Roof replacement · Metro Vancouver & the Fraser Valley
Roof replacement in Metro Vancouver: what happens, in what order, and how long it takes
A roof replacement is a full tear-off: every existing layer comes off down to the plywood, the deck is inspected and repaired, and a complete new roof system goes back on in one continuous operation. On a standard Lower Mainland home that takes one to three days, and two to four for a larger, steeper, cedar, re-decked or winter roof.
The price is fixed in writing before the first shingle moves, and the only things quoted separately are the ones nobody can see until the old roof is off.
The work itself
What a full roof replacement involves, start to finish.
Roof replacement services are sold as a single product and delivered as about a dozen separate operations, each of which can be done well or cut short. Here is the whole sequence, in the order it happens on the house.
Set up and protect
Tarps over landscaping, decks and the driveway, plywood against anything that would be damaged by a dropped bundle, and the disposal bin positioned so the tear-off has somewhere to go that is not your lawn. A crew that starts stripping before this is done is a crew you will be arguing with on day three.
Strip the roof to the deck
Shingles, underlayment, old flashings, old vents, ridge caps and every nail left behind. Flashings are not reused. Stripping is normally done slope by slope rather than all at once, so that the amount of open deck at any moment is the amount that can be covered again before the weather turns.
Inspect the sheathing
This is the only moment in the life of a house when the deck is visible, and it is the reason a tear-off beats roofing over. Soft, darkened or delaminated plywood is marked and replaced. Sound plywood is re-nailed where fasteners have backed out.
Edge metal, ice and water shield, underlayment
Drip edge at the eaves and rakes, peel-and-stick membrane at the eaves, valleys and every penetration, then synthetic underlayment across the field. This is the layer nobody ever sees and the layer that decides whether a windstorm becomes a leak.
Flashings and valleys
Custom 26-gauge metal bent for your roof: step flashing up walls and dormers, counter-flashing, valley metal, and the transition where a low-slope section meets a sloped one. Corner-cutting on flashing details is the single most common failure we find behind other roofers' work, which is why it gets its own stage rather than being folded into the shingling.
Lay the field
Starter course, then the chosen product installed to the manufacturer's published specification — the right nail count, in the right zone of the shingle, with the right exposure. Deviating from that specification is what voids a manufacturer warranty, and it is invisible from the ground forever afterwards.
Ventilation and penetrations
New Duraflo 50 vents sized to the roof at roughly one per five squares, new pipe jacks, new bath fan and HVAC flashings. The old vents go in the bin with the old shingles. Reusing a fifteen-year-old vent under a new roof is a guaranteed callback.
Hip and ridge, then clean up
New hip and ridge cap to finish, then debris removal, gutters cleared of tear-off grit, and a magnet sweep of the perimeter. The last thing that happens is a walk round with you, not an invoice through the door.
Timeline
One to three days, and what pushes it to four.
A standard detached home in Burnaby, Surrey, Coquitlam or East Vancouver — a simple gable or hip roof, one existing layer, ground-level access on at least two sides — is a one to three day job. Day one is set-up, tear-off and dry-in. Day two is flashings, field and vents. Day three, if it is needed, is the ridge, the details and the clean-up.
The house is watertight at the end of every one of those days. Nobody goes home leaving open plywood over your bedroom because the light went. That is what the dry-in stage is for.
Five things reliably turn a three-day roof into a four-day roof, and all five are visible before we start, which is why they are named in the quote rather than discovered on the Thursday.
- Size. More squares is more days, in a fairly straight line. A large Fraser Valley rancher can be more roof than a tall, narrow Vancouver special.
- Pitch. A steep roof is slower per square because the crew is working on a rope system rather than standing on it, and material has to be carried rather than slid.
- Cedar. A cedar tear-off produces far more waste volume than an asphalt one and is always followed by a new plywood deck, which is a full extra stage. See how a cedar roof conversion works.
- A re-deck. Replacing sheathing across a whole slope, or the whole roof, adds a day on its own.
- Winter. The working day is short and the roof has to be dry to bond peel-and-stick, so the same job runs in shorter, more numerous days.
Complexity matters more than square footage on the short jobs. Dormers, valleys, a chimney and a low-slope section behind the main roof all add hours of detail work to a roof that looks small from the street.
Scope
What is in the price, and what is priced at the inspection.
The most useful thing a roof replacement contractor can give you is not a low number. It is a clear line between what the number covers and what it does not, written down before you sign.
Included in every quoted roof replacement
- Removal of the existing roofing
- Ice and water shield and underlayment
- The chosen product installed to manufacturer specification
- New hip and ridge
- Existing attic vents removed and replaced with new
- New pipe jacks and flashings
- Full clean-up and removal of job debris
- The city permit where one is required
- Licensed, WorkSafeBC-registered and insured crews
- The written workmanship warranty
Quoted separately, at the inspection
- New decking, per sheet, only if rot is found
- More than one existing layer to tear off
- A second storey, or access that will not take a ladder or a bin
- An unusually complex roof
- Replacing skylights
- Chimney flashing
- Gutters
- Structural repairs
Every one of those is knowable before the work starts, which is why every one of them is priced up front rather than raised mid-job. Decking is the only item on the list that is genuinely conditional, and it is quoted at a fixed rate per sheet in advance so that the arithmetic is yours to check rather than ours to explain afterwards. The rates are set out in our guide to roof replacement cost in Metro Vancouver.
The question everybody asks
Does an older home need a new plywood deck?
It is one of the two questions that come up on nearly every quote call, and the honest answer is: probably not, and we will not know for certain until the old roof is off.
On roughly one tear-off in ten we find rot in the sheathing. When we do, it is usually a couple of sheets rather than a whole slope, and it is almost always around a penetration — a plumbing stack, a bathroom fan outlet, an old skylight curb, a chimney. Those are the places where water has had a small, slow route in for years without ever producing a stain anybody noticed.
The other nine roofs in ten have sheathing that is perfectly sound and needs nothing more than re-nailing where fasteners have backed out over twenty-five years of the plywood breathing.
Age alone does not decide it. A 1962 bungalow in Richmond with good ventilation and sound flashings will usually have a better deck than a 1998 house in North Vancouver where a bath fan has been venting into the attic for a decade.
Two things do change the answer reliably. The first is a cedar roof: cedar shakes were laid over spaced strapping rather than a solid deck, so a conversion to asphalt or metal always includes a full new plywood deck — not because the strapping has failed, but because there is nothing continuous up there to nail a modern roof to.
The second is a history of trapped moisture. If the attic smells damp, if there is frost on the nail tips in January, or if the insulation is matted down under the vents, expect the deck to be worse than the outside of the roof suggests.
Whatever is found comes with a photograph before it is replaced. Nobody should be asked to pay for sheathing they never saw.
The part nobody asks about
Ventilation is half of what a new roof is for.
A roof is not only a raincoat. It is the lid of a ventilated cavity, and if that cavity does not breathe, the new roof will age from underneath at a speed that has nothing to do with the quality of the shingle.
Warm, humid air from the house — showers, cooking, laundry, breathing — rises into the attic. If there is enough intake at the soffits and enough exhaust near the ridge, it leaves. If there is not, it condenses on the coldest surface it can find, which is the underside of the plywood you have just paid to keep. Over a few winters that plywood darkens, then delaminates, then softens. Homeowners read the result as a leak. Nothing is leaking.
The same failure works in reverse in July. Trapped heat in an unvented attic bakes the shingles from below and shortens their service life, which is one reason two identical roofs on the same street can look five years apart at twenty.
So on every replacement the existing vents come off and new ones go on, sized to the roof rather than copied from what was there: roughly one vent per five squares, using Duraflo 50 vents, plus new plumbing and HVAC flashings. Where the intake at the soffits is blocked with insulation or painted shut, we say so, because exhaust without intake moves nothing.
Insufficient ventilation is one of the three problems we find behind other roofers' work more than any others, alongside corner-cutting on flashing details and cheap underlayment. All three are invisible on the day the job finishes and all three decide what the roof looks like in year twelve.
The price
How a fixed roof replacement price is actually arrived at.
The other question on nearly every quote call is why roofing quotes for the same house differ so widely. They differ because most of them are not pricing the same job. Here is the sequence that turns a house into one fixed number.
1. The roof is measured, not guessed
From your address we measure the roof from satellite imagery: total area in squares, the pitch of each plane, the number of facets, the linear metres of ridge, hip, valley, eave and rake. That happens before anyone drives anywhere, and it is why our estimate arrives as a number rather than a promise to call back.
2. The material is chosen
Three families of product cover almost every house here, and they price very differently: asphalt shingle roofing in three tiers, 26-gauge snap-lock metal roofing, and two-ply SBS torch-on for the flat and low-slope sections. Most houses in this region need two of the three, because a flat section behind a sloped roof is extremely common.
3. The site is inspected
The free on-site inspection confirms the things imagery cannot see: how many layers are up there, whether a bin and a ladder can actually get where they need to be, the state of the chimney and the skylights, and what the attic and the existing ventilation are doing.
4. The conditional items are named in advance
Decking per sheet, a second layer, difficult access, skylights, chimney flashing. Each one is written into the quote with its own price, whether or not it ends up being used. A replacing-roof-shingles quote with no conditional section is not simpler than ours. It is just less finished.
5. You get one written number
Itemised, fixed, and not a range. It does not move once the crew arrives unless something named in step four turns out to apply, and in that case you see the photograph and the pre-agreed price at the same moment.
Why the quotes on your kitchen table disagree
Nine times out of ten the gap is scope, not margin. One quote includes the permit and the other does not. One replaces the vents and the other reuses them. One bends custom 26-gauge flashings and the other reuses the old ones with a bead of sealant. One assumes a tear-off and the other assumes an overlay. Lay them side by side against the included list above and the difference usually explains itself.
Where we work
Roof replacement services near you, from West Vancouver to Chilliwack.
Rain is not one number across this region, and roofs do not wear at one rate. Environment and Climate Change Canada's published climate normals put Richmond near 1,160 mm of precipitation a year, Abbotsford around 1,505, Vancouver Harbour 1,537, Chilliwack Airport near 1,668 and the Capilano station in North Vancouver above 2,500.
That spread is why a roof on the North Shore reaches the end of its life sooner than the same roof in Tsawwassen, and why a ventilation problem shows up faster in a wet, shaded neighbourhood than a dry, exposed one. It is also why the replacement conversation starts earlier in some municipalities than others.
Permit rules vary too. Most Lower Mainland municipalities require a permit for a full re-roof, and the process differs between them — the City of Vancouver publishes its requirements on its building permits pages. Where a permit is required, it is included in the price rather than added afterwards.
We replace roofs across Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, North and West Vancouver, New Westminster, Langley, Delta, Tsawwassen, White Rock, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack and Anmore. We are WorkSafeBC registered, carry five million dollars of liability insurance, are GAF certified, belong to the ICBA and the BBB, and have completed more than 500 roofs.
Questions
Roof replacement, plainly answered.
How long does a roof replacement take?
One to three days for a standard Lower Mainland home, from the first shingle coming off to the final magnet sweep. Two to four days is normal for a larger or steeper roof, a cedar tear-off, a roof that needs a full new plywood deck, or winter work where short daylight and wet weather break the days up. Almost every house is dried in and watertight at the end of each working day regardless of how many days the whole job runs.
What is included in a roof replacement price?
Removal of the existing roofing, ice and water shield and underlayment, the chosen product installed to manufacturer specification, new hip and ridge, existing attic vents replaced with new ones, new pipe jacks and flashings, full clean-up of job debris, the city permit where one is required, licensed and insured crews, and the workmanship warranty. What is not included is priced separately at the inspection: new decking if rot is found, a second existing layer to tear off, difficult access or a second storey, an unusually complex roof, skylight replacement, chimney flashing, gutters and structural repairs.
Do I need a new plywood deck when I replace my roof?
Usually not. On about one tear-off in ten we find rot in the sheathing, and it is normally a couple of sheets rather than the whole roof, almost always around a penetration such as a plumbing stack or a bathroom fan. The exception is a cedar roof: cedar shakes were installed over spaced strapping rather than solid plywood, so a cedar-to-asphalt conversion always includes a full new deck.
Can you tell me the price before you get on the roof?
Yes, closely. We measure the roof from satellite imagery using your address, so the area, the slope and the number of facets are known before anyone arrives. The on-site inspection then confirms the layer count, the access, the state of the flashings and the ventilation, and turns that measured estimate into one fixed written price. It is a fixed number rather than a range, and it does not move once the work starts unless something is found that was named as a possibility in writing beforehand.
Do I need a permit to replace my roof in Metro Vancouver?
In most municipalities here, yes, for a full re-roof. The requirement and the process differ between Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond and the rest, and it is our job to know which applies to your address. The permit is included in the quoted price where one is required, so it is not a surprise line on the invoice.
Can I put a new roof over the old shingles?
It is sometimes allowed and it is almost always a bad idea. Roofing over hides the deck, so nobody finds the rot until it is much worse; it adds weight; it makes the new shingles sit unevenly over the old pattern; and it means the flashings are rarely replaced properly. A full tear-off is what our quoted price assumes. If your roof already carries two layers, removing the second one is priced at the inspection.
What time of year is best for a roof replacement?
Any month works, but summer and early autumn give the longest dry windows and the fastest jobs. Winter replacements go ahead routinely in this region, they simply take longer, because the crew works around rain and shorter daylight and dries the roof in each evening. Waiting nine months with a roof that is already leaking costs more than the extra day a winter job takes.
What warranty comes with a new roof?
Ten years on our workmanship for shingle, metal, cedar and composite roofs, and five years on torch-on and flat membrane work. The manufacturer's own product warranty is a separate document with its own term and its own conditions, registered in your name. The two are never added together or quoted as one number.
Do you replace the ventilation as part of the job?
Yes. Existing attic vents are removed and replaced with new ones sized to the roof rather than matched to whatever was there, at roughly one vent per five squares, using Duraflo 50 vents, plus new plumbing and HVAC flashings. Insufficient ventilation is one of the three things we find behind other roofers' work most often, and it is what quietly ages a new roof from underneath.
Will you leave nails in my lawn?
No. Debris removal and a magnet sweep are part of every job and part of the quoted price. Tarps go down over landscaping before the tear-off starts, and the sweep is done at the end of each day rather than only at the end of the job, which matters on a three-day replacement with a driveway in use.
Next
Find out what replacing your roof would cost.
Type your address and we measure the roof from satellite imagery, then price a full replacement against what is up there now — by material, with the conditional items named. The number is on the screen before we ask you for anything, and the inspection that confirms it is free.