Carpentry & Repairs in Vancouver
Wood gives you warning before it fails. A drawer that sticks in August, a tread that flexes underfoot, a patch of trim that has gone soft at the bottom — all of these are repairable for a fraction of replacement cost, right up until they are not.
Spot-repairing rot
Rot spreads along the grain and it is always larger than the soft patch you can see. We probe outward with an awl until we hit sound wood, and that boundary — not the discoloured area — is where the cut goes. Cutting to the visible damage is why patched trim rots again in two years.
Where the affected section is small and the surrounding timber is sound, a scarfed-in piece of matching stock, primed on all six faces including the end grain, will outlast the original. Where the rot has reached a structural member or gone past about a third of the run, patching stops being honest and we will say so.
Loose stair treads and squeaks
A squeak is movement, and movement is a tread rubbing against a riser or a loose wedge in the housing beneath. If there is access from below — an unfinished basement, a cupboard under the stairs — it is fixed properly from underneath with glue blocks and re-driven wedges, invisibly and permanently.
Without that access the options are shimming and screwing from above, which works well but leaves fixings to fill and finish. We will tell you which you are dealing with before starting, because the two jobs differ substantially in time and in what the stairs look like afterwards.
Cabinet doors and drawer runners
Most misaligned kitchen doors are not damaged, just out of adjustment. European hinges adjust in three directions and a whole kitchen can usually be brought back into line in an hour or so. Doors that have dropped are more often a loose hinge plate or a stripped screw hole in chipboard than a broken hinge.
Drawer runners are a different matter. Older timber-on-timber runners wear and can be rebuilt with new hardwood strips and wax; modern ball-bearing runners are cheap and generally replaced rather than repaired. Bring us the drawer measurements and we will tell you which yours are.
When a repair becomes a replacement
The line is roughly this: when the repair costs more than half of replacing the item, or when what is left after cutting out the damage will not hold a fixing, replacement is the better spend. Repeated repairs to the same piece are a signal that the cause has not been addressed.
The other consideration is what the piece is. A period door or original trim is worth restoring well past the point where economics alone would justify it, because the replacement is not equivalent. A builder-grade cabinet from 2009 is not, and we will not pretend otherwise to keep a job.
What this costs
$290 minimum callout · $145/hr · $540 half day
Charged by time, not by task. Most lists of small jobs land between the two-hour minimum and a full day.
Materials are always separate from labour and passed on at cost. Quotes are free and written, and the full rate card is published rather than given out on request.
Common questions
Is it worth repairing rotten trim or replacing it?
It depends how far it has travelled. Rot runs along the grain well past the soft patch you can see, so we probe out to sound wood first. A short section in otherwise good trim scarfs in beautifully and lasts. Once it has reached a third of the run or touched anything structural, replacement is the honest answer.
Can you fix a squeaky floor from above?
Usually yes, by locating the joist and screwing the board down through it, though that leaves fixings to fill and finish. If there is access from below it is fixed invisibly with glue blocks and shims, which is both neater and more permanent. We check for access before quoting either way.
Do you re-hang cabinet doors?
Yes, and most kitchens need adjustment rather than re-hanging. European hinges adjust in three planes and a full kitchen usually comes back into line in about an hour. Where a hinge plate has torn out of chipboard, the hole is repaired properly first — a longer screw into the same failed hole is not a fix.