Home Repair Tips

Leave your home repair tips here.

Home Inspections

• Pierre Lacombe (the "deal killer") is fantastic and thorough. Inspections run about $500. Contact: Metro Home Inspections, 604-240-5174. [Recommended by Steve and Rachel, 2006.]

Drainage (drain tiles)

Have advice on good places to get your drain tiles done? Please leave it here!

For a broad listing of contractors, try the Yellow Pages listing for "Drainage Contractors".

• Cambie Roofing and Drainage. From Will: We are having our drain tiles replaced around half the perimeter of our house as we speak. The people that are doing it are Cambie Roof and Drain (I think that's the name). They've done stuff for us before and they're good, but maybe not the cheapest. I would use them again. [Summer 2006]

• House Smart Drainage (operated by Avante Construction). Larry Thomas, Project Manager. 604 599 8825. avantegroup@telusDELETEthisTEXT.net. Paul Harrison found them through the Shell Busey website. Paul's comments: Not only was the price lower than either of the quotes from last year but the work started on time, took little time, and did barely any damage to my garden. From what I can tell the job was done properly - one set of pipes lower down to collect ground water, a second set shallower to collect the downspout water, and a sump all tied into the main sewer (some houses have separate sewer and drain lines to the street). With the foundation being sealed now we can tell the difference in the basement when it rains - no more damp smell. That said, the job wasn't cheap. [Summer 2006]

• A-1 Drainage Plumbing & Heating Ltd. Peter Campa (Owner). 604-329-7672. Karon had drain tile work done by them. Here's her comments: we had A-1 Drainage just carry out a fairly multi-faceted redesign of the drainage system along the front of our house. they didn't do most of the initial design (we considered several quite different approaches with our general contractor) but i think they added something to the discussion and were considered the experts in terms of approving viability of final plan and execution. they were pretty quick in and out once they got going. note that our GC prepared and closed up the site, which was about 1.5 weeks worth of really ugly (rocky soil) hand excavation; A-1 only did the actual plumbing work which is probably the cost effective way to go. since this work was completed last week, i can't vouch for effectiveness, but they certainly have a good reputation. probably not the cheapest in town. [summer 2006]

Plumbers

Any recommendations on good plumbers?

• Sam from Avante plumbing (604-738-9227) came recommended by Pierre the Deal Killer (see inspectors above). Steve and Rachel heard from friends about him rapidly (and cheaply) diagnosing and fixing a sewer backup. We'll likely use him for part of our plumbing on our house in July-August of 2006. More on the results later.

Miscellaneous

Please move these into categories as needed.

• Nirbhai Virk (604)436-4673, N V ELECTRICAL/HEATING & APPLIANCE REPAIRS. Recommended by Deb Wilson's father as a general "handy man".