The older streets around City Centre hold some of the city’s earliest housing. Post-war bungalows, 1960s builds, plenty of them still wearing original cladding under a layer or two of later material. When owners finally take that off, one of the first questions is whether the city needs to be involved.
The answer depends on how much you’re doing.
Surrey doesn’t treat a patch and a full rebuild the same way. The City’s own permit guidance lists minor exterior repairs among the jobs that don’t need a permit. Replace a few damaged boards. Fix a section of trim. You’re generally in that category.
A full re-clad is a different animal, particularly when the work involves structural repairs, sheathing replacement, or changes to the wall assembly. That’s when it’s worth confirming rather than assuming.
On a house from the 1950s, the tear-off rarely stops at the siding. Once the old material is off, you often find damaged sheathing. Framing that needs work. A wall with no drainage gap behind it at all. The scope grows, and so does the case for a permit.
There’s also the hazardous materials question. WorkSafeBC requires a qualified person to survey a building before any renovation or demolition that could disturb hazardous materials. There’s no cutoff year in the rule. But asbestos was common in building products into the late 1980s, so it matters most on homes like these.
Homeowners sometimes sort permits out themselves. That’s fine, but it’s slower and easier to get wrong. A contractor who works here regularly already knows where the line sits. They confirm the project before the first panel comes off.
If you want more details here, the terms are worth comparing. In-house crews rather than subcontractors. Written fixed quotes. Zero deposit, and no final payment until you’re satisfied. There’s also WorkSafeBC clearance C136733062 and two million dollars in liability coverage behind the work.
One more thing. Ask who is pulling the permit if one is needed. A contractor who handles it is saving you a trip and a wait. A contractor who wants you to handle it is worth a second look.
One thing specific to older homes around here: you may have more than one generation of siding on the wall. Someone in 1978 decided it was easier to go over the top than to tear off.
So the quote you get before anything comes off is partly a guess. A good contractor will say so. They’ll tell you what the range looks like depending on what’s underneath. A contractor who gives you a confident single number on a layered wall is either unusually experienced or not thinking about it.
Ask three things. Does this project need a permit, and who’s pulling it? Does the quote include the hazardous materials survey? And what happens to the price if the sheathing turns out to be damaged? The City of Surrey publishes its residential permit requirements online, so you can check the general shape of the answer yourself before the conversation.
Straight answers to all three are a decent proxy for how the rest of the job will go.