Zavrick Contracting is based in Coquitlam and works here every week. We handle interior and exterior painting, finish carpentry and drywall on everything from Maillardville's pre-war cottages to Burke Mountain's newest builds. Free on-site quotes, one crew from first look to final walk-through.
Coquitlam counted about 148,600 residents in the 2021 Census, up from roughly 139,300 five years earlier — growth that shows up in the city's housing as four distinct building eras sitting side by side.
Coquitlam is our home base — it's where Rob lives, works and knows the streets. From the newer builds up on Burke Mountain to the character homes around Maillardville and the townhouse complexes near Lougheed, we've worked on the full range of what Coquitlam has to offer.
That matters more here than in most cities, because Coquitlam's housing isn't one thing. A wall in a 1915 Maillardville cottage, a 1958 Austin Heights bungalow, a 1996 Westwood Plateau house and a 2018 Burke Mountain build are four genuinely different jobs, and pricing them as if they were the same is how quotes go wrong.
Painting, finish carpentry and drywall — three trades, one crew, start to finish. No rotating subcontractors, no long-distance travel charges buried in the quote.
Neighbourhoods we cover in Coquitlam
This is home. Rob lives and works here, so a look at the job usually happens within a day or two rather than next week.
Being local means a free on-site quote usually happens within a day or two, not next week.
- Mon – Sat · 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
- Based in Coquitlam, BC
Coquitlam's four housing eras — and what each one needs
Maillardville is the oldest of them. It was founded in 1909 when francophone millworkers came west to work at Fraser Mills, and it became the largest francophone community in British Columbia. The small houses that survive from that period were typically finished in plaster over wood lath, not drywall, and many still have original fir trim.
Austin Heights and the streets around Como Lake are mostly post-war: bungalows and split-levels from the 1950s and 60s, often with painted stucco below and wood fascia, soffits and trim above. Those wood elements are where exterior paint fails first, and where prep either happens properly or doesn't.
Westwood Plateau went up through the 1990s, and Burke Mountain has been built out largely since the mid-2000s under Coquitlam's northeast area plan. Both are hillside neighbourhoods, which means north-facing walls that hold moisture and see very little winter sun.
The newest builds have a problem of their own: a house settles most in its first couple of years, and the cracks show up at drywall butt joints, at the corners of door and window openings, and along ceiling-to-wall lines. Those are patch-and-repaint jobs, not structural ones, but they need the seam re-taped rather than just filled or they come straight back.
Plaster and lath: the Coquitlam quirk that changes a quote
If your house predates about 1950, the walls are probably plaster over wood lath rather than gypsum board. It looks the same once painted and behaves completely differently. Plaster is harder and more brittle, it won't hold a drywall screw, and a patch has to be keyed in and skim-coated wider than the damage to disappear under paint.
The practical effect is that a fist-sized hole in a Maillardville wall is a longer job than the same hole in a Burke Mountain wall. We'd rather tell you that on the quote visit than discover it halfway through.
Permits for painting, drywall and carpentry in Coquitlam
Cosmetic work — repainting, patching drywall, replacing trim like for like — does not normally require a building permit. Work that changes the structure does: removing or altering a load-bearing wall, adding or moving framing, or altering the building envelope generally needs a permit and often an engineer's involvement, because municipalities administer the BC Building Code locally.
We'll tell you honestly which side of that line your project falls on, and the City of Coquitlam's building department is the authority on anything borderline. We don't guess at permit questions, and we don't quietly skip them.
Our trades in Coquitlam
Coquitlam — questions we get asked
Do I need a permit to repaint or patch drywall in Coquitlam?
Normally no. Painting, patching and like-for-like trim replacement are cosmetic and don't trigger a building permit. The moment a project moves, removes or adds framing — taking out a wall to open up a kitchen, for instance — it does, and the City of Coquitlam's building department is who confirms it. We'll flag it on the quote if we think you're near that line.
My Maillardville house has plaster walls, not drywall. Can you repair those?
Yes. Pre-1950 Coquitlam homes are commonly plaster over wood lath. We key the patch into the sound plaster around the damage and skim-coat wider than the hole so it disappears under paint, rather than screwing a drywall offcut into lath that won't hold it. It takes longer than a modern drywall patch and we price it that way up front.
The corners of my new Burke Mountain house are cracking. Is that serious?
Usually not. New houses settle hardest in their first two winters and it shows at drywall joints, at the corners of door and window openings, and where ceilings meet walls. The fix is to re-tape the joint rather than just fill it — filler alone moves with the crack and it reopens. If a crack is wide, stepped, or paired with a door that won't close, that's worth a structural opinion instead.
Sources & further reading
Regulations and municipal requirements change. Confirm anything that affects your project with your municipality before work starts.
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