Service areas · Metro Vancouver & the Fraser Valley
Roofing across Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley and the wider Lower Mainland
We roof twenty municipalities across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, from West Vancouver to Chilliwack. Between the driest and the wettest places we work, annual rainfall very nearly doubles, and the ground runs from exposed delta farmland to steep, shaded mountainside, so the same roof does not behave the same way at both ends of it.
The inspection is free in every one of them, and the specification, materials and written warranty are identical wherever the house is.
- 10-year workmanship warranty, in writing
- 500+ roofing jobs
- WorkSafeBC registered
- $5M liability insured
- GAF certified
- Brava Preferred Contractor
- ICBA & BBB member
Why local matters
The Lower Mainland is not one roofing market.
Roofing companies here publish the same page twenty times with the city name swapped. The variables that decide what a roof needs change dramatically over short distances.
Rainfall very nearly doubles across the region. Environment and Climate Change Canada's published climate normals put Vancouver International Airport at 1,189 mm a year and Abbotsford Airport at 1,538 mm in the 1981 to 2010 normals, and Surrey Kwantlen Park at 1,562 mm, Mission West Abbey at 1,883 mm, Burnaby's Simon Fraser University station at 2,010 mm and North Vancouver Sonora Drive at 2,356 mm in the 1981 to 2007 normals. A roof on the upper North Shore does close to twice the work of the same roof built the same week beside the airport. Behind the North Shore, where nobody lives, the Seymour Falls station in the watershed records 3,979 mm: the clearest measure of which way the gradient runs.
Tree cover decides moss, and moss decides lifespan. Moss needs moisture that never quite dries, so a north slope under mature conifers stays damp from October to May while the south slope of the same roof stays clear. That makes moss a defining problem in Port Moody, Anmore, Mission and the North Shore, and a minor one in Delta and Tsawwassen.
Housing stock changes what is up there. New Westminster has the region's oldest houses. Much of Surrey and Langley went up between the late 1970s and the early 2000s and is at the twenty-five-year mark now. West Vancouver and the Vancouver west side hold most of the remaining cedar. Richmond and Ladner are full of low-slope ranchers.
Exposure changes the failure mode. Wind off the Strait lifts shingles on the delta and the Semiahmoo bluff; outflow winds funnel down the eastern valley. Sheltered, shaded neighbourhoods almost never lose a shingle and rot their decks from the inside instead.
Vancouver and the North Shore
The wet end of the region.
Vancouver
No station in the city itself publishes normals; the nearest that does, Vancouver International Airport, records 1,189 mm of precipitation a year in the 1981 to 2010 normals. The housing runs from pre-war character homes with steep pitches and complicated dormers to flat-roofed modern infill, and a great many houses here are both at once: a sloped front roof with a low-slope section hidden behind it.
North Vancouver
The wettest place we work, and not one climate but several: in the 1981 to 2007 normals the North Vancouver Wharves station at the waterfront records 1,725 mm a year, North Vancouver 2nd Narrows 1,831 mm and North Vancouver Sonora Drive, up the slope, 2,356 mm. That spread inside one municipality is the story. Roofs on the north-facing, forested slopes below the mountains stay damp for months, which makes moss, ventilation and underlayment quality matter far more here than shingle brand does.
West Vancouver
Steep rocky slopes, heavy conifer cover and a lot of architect-designed houses with complex roof geometry and long flat sections. This is cedar country: more original cedar shake survives here than anywhere else in the region, which makes cedar conversions and composite shake a recurring conversation.
Burnaby, New Westminster and the Tri-Cities
Hillsides, trees and post-war stock.
Burnaby
Two stations, and the higher one is the wetter: Burnaby Capitol Hill records 1,946 mm a year in the 1981 to 2001 normals and the Simon Fraser University station on Burnaby Mountain 2,010 mm in the 1981 to 2007 normals: both above Abbotsford, despite Burnaby being nearer the coast. Built across two hills, so exposure changes street by street: an open ridge-top roof and a shaded north slope on Burnaby Mountain wear at completely different rates. Much of the detached stock dates from the 1950s through the 1980s and is on its second or third roof.
New Westminster
The oldest housing stock in the region, much of it on a steep hillside running down to the Fraser. Heritage-era houses here have steep pitches, multiple dormers and valleys, and original details worth matching rather than simplifying, which makes flashing work the biggest part of the job.
Coquitlam
The land rises from the Fraser flats up toward the mountains, and rainfall and tree cover rise with it. Roofs in the older neighbourhoods near the river behave quite differently from those in the heavily treed developments further north.
Port Coquitlam
Flatter and lower than its neighbours, sitting where the Coquitlam and Pitt rivers meet the Fraser. Plenty of ranchers and split-levels from the 1960s and 1970s, which in practice means long simple slopes and low-slope additions over carports and family rooms.
Port Moody
Tucked at the head of the inlet with steep, densely forested slopes on both sides. Shade and conifer debris are the defining problem: needles fill gutters and valleys, moss takes hold on north slopes, and a roof that is never swept ages years faster than one that is.
Anmore
Large wooded lots on the slopes above Port Moody, with mature second-growth forest right up against most houses. Overhanging limbs, constant needle fall and deep shade make debris clearance and moss control the recurring work here, alongside long driveways that decide how a bin gets in.
South of the Fraser
Delta, Surrey, Langley and the coast.
Surrey
The Surrey Kwantlen Park station records 1,562 mm a year in the 1981 to 2007 normals. The largest area we cover and the least uniform: Cloverdale, Fleetwood, Newton, Guildford and South Surrey each have their own era of construction. Much of it was built between the late 1970s and the early 2000s: precisely the stock now reaching the twenty-five-year replacement point.
Richmond
The driest part of Metro Vancouver, and measured twice: Vancouver International Airport, on Sea Island, records 1,189 mm a year in the 1981 to 2010 normals (the lowest figure on our coverage map) and Richmond Nature Park 1,262 mm in the 1981 to 2007 normals. It is also the flattest: almost entirely at or below sea level, with nothing to break the wind off the Strait. Low-slope ranchers and flat-roofed additions are everywhere, so torch-on membrane work is a bigger share of the job here than anywhere else.
Delta
Two different places on one roofing map, both on the dry side: the nearest station with normals is Vancouver International Airport at 1,189 mm a year (1981 to 2010). North Delta sits on a treed hillside above the Fraser; Ladner is flat, open farmland where wind exposure across an unbroken field is the main threat to shingles and ridge caps.
Tsawwassen
The most exposed corner of the region and one of the driest, on the point between the Strait and Boundary Bay in the lee of Vancouver Island. No station out here publishes normals; the airport across the water, at 1,189 mm a year (1981 to 2010), is the nearest that does. Sun and salt air do more here than rain does, and wind uplift on ridges and rakes is the failure worth engineering against rather than moss.
White Rock
Surrey Kwantlen Park, the nearest station with normals, records 1,562 mm a year (1981 to 2007). Built on a steep slope facing Semiahmoo Bay, with older bungalows near the waterfront and much larger houses on the upper streets. South-facing roofs take full sun and onshore wind, which is a different ageing pattern from the shaded, sheltered roofs a few kilometres inland.
Langley
No Langley station publishes normals; Abbotsford Airport, next door, records 1,538 mm a year (1981 to 2010). The City is compact; the Township is large, rural and open. Out on the acreages a roof has no windbreak, so ridge, hip and rake detailing carries the load. Newer subdivisions in Willoughby and Walnut Grove are now old enough to be replacing their original roofs.
Ridge Meadows and the Fraser Valley
Where the valley narrows.
Maple Ridge
Running from the Fraser up into the forested foothills, and two stations measure the climb: Haney East records 1,788 mm a year and the UBC Research Forest, further north and higher, 2,180 mm, both in the 1981 to 2007 normals. Debris and moss dominate the maintenance conversation, and the further north a house sits the more of both it gets.
Pitt Meadows
The Pitt Polder station records 2,155 mm a year in the 1981 to 2007 normals: wetter than anywhere south of the Fraser. Flat floodplain between the Pitt and the Fraser, largely agricultural and almost entirely open. Wind crosses it unobstructed, which makes edge metal, starter courses and ridge cap fastening the details that decide whether a roof survives a January storm intact.
Mission
The Mission West Abbey station records 1,883 mm a year in the 1981 to 2007 normals. Built on a steep hillside on the north bank of the Fraser, heavily treed, with a lot of north-facing slopes that see little direct sun through the winter. Those are the roofs where moss establishes first and where ventilation problems show up as a damp deck rather than a leak.
Abbotsford
Abbotsford Airport records 1,538 mm of precipitation a year in the 1981 to 2010 normals. The city spans the bench above the valley and the open flats of Sumas Prairie below it, and those two halves face opposite problems: shaded, treed streets up top, and unbroken wind exposure across the prairie.
Chilliwack
The Sardis station, in Chilliwack, records 1,538 mm a year in the 1981 to 2007 normals: the same figure as Abbotsford, at the point where the valley narrows toward the canyon. Winter outflow winds funnelling west down the valley are a genuine local factor here, and they test the same edge and ridge details that wind exposure tests out on the delta.
The same everywhere
What does not change with the postcode.
Local conditions change what a roof needs. They do not change what we do, what we charge for travel, or what we stand behind afterwards.
- The inspection is free in all twenty municipalities, and travel is never a line on the quote. What moves the price is the roof: size, pitch, access, existing layers, material.
- The same specification applies everywhere: synthetic underlayment, peel-and-stick at every penetration, custom 26-gauge flashings and valleys, and new vents sized to the roof.
- The same written warranty applies everywhere: ten years on our workmanship for shingle, metal, cedar and composite, five on torch-on and flat, with the manufacturer's product warranty running separately. The warranty page sets out what each covers.
- The permit is included where the municipality requires one. The rules differ across the region and it is our job to know which apply to your address.
We are WorkSafeBC registered, carry five million dollars of liability insurance, are GAF certified, and belong to the ICBA and the BBB. Just outside these twenty municipalities? Call and ask, but we will say no to a roof too far out to return to promptly under warranty.
Questions
Service areas, plainly answered.
What areas do you cover?
Twenty municipalities across Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley: Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, New Westminster, Langley, Delta, Tsawwassen, White Rock, Maple Ridge, Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack and Anmore. That is roughly a hundred kilometres of the Lower Mainland, from the Strait of Georgia to the eastern end of the Fraser Valley.
Does rainfall really differ that much across the Lower Mainland?
It very nearly doubles. Environment and Climate Change Canada's climate normals put Vancouver International Airport, in Richmond, at 1,189 mm of precipitation a year and Abbotsford Airport at 1,538 mm in the 1981 to 2010 normals, and Surrey Kwantlen Park at 1,562 mm, Mission West Abbey at 1,883 mm, Burnaby's Simon Fraser University station at 2,010 mm and North Vancouver Sonora Drive at 2,356 mm in the 1981 to 2007 normals. A roof on the upper North Shore is doing close to twice the work of the same roof beside the airport, and it reaches the end of its life sooner. Some of our twenty cities (Coquitlam, Port Moody, Anmore, New Westminster, West Vancouver) have no station with published normals at all, so we bracket those between the stations around them rather than quote a figure.
How long does a roof last in this region?
About twenty-five years is what we see across the Lower Mainland, and that is shorter than the number printed on most shingle wrappers. Exposure decides where a given roof sits in that range: shade, overhanging conifers, rainfall and ventilation matter more than the brand on the bundle. A shaded North Shore roof under cedars ages differently from an exposed roof in Tsawwassen.
Do you charge extra to come out to the Fraser Valley?
No. The inspection is free everywhere we work, from West Vancouver through to Chilliwack, and travel is not a line on the quote. What does change the price between areas is the roof itself: size, pitch, access, the number of existing layers and the material, not the postcode.
Are permit rules the same in every municipality?
No, and that is one of the practical reasons local knowledge matters. A like-for-like residential re-roof usually needs no building permit here, but structural work does, and street-use rules for a disposal bin differ between Vancouver, Burnaby, Surrey, Richmond, Abbotsford and the rest. Where a permit is needed, it is included in the quoted price rather than added afterwards.
Why does moss grow so much worse on some streets than others?
Shade and tree cover, almost entirely. Moss needs moisture that does not dry off, so a north-facing slope under a mature conifer stays damp for months while the south slope of the same roof stays clear. That is why moss is a defining problem in Port Moody, Anmore, Maple Ridge, Mission and much of the North Shore, and a much smaller one on exposed lots in Richmond, Delta and Tsawwassen.
Do you work outside these twenty municipalities?
These twenty are where we work routinely and where we can schedule reliably. If you are just outside that list, call and ask rather than assuming the answer is no. What we will not do is take on a roof so far out that we cannot get back promptly under warranty, because a workmanship warranty is only worth the travel time behind it.
Is the whole region covered by the same crews and the same warranty?
Yes. The same specification, the same materials and the same written warranty apply everywhere we work: ten years on our workmanship for shingle, metal, cedar and composite roofs, and five years on torch-on and flat membrane work, with the manufacturer's product warranty running separately alongside it.
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