Zavrick Contracting covers Burnaby end to end, from the Heights and the SFU slopes down through Deer Lake and Metrotown to the South Slope. We paint interiors and exteriors, do finish carpentry, and handle drywall — including the stucco exteriors and basement-suite conversions that Burnaby's post-war housing is full of.
With about 249,100 residents in the 2021 Census, Burnaby is the largest city we serve and the third-largest in British Columbia. Its single-family stock is dominated by two post-war eras — 1950s bungalows and the 1965-to-1985 wave — which is why the same two jobs come up again and again.
Burnaby is a big, varied city and we cover it end to end: the older homes on the North Burnaby slopes near SFU and the Heights, the heritage streets around Deer Lake, the towers of Metrotown and Brentwood, and the South Slope down toward Big Bend.
Two building eras dominate the detached housing, and both come with a signature job. The 1950s bungalows brought painted stucco walls with wood fascia, soffits and trim. The long 1965-to-1985 wave brought the boxy two-storey with the full-height front and the ground-level lower floor — a plan that has been converted to a suite in a very large number of Burnaby houses.
Painting, finish carpentry and drywall, all by the same crew, start to finish.
Neighbourhoods we cover in Burnaby
West from Coquitlam. We cover both halves of the city — North Burnaby and the Heights, and the South Slope and Big Bend — rather than only the side closest to us.
From the SFU slopes to the South Slope, we cover both halves of Burnaby — not just the side closest to Coquitlam.
- Mon – Sat · 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Based in Coquitlam, BC
Painting stucco: not the same job as painting siding
A great deal of Burnaby's post-war housing is stucco, and stucco is a masonry surface, not a wood one. It's porous, it's alkaline, and it moves and cracks differently. Standard exterior latex over unprepared stucco is one of the more common paint failures we get called to fix.
Doing it properly means washing the surface, filling and repairing cracks with a material that stays flexible, priming where the substrate is bare or chalky, and using a coating rated for masonry — often a thicker elastomeric product on walls with fine cracking. It uses more material than a siding job of the same square footage, and any quote that prices them the same has not looked closely.
The wood elements on those houses — fascia, soffits, window and door trim, the porch — are a separate specification on the same job. That's the part that rots, and that's the part that needs carpentry before it needs paint.
Basement suites and the drywall work that goes with them
Burnaby has an enormous number of homes with a lower floor that has been finished, or could be finished, as a secondary suite. The drywall and paint side of that work is our wheelhouse — framing out rooms, hanging and taping to a flat finish, and repairing what's already there.
The permitting side is not ours to hand-wave. Creating a secondary suite is regulated work: it involves the BC Building Code, city zoning and requirements around fire separation, ceiling heights, egress and parking, and the City of Burnaby is the authority on all of it. We'll do the finishing trades and we'll be straight with you about what needs a permit rather than pretending a suite is a paint job.
Deer Lake, the Heights, and character-home trim
The streets around Deer Lake and up in Burnaby Heights hold the city's older and more characterful housing, some of it pre-war. Same principle as anywhere else with real trim: the mouldings weren't bought off a rack and they shouldn't be replaced from one.
Matching an existing profile, back-priming new material before it goes up, and coping inside corners instead of mitring them is the difference between trim that looks original and trim that looks recently added.
Our trades in Burnaby
Burnaby — questions we get asked
Do you paint stucco houses in Burnaby?
Yes, and it's a different specification from painting siding. Stucco is porous and alkaline, so it needs washing, flexible repair of any cracking, priming where the surface is bare or chalky, and a coating rated for masonry — often an elastomeric product on walls with fine cracks. It also uses noticeably more material per square metre than siding, which is why an honest stucco quote isn't the same number as a siding quote for the same size house.
We're finishing a lower floor as a suite. Can you do the drywall and paint?
Yes — framing out rooms, hanging, taping, sanding and painting to a finished result is exactly the work we do. What we won't do is treat a suite as a cosmetic project: creating a secondary suite is regulated under the BC Building Code and City of Burnaby requirements covering things like fire separation, ceiling height, egress and parking. Get the permit side settled with the City and we'll handle the finishing trades.
Which parts of Burnaby do you cover?
All of it. North Burnaby and the Heights, the SFU slopes, Deer Lake, Brentwood, Metrotown, the South Slope and Big Bend. Burnaby is big enough that some contractors only work one half of it; we don't split it.
Sources & further reading
Regulations and municipal requirements change. Confirm anything that affects your project with your municipality before work starts.
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