Coquitlam · Since 2001
Epoxy and industrial floor coatings in Coquitlam.
Tri-Cities residential towers built through the two-thousands, now reaching the point where original parkade membranes are due.
Coquitlam
A whole generation of parkades coming due at once
Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody saw heavy residential construction through the two-thousands, and traffic deck membranes from that era are now fifteen to twenty years old — right at the end of their service life. A large share of our Tri-Cities work is a strata council discovering this through a depreciation report.
The good news about catching it at this stage is that the concrete underneath is usually still sound. Replacing a membrane before it has been letting water through for years is a waterproofing project; leaving it another five years frequently turns it into a structural repair project at several times the cost.
Coquitlam's elevation means slightly more freeze–thaw than Vancouver proper, particularly on the upper slopes, so we specify with a little more flexibility than we would for a downtown deck at sea level.
- Typical building age
- 15–20 years
- Common trigger
- Depreciation report
- Also serving
- Port Coquitlam · Port Moody
Services
What we install in Coquitlam
Parkade waterproofing
Traffic-bearing membranes for Coquitlam parkades, ramps and roof decks.
Learn more →Industrial floor coatings
Epoxy and urethane systems for Coquitlam warehouses and plants.
Learn more →Local conditions
Coquitlam climbs from river flats to mountain weather
Coquitlam runs uphill. It starts on the Fraser flats at Maillardville and the Pacific Reach industrial lands, climbs through Austin Heights, and keeps going up through Burquitlam and Town Centre to Westwood Plateau, where winter behaves more like the North Shore than like the river below. That vertical range is the local specification: the same week can need a moisture-first industrial floor by the river and freeze–thaw deck detailing six hundred metres higher. De-icing salt use climbs with the elevation, and parkade ramps on the slopes take the combined slope-salt-water duty that wears traffic coatings fastest.
The Evergreen Line changed the building stock: Burquitlam and Town Centre have added a decade of new towers over new parkades, joining the established woodframe-over-podium stratas around Lougheed and Austin. Depreciation reports are working through both generations now — original membranes in the new stock, second-cycle renewals in the old. Southwest of the highway, the industrial lands along United Boulevard and the river carry distribution and manufacturing floors with the usual Fraser-adjacent moisture caveat.
Port Moody and Port Coquitlam border tightly enough that buildings a street apart share conditions — the tri-cities are one workload with three city halls.
Where the work is
Podium parkades and the United Boulevard corridor
Coquitlam's work follows its geography: parkade membranes under the Evergreen-era towers and the older Lougheed-corridor podiums, deck and walkway systems detailed for plateau winters, and industrial floors along United Boulevard where the slab's moisture reading comes before the system's name. The parkade decision is walked through in the depreciation report guide; the systems in the library.
The rest of the tri-cities — Port Moody's waterfront stratas and Port Coquitlam's industrial south — are part of the same service area, covered from the same North Vancouver base.
Questions
What Coquitlam clients ask us.
Our strata's depreciation report flagged the parkade. What happens next?
Get a condition assessment before you get quotes. The report gives a service-life estimate from a visual review; it does not tell you how much concrete repair is hiding under the membrane, and that quantity is what sets your budget. For a full replacement on a suspended slab you will usually want an engineer to produce a specification so every bidder prices the same scope. We have written a full guide to this for BC strata councils.
Coquitlam has a lot of hillside buildings. Does grade affect parkade work?
It does, in two ways. Sloped sites often mean multi-level parkades with long ramps, and ramps take the highest shear load in the whole structure, so they get an intermediate coat and heavier detailing than flat deck areas. Sloped sites also tend to have groundwater arriving at the uphill wall, which is a drainage problem rather than a membrane problem — and worth diagnosing before you pay for a membrane.
Are the newer Burquitlam towers different from older Coquitlam buildings?
Quite different. The newer towers around the SkyTrain corridor generally have sound concrete and are candidates for straightforward membrane work. The older stock through Maillardville and central Coquitlam is where we more often find spalling, corroded rebar and drainage that was never right. Same trade, very different quantities.
Do you serve Port Coquitlam and Port Moody as well?
Yes — Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Anmore and Belcarra are all normal working area for us, along with the rest of the Tri-Cities. It is one crew mobilisation region, so scheduling across those municipalities is straightforward.
Site assessments
Have a slab in Coquitlam you're worried about?
Photographs and a rough area are enough to start. We'll come out, test moisture, and scope it properly.
Main (236) 873-2580 · Second (604) 230-0256 · estimating@westpacificcoatings.com