GENERAL CONTRACTOR IN CHASE, BC

A General Contractor in Chase Who Is Also on the Tools

Big Boy Enterprises works as a general contractor on renovation projects across Chase, Kamloops, Salmon Arm and the Shuswap. The distinction worth making is what sits in house rather than what gets subbed out. Jeff is a Red Seal plumber and a licensed B gas fitter, and the tile work is ours as well, so on a bathroom or a kitchen the majority of the project is done by the same person who quoted it and who answers the phone when you call about it.

That matters more on a small project than people expect. On a bathroom renovation the plumbing rough-in, the gas connection if there is one, the waterproofing and the tile are the parts where the schedule and the quality actually live. When those are subcontracted, the general contractor spends the project coordinating other people's calendars. When they are not, the project moves at the speed of the work.

What We Take On

Bathroom renovations from full gut to fixture upgrade. Kitchen work where the plumbing and gas are the substance of it, including relocating a sink or a range. Tile throughout, from shower systems to floors and feature walls. Laundry and utility rooms. Basement and suite work where new plumbing, drainage and heating have to be run into a space that was never serviced. Repairs and replacements that turn out to be bigger than they first looked, which is a category of its own and a common way projects start.

We will tell you plainly when a project needs trades we do not carry, and when it needs a designer or an engineer rather than a contractor. Structural changes, electrical beyond the scope of the work, and anything requiring a building permit for structural alteration are coordinated rather than self-performed, and we would rather set that expectation at the quote than halfway through.

Renovation Work

How a Project Actually Runs

We look at the space before quoting, because the things that change a renovation price are almost always behind a wall. What the existing drainage is made of and where it runs. Whether the floor is level and what is under it. Whether the venting is where it needs to be. Whether the wall you want moved is doing something.

Then the sequence, which on a bathroom is roughly: demolition, then any framing changes, then plumbing and gas rough-in, then inspection where the work requires it, then insulation and boarding, then waterproofing, then tile, then fixtures, then the finishing. Each of those has to be finished before the next starts, which is why a renovation with a subcontracted trade in the middle of it can lose a week waiting for a two hour visit. Keeping the wet trades in house is how that gets avoided.

We work on one project at a time where we can. It is slower to book and faster to finish, and it is the reason we would rather give you a real start date than an optimistic one.

Permits and Code

Gas work requires a permit from Technical Safety BC, and the licensed gas contractor pulls it before the work starts. That is us, and it is part of the job rather than something added later. Plumbing and building permits are handled through the local authority, which for Chase is the Village and for properties outside it is the regional district. Where a renovation needs one, we will tell you at the quote stage rather than after demolition has started.

The reason to care is the same reason it comes up on this site more than once: unpermitted work surfaces during a sale or a claim, and by then it is expensive. Waterproofing is the other one. A shower that was tiled without a proper waterproofing membrane looks identical to one that was, for about four years.

Where We Work

Chase

Chase is home, and the village housing stock is the reason renovation is a real part of what we do. Around 1,250 dwellings, a good share of them built in the two decades after incorporation in 1969, which puts a lot of original bathrooms and kitchens at the point where a repair stops making sense. These projects have a consistent shape: cast iron or early ABS drainage, a floor that is not flat, and a layout designed around a plumbing stack that everyone would now put somewhere else. Being based in the village also means we are not adding an hour of travel to each end of every day, which on a multi-week project is the difference between a schedule that holds and one that slips.

Kamloops

A much larger market with a deeper trade pool, which sounds like an advantage and often is not, because the constraint on a small renovation is rarely the availability of trades. It is the coordination between them. The Kamloops work we take tends to be projects where the plumbing and gas are the substance of the job, particularly in the older North Kamloops and Brocklehurst stock where galvanized supply and original drainage make what looked like a cosmetic renovation into a genuine replumb once the wall is open.

Salmon Arm

A wider spread of building age than anywhere else we work, from older lakeside properties to recent construction. The older end brings the same drainage and layout questions as Chase. The newer end is more often about upgrading a builder-grade bathroom to something specified properly, where the plumbing is sound and the work is tile, waterproofing and fixtures done to a standard the original build did not reach.

The Shuswap

Sorrento, Blind Bay, Scotch Creek, Sicamous and the lake communities. Renovation out here is shaped by two things that do not apply anywhere else. The first is the calendar: a property that earns as a rental has a season, and the work has to fit the window between the last booking and the first, which usually means autumn and early spring rather than whenever is convenient. The second is logistics. Deliveries, disposal and access are all harder on the north shore and on properties down long driveways, and a renovation planned without accounting for that runs late for reasons that have nothing to do with the work. We plan around both, and we would rather book you into the right window than the next one.

What Moves the Price

Scope, obviously, but within a given scope the drivers are consistent. Whether the layout is staying or moving, because moving a drain is a different job to replacing a fixture. What is found behind the wall, which is the single largest variable on anything built before about 1990. The level of finish and the tile, where labour rather than material is usually the bigger share. Whether permits and inspections are required. And access, which is a real cost on the Shuswap properties and is usually left out of quotes that come in low.

We would rather look at it, tell you what we find, and give you a number we will stand behind than win the job on an estimate that was never going to hold.

Common Questions