Kitchen remodeling on Long Island

With 34%⁵ of Nassau homes built in the 1950s, a great many Long Island kitchens began as small closed rooms beside the living room. Removing that wall is permit work under the town's code. The Town of Hempstead requires a building permit before anyone starts erecting, enlarging or altering a building, but not for ordinary repairs that aren't structural.⁸

For homes built before 1978, the EPA advises hiring contractors who use only lead-safe certified renovators.¹¹ The EPA notes that painted window sashes and frames in homes built before 1978 may contain lead-based paint, which opening and closing the window can release as dust, and that a kitchen remodel may be a good time to replace old windows.¹¹

Under Hempstead's code, an owner can be held liable for work that lacks a required permit even if the work was already there when they took over the property.⁸ If an earlier owner moved the sink or added a circuit without a permit, a remodel is a likely time for it to surface, so ask the company to point out anything that looks unpermitted.

These are national model code rules; ask how your town's building department applies New York's code. The 2021 International Residential Code says a kitchen range exhaust must discharge outdoors through its own airtight duct with a backdraft damper, never into an attic, crawl space or other indoor area; listed ductless hoods are the exception.¹² In a one-story ranch the duct can run up through the attic to the outside; in a Cape, ask where it can exit before settling the range location.

The EPA notes that ASHRAE and the Home Ventilation Institute recommend a range hood of 100 cubic feet per minute for a typical range, and that larger fans may need makeup air so the house isn't depressurized enough to make combustion equipment backdraft.¹¹ Where a home has a fuel-burning appliance that is neither direct-vent nor mechanically vented, the 2021 International Residential Code requires makeup air for any exhaust system able to move more than 400 cubic feet per minute.¹³ An older oil boiler or water heater that vents up a chimney is the kind of appliance that rule has in mind.

The 2021 International Residential Code calls for at least two 20-ampere branch circuits for kitchen and dining-area receptacle outlets, and allows an outlet for a specific appliance to have its own circuit.¹⁴ The same code requires ground-fault (GFCI) protection on receptacles that serve kitchen countertop surfaces.¹⁵ A house still on its original electrical service may need a panel upgrade before the new appliances go in.

More than one in four adults 65 and older fall each year.¹⁶ The National Institute on Aging suggests keeping frequently used pots, pans and utensils where they are easy to reach, and preparing food while seated to prevent fatigue or loss of balance.¹⁷ A ranch keeps everything on one floor, and opening its kitchen also opens room to turn a walker or wheelchair.

NAHB's Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist (CAPS) credential trains remodelers in home modifications for aging in place.¹⁸ In a Cape, ask whether the plan leaves space for a first-floor bedroom later, since the kitchen is often the room that gives up the square footage.

Your call to the number on this page is recorded and put through to one independent company that handles kitchen remodels in the Long Island area. The design, schedule and price are between you and that company.

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Look up the company's county license before you sign. Nassau County's Office of Consumer Affairs licenses home improvement contractors, and its daily-updated lookup shows each license's status and what work the contractor's insurance does and doesn't cover.⁹ Suffolk County's License and Complaint Violation Look Up searches county license records, including home improvement, master plumbing and master electrical licenses, by license number, name, business name, phone or address, along with complaint and violation information.¹⁹ Check a New York license

A New York home improvement contractor must deposit payments received before the job is finished as the Lien Law requires, or instead give the owner a bond, contract of indemnity or irrevocable letter of credit, and the contract must tell the owner so.²⁰