egress for its own occupants. In Mississauga that difference shows up as extra permit, fire inspection and design steps.
Whether a house can take a unit is checked before design: zoning has to allow a second unit, and the separate entrance and the egress the code needs have to fit.
Other services
Other services,
same builder.
The other rooms we take on, with the same builder from the first call to handover.
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Tell us about the house and who the unit is for, and we start with whether the lot and the zoning allow it.
Licensed builder
Burlington, Ontario
15+ years
Building
300+ houses
Completed