Metalwork for Strata Corporations and Property Managers
A depreciation report line item. A guardrail an owner has now complained about twice. A parkade column that keeps getting clipped by the same delivery van. Metalwork on a strata building rarely fails all at once — it turns into a list, and the list sits with you until there’s a number in front of it a council can vote on.
TrussMetal is a custom metal fabrication shop in North Vancouver. We fabricate and install the steel and aluminum work strata buildings need repaired, replaced or added: guardrails and balcony railings, parkade pipe and column protection, garbage and recycling enclosures, bike rooms, gates, stairs and handrails, and the one-off welding repairs that don’t belong to any category.
What a property manager needs isn’t a catalogue. It’s a scope clear enough to put in a council package, a fixed price against a drawing, and a trade that remembers people live there.
Send us the relevant page of your depreciation report, or a photo of the problem, and we’ll come back with something you can take to your council.
What Strata Buildings Call Us For
Guardrail and balcony railing replacement
Guardrails are the most common strata metalwork item and the one most likely to appear in a depreciation report. Corroded pickets on an eighties building, aluminum gone chalky, glass panels in frames that no longer seal, or a guard whose openings no longer meet current code.
When an existing guardrail is replaced, the replacement may need to satisfy the current applicable requirements rather than simply reproducing the original assembly — which commonly affects infill and opening arrangement, and often means a re-engineered attachment where the original fixings land in a slab edge that has since been repaired or topped. What applies to a specific building should be confirmed for the project. We fabricate railings in steel, aluminum, stainless and glass-and-metal, and can phase replacement by elevation or by floor so the whole building isn’t scaffolded at once.
Parkade damage and protection
Underground parkades take steady low-speed impact damage: sprinkler and drain lines clipped at the ramp, columns worn through at bumper height, downspouts crushed in the drive aisle, wall guard torn out and never replaced.
We fabricate and install pipe guards, column guards, rub rails and downspout protection, and can retrofit into a working parkade without closing it. Existing concrete may contain reinforcement, post-tensioning, embedded services or other concealed conditions, so locating or scanning may be required before drilling and should be coordinated as part of the project scope. Where a guard has already been hit, replacing the damaged section is usually cheaper than the full run — and we’ll say so rather than pricing the whole aisle.
→ Parkade protection metalwork
Garbage and recycling enclosures
Three-stream collection pushed most buildings from two bins to four or five, and the original enclosure no longer closes. On the North Shore there’s the added problem of bears, which means latches that actually latch and lids that hold when they’re leaned on.
We build enclosures around your bin configuration rather than a standard size: steel frame, slat or panel infill, self-closing gates, finishes matched to the building. Existing pads can usually be reused. Access matters more than looks — the hauler needs the bins out, and a resident needs to open it one-handed carrying a bag.
→ Custom garbage and recycling enclosures
Bike rooms and storage
Bike storage is the amenity most likely to generate complaints. Buildings run out of stalls, racks get installed too close together to use, and the room ends up with bikes locked to the sprinkler line.
We fabricate and install wall-mount and floor racks, two-tier systems, secure bike cages and full bike room enclosures, laid out for the actual room rather than to a rack count. In older buildings the gain is often in the layout — re-spacing a room frequently adds stalls without adding equipment.
→ Bike parking, racks and cages
Gates, fencing and access
Courtyard gates dropped on their hinges, a parkade gate frame bent by a vehicle, pedestrian gates with failed closers, or a new gate after a break-in.
We build and hang gates in steel and aluminum, repair and re-hang existing ones, and fit hardware — closers, latches, panic hardware, electric strikes wired in by your access-control contractor. A large share of strata gate calls are hinge or hardware calls rather than gate calls, and cost a fraction of a replacement. We’ll tell you which you have before quoting.
→ Custom gates · gate hardware
Stairs, handrails and egress
Exterior stairs on older buildings corrode from the treads down, and handrails work loose at the wall fixing long before anything else fails. Both show up in depreciation reports and insurer inspections.
We fabricate replacement stringers, treads, landings and handrails in steel and aluminum, and can replace an exterior run in sections so the exit stays usable. Handrail continuity, extensions at the top and bottom of a run, and a graspable profile are things a replacement is expected to correct, even where the original never had them.
Repairs, welding and one-off fixes
A lot of strata metalwork isn’t a project. A bollard sheared at the base, a gate post out of plumb, a broken handrail bracket, a bent stair nosing, a security bar someone has pried.
We run mobile welding, so most of these are repaired in place on a single visit rather than removed and brought back. If something can’t be fixed in place you’ll hear that on the phone, not after the truck arrives. For managers running several buildings, batching small repairs into one visit is the cheapest way to clear a list.
→ Mobile welding and on-site repairs
Working in an Occupied Building
The difference between metalwork on a construction site and metalwork on a strata building is that people live in the strata building. Residents are home during the day, they need their parking stall, and every complaint lands on your desk rather than ours.
Notice and scheduling
You get the sequence in writing before we start — which elevations, which stalls, which days — so the notice you post can be specific rather than “work will occur this week”. Where a balcony or stall is affected, we work to the date you posted.
Noise
Grinding and cutting generate almost all of the complaints. Those get scheduled into the middle of the day rather than eight in the morning, and wherever the work allows, cutting and prep happen in the shop so site work is fitting rather than fabrication.
Access
Parkade work is done stall by stall. Balcony work is booked against the units, and suite access isn’t needed unless a balcony has no other route — if it does, you’ll know which units and on which day before anything starts.
Protection
Corridors, elevator cabs and lobby floors are covered before anything is carried through them. Welding on a balcony or in a parkade is screened, and combustibles are cleared and watched.
End of day
Any opening left in a guard is temporarily closed before the crew leaves. Materials are stacked clear of walkways, and nothing sharp or climbable is left where children can reach it. Grinding dust travels — particularly down a parkade ramp onto residents’ cars — so surfaces are protected and the area swept at the end of each day, not the end of the job.
Quoting Against a Depreciation Report
A depreciation report tells you an item is due and what a consultant estimated it would cost. It doesn’t tell you what the work actually is. Turning a line into a scope is the part that stalls.
Send us the page. From the item description, the year and a few photos we can normally work out what’s there — and where we can’t, we’ll come and look before quoting.
What comes back is a written scope, a drawing, and a fixed price against it. Not a range, and not an allowance that moves later. A number a council can put into a motion.
Itemised so it can be phased
Most strata metalwork doesn’t have to happen in one year. If the report has every guardrail due at once, we price by elevation or by building, so a council can approve the south face this year knowing what the north face will cost. Where phasing genuinely costs more — mobilising twice, scaffolding twice — we state the difference rather than let it surface later.
Estimates versus reality
Report allowances are frequently well over or well under the real cost, because the consultant is estimating a generic item rather than your building’s fixings, access and condition. If our number differs materially, we explain why in writing — that explanation is usually what the council actually needs.
How Strata Approval Actually Works
This isn’t legal advice, and your bylaws and your management company set the real thresholds. But the practical pattern is consistent enough to plan around, and it changes how a quote should be written.
Small items go through council
Repairs and maintenance inside the operating budget are usually a council decision at a monthly meeting. A clear one-page quote is enough. Turnaround is weeks.
Larger items go to the owners
Work funded from the contingency reserve fund or a special levy generally needs a vote at a general meeting. So the quote has to survive being read at that meeting by owners who aren’t tradespeople, without you there to explain it. The scope matters as much as the number.
Timing follows the budget cycle, not the trade
If the vote is at an AGM in April, the time to be collecting quotes is February — and what you want in March is two or three comparable prices for the same defined scope. Three quotes for three different scopes is what usually happens, and it’s the most common reason a vote gets deferred another year.
Quotes go stale
Steel and aluminum pricing moves. If approval is six months out, say so and we’ll state on the quote how long the price holds, rather than leaving you to find out at the wrong moment.
What We Put in Your File
Property management runs on paper. What we can provide:
- A written scope — what’s removed, what’s built, materials, finish, and what’s explicitly excluded. Written to be read by an owner, not only by a trade.
- A drawing or sketch of what’s being fabricated, before it’s fabricated. On anything structural or code-related, this is the document that prevents an argument later.
- A fixed price, itemised wherever the work can be split, with the price-hold period stated on it.
- Sequence and duration in writing, so your resident notice can be specific.
- Project documentation and contractor requirements can be provided as applicable. Send your requirements list with the RFQ and we’ll confirm what we can supply before the quote goes to council.
- Warranty terms stated on the quote if your council wants them before voting — ask, and they go on.
- Photographs on completion for your file, and for whoever writes the next report.
If your management company has a vendor package, send it with the RFQ and it comes back completed.
Emergency and Same-Week Repairs
Some strata metalwork can’t wait for a council meeting. A guardrail section come loose on an occupied balcony. A parkade gate stuck open overnight. A failed stair handrail. A bollard sheared off in a fire lane.
Two things need to happen: the hazard made safe now, and the permanent repair scoped and priced properly afterwards. We treat those as two jobs, so you aren’t paying an urgent rate for permanent work.
For an immediate safety issue, call rather than email — (778) 805-5333. Because we run mobile welding, most make-safe work is done in place on the same visit.
Most strata corporations have some mechanism for authorising emergency expenditure without a vote. Worth confirming how yours is worded before you need it.
→ Mobile welding and emergency repairs
Buildings and Areas We Work In
Our shop is at 5128 Francisco Court in North Vancouver, so the North Shore is where we’re closest and quickest — North Vancouver and West Vancouver, district and city. We work across Metro Vancouver as well: Vancouver, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Coquitlam and Surrey.
Building types we’re set up for: low-rise and high-rise residential strata; townhouse and rowhouse complexes with long fence, gate and railing runs; mixed-use buildings with commercial at grade; and older concrete buildings where original fixings and current code don’t line up.
If you manage a portfolio, we’d rather quote the portfolio than one building at a time. Small repairs batch efficiently, and knowing what’s coming lets us schedule around your budget cycles.
Common Questions from Property Managers
Can you provide documentation for our contractor file?
Send your management company’s requirements list with the request for quote. We’ll confirm in writing what we can provide for the file before the quote goes to council — so nothing surfaces after approval, when it becomes your problem rather than ours.
Will you attend a council meeting or AGM to present the quote?
Yes — in person or by video. Usually worth doing on anything funded by special levy, where owners have questions the property manager shouldn’t have to field alone. Ask when you request the quote so we can hold the date.
Can the work be phased across two budget years?
Yes, and it’s how a lot of railing work gets funded. We price by elevation, by building or by phase, so a council can approve one portion now with a known figure for the rest.
Do residents lose parking or balcony access?
Parkade work runs stall by stall, so an affected stall is out for a day rather than the length of the job, and we schedule around the stalls hardest to relocate. Balcony work is booked against the notice you post, and suite access isn’t needed unless a balcony has no other route.
How long does a quote take?
A few business days for anything we can scope from photographs and a depreciation report page. Where a site visit is needed, usually on site within the week and quoted a few days after. If your council meets on a fixed date, tell us and we’ll work backwards from it.
Do you work on multiple buildings in a portfolio?
Yes, and it’s usually cheaper. Batching small repairs into one visit cuts mobilisation, and quoting a portfolio at once gives comparable scopes and prices instead of a different approach at each building.
Also on Strata Buildings
Three items that come up constantly on occupied buildings and now have pages of their own: tenant storage cages when the locker room has run out or been broken into, roof access ladders flagged by a depreciation report or a safety review, and mechanical equipment screens when rooftop or grade-level equipment is replaced.
Send us the page
You don’t need a scope written first. A depreciation report page, an inspection note, a drawing, a phone photo, or three lines describing the problem — any of those is enough to start.
Email sales@trussmetal.com or call (778) 805-5333. You’ll get back a written scope, a sketch and a fixed price your council can vote on. If it needs seeing first, the site visit is free.