Where we work

This is a service-area business rather than a showroom, so the map matters more than an address. The work runs the length of Central Vancouver Island's eastern side — Ladysmith and Chemainus at the southern end, Nanaimo in the middle, Parksville and Qualicum Beach at the northern edge. End to end it is a little over an hour's drive, and Nanaimo sits near the centre of it.

Nanaimo carries the most varied housing of anywhere in the area — pre-war cottages in the old core, a mid-century belt through Departure Bay and Brechin Hill, north-end subdivisions from the 1990s onward, and a downtown and waterfront made largely of strata buildings. It has a page of its own below.

What changes between communities is less about distance than about who has jurisdiction. A bathroom that moves plumbing or alters framing usually needs a building permit, and the office that issues it depends entirely on where the house sits. Nanaimo, Parksville and Ladysmith each have their own city or town hall, and Qualicum Beach and Lantzville do too at a smaller scale. Chemainus is part of the Municipality of North Cowichan. Cedar, South Wellington, Cassidy and Nanoose Bay are unincorporated, and their permits come from the Regional District of Nanaimo. Same building code, different counter — and the submission requirements are not identical between them.

The other thing that changes at the boundary is servicing. In the city and the towns, a bathroom connects to municipal water and sewer and the fixture count is not a question anyone asks. Out through Cedar, South Wellington, Cassidy and much of Nanoose Bay, a property is more likely to be on a private well and a septic system, and both put a real limit on what can be added. A second bathroom — or a first one in a space that never had plumbing — is a question about the septic system before it is a question about tile, and where the sewerage system itself has to change, that is a separate authorisation from the building permit.

Housing stock varies just as much. Ladysmith and Chemainus hold a large share of early twentieth-century houses, with the framing, drainage and floor structure that come with that age. Parksville and Qualicum Beach skew strongly toward retirement, and the brief there is often about staying in the house — level entries, blocking set in the wall for grab bars, comfort-height fixtures — rather than about a change of look. Nanoose Bay and Cedar run to acreage and larger detached homes. Lantzville is almost entirely detached, on the water side of the highway or the slope above it.

One thing does not vary anywhere in the area. The wet season on this coast is long and mild, and indoor humidity rarely drops far enough for a bathroom to dry out fully between uses. A shower assembly that would survive inland on grout and moisture-resistant board alone does not survive here. Continuous waterproofing behind the tile, detailed at corners and changes of plane, vapour control matched to the wall it sits in, and an exhaust fan actually ducted to the exterior — that combination is the same requirement on an acreage in Cassidy as it is in a downtown Nanaimo condo.

Ten communities are covered: Nanaimo, Lantzville, Nanoose Bay, Cedar, South Wellington, Cassidy, Parksville, Qualicum Beach, Chemainus and Ladysmith. Each has a page below setting out the housing, the jurisdiction and the constraints particular to it. If the property sits near the edge of that list, say where it is when you get in touch and whether it falls inside the area can be confirmed straight away.