A postwar city, with older cores inside it
Ottawa’s housing profile is different from Toronto’s and it changes where the work is. Only 15.9 per cent of the city’s dwellings predate 1961, but the 1961 to 1980 band is the largest single cohort at 28.3 per cent, and 44.2 per cent of all Ottawa homes, roughly 180,000 dwellings, predate 1981. That is a very large stock of postwar and mid-century housing built with plywood subfloor nailed rather than glued to the joists, which is exactly the assembly that loosens. Inside that, the pre-war cores are concentrated and easy to identify: the Glebe was effectively full by 1940, Old Ottawa South is largely 1920s and 1930s Craftsman and Foursquare housing, and New Edinburgh’s build ran from the 1870s to 1914. Winters here are long and dry indoors, which drives more seasonal wood movement than a milder climate would.