One vendor. One schedule. One warranty. One invoice — or per-unit billing if your bylaws say so.
Volume rates apply on coordinated complex-wide visits (4+ doors). Volume rates drop another step at 10+ doors. All prices written, fixed, and provided before work begins.
Send us your Form B and strata plan number. We'll read the relevant sections and tell council in plain English what the strata pays for and what the owner pays for — no charge, no obligation.
Per-door inspection rate drops as complex size grows. Marginal tiers — the first 20 doors are at the entry rate, doors 21–30 step down, and doors 31+ get the volume rate. One visit handles the entire complex on one schedule, one report, one invoice.
By July 1, 2026, BC law requires every strata corporation in Metro Vancouver with 5 or more units to have a current depreciation report on file. The report has to cover every common-property asset — and on a townhome strata, that includes 20, 40, sometimes 80 garage doors. We provide the per-door condition data your report writer needs, formatted to drop straight in.
In a Richmond townhouse strata, every unit has its own garage door, its own opener, and its own springs. From the council's perspective, that's 20, 40, sometimes 80 mechanical assets — bolted to the building, visible from the street, and almost always installed at the same time, by the same builder, with the same springs. They all wear out within the same five-year window. They all start failing within the same three-year window.
But who actually pays when one fails?
In BC, that question doesn't have a single answer. The Standard Bylaws under the Strata Property Act make the strata responsible for "any part of the structure of a building that is common property." A garage door is bolted to that structure. Some bylaws explicitly say the strata maintains the door; others explicitly say it's the owner's responsibility. In bare land stratas, the lot is the lot — the whole door is the owner's. In building stratas, the answer depends on where the door sits relative to the mid-point of the exterior wall, the strata plan, and any amendments council registered after the fact.
The Civil Resolution Tribunal has ruled on this both ways. Spiteri v. Strata Plan K664 (2022) and several similar cases turned on a careful reading of the strata plan. Most owners — and most council members — have never read their strata plan.
That's the problem. The decision of who calls and who pays gets made at 8 PM on a Saturday, when a spring just snapped, and nobody has time to call a strata lawyer.
Why this matters for council: - If 30 owners hire 30 different vendors over five years, you end up with 30 different door colours, 30 different opener brands, 30 different warranties, 30 different service histories. Curb appeal degrades. Resale gets harder. - If the strata accidentally pays for repairs that should have been owner-paid, the contingency reserve drains for the wrong reasons. - If the strata doesn't pay for repairs that should have been strata-paid, you end up at the CRT — and lose. - Most townhome complexes built between 1985 and 2005 are now in the "springs failing" window. The next three years are when this becomes a council issue.
We've structured townhome service three different ways depending on what your strata wants to do.
The strata signs one annual maintenance contract covering every door in the complex. We inspect, lubricate, balance, and safety-test every door on a single visit, complete a written report per unit, and stand behind a 2-year labour warranty across the whole complex. Council gets one invoice. Owners get a working door without ever having to make a phone call.
Best for: complexes where the strata plan or bylaws make the door a strata responsibility, or where council has decided to standardize anyway for resale value.
The strata doesn't pay, but council negotiates a fixed Steveston rate card for the whole complex. Owners call us direct, get the pre-agreed price, and the strata keeps a clean record of who's been serviced and when. Council gets the standardization benefit without the operating-budget hit.
Best for: complexes where bylaws clearly assign the door to the owner, but council wants consistency.
The strata pays for the major capital items — the door slab itself, the opener — but owners handle the spring-and-cable wear items. This split mirrors how many newer BC strata bylaws are drafted. We bill the strata for the structural work and the owners for the mechanical wear.
Best for: newer complexes (post-2010) with clearly drafted bylaws.
The first thing we do on any of these: we ask for the Form B and the strata bylaws. We read the relevant sections (it takes us 20 minutes — we've done a lot of them). We tell council in plain English what the strata is on the hook for and what the owner is on the hook for. Then we quote.
Builder-grade springs in Richmond townhomes are almost always rated for 10,000 cycles. A townhome door cycled twice a day will hit that number in about 13–14 years. Most Richmond townhome complexes from the mid-90s and early 2000s are hitting that wall right now — which is why one council will get three spring-failure calls in a six-month window. The fix isn't replacing one snapped spring with the same cheap galvanized part. The fix is converting the whole complex to oil-tempered springs on the same maintenance cycle, so the next failure window is 20+ years out, not 13.
Richmond sits on a tidal estuary. Salt-laden river air finds the galvanized lift cables in townhome doors and corrodes them from the centre out. By the time you can see the rust, the cable has lost most of its tensile strength. We replace cables in pairs (always — a single cable replacement with an aged second cable is a future emergency) and we install marine-grade weather seals on rolls that face the wind.
Most Richmond townhomes got builder-grade openers installed in a single week, by a single sub-trade, and now those openers are 15–25 years old. The motors are tired, the boards are pre-rolling-code, and many don't have battery backup. Replacing one at a time costs the strata nothing — but it also means residents have wildly different opener experiences. Replacing the whole complex on a 24-month rolling schedule is cheaper per unit and matches the doors visually.
White doors yellow. Beige doors fade. Stained wood doors check and split. After 20 years, the south-facing doors look very different from the north-facing doors, and the doors that were repainted by an enthusiastic owner in 2014 don't match anything. We do whole-complex repaint and weather-seal cycles that bring everything back to a single colour without replacing the slabs.
| Service | Single Unit (residential rate) | 4–10 doors (complex rate) | 10+ doors (volume rate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oil-tempered spring pair replacement | $827 / door | $747 / door | $689 / door |
| Cable pair replacement | $389 / door | $349 / door | $319 / door |
| Annual safety inspection & tune-up | $189 / door | $149 / door | $129 / door |
| Builder-grade opener swap (LiftMaster 2220L) | $1,287 / door | $1,184 / door | $1,098 / door |
| Belt-drive opener swap (LiftMaster 6580L) | $1,424 / door | $1,309 / door | $1,217 / door |
| Whole-door replacement, single 8x7 insulated | $3,621+ / door | from $3,621 / door | call for proposal |
Volume rates apply to work completed on a single scheduled visit or a coordinated rollout across the strata. Pricing is for Richmond townhomes; quotes are written, fixed, and provided before any work begins. 2-year labour warranty included as standard. Diagnostic visits included on any completed repair.
Every job we do for a townhome strata comes with documentation council can hand to next year's council without having to explain anything:
Council changes every year. The maintenance file does not.
Richmond's townhome stock is concentrated in a handful of neighbourhoods. We know every one of them, and we know which builder built which row in which year — because three generations of the family have worked on Lulu Island.
If your complex is in Richmond, we're already in your neighbourhood. We don't drive in from Surrey.
When council decides to standardize the complex on a new door, we coordinate a 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month rolling install in batches of 4–10 doors per visit — colour-matched, factory-finished, and warranted across the whole complex.
Quebec-made insulated townhome door. Premium colour-match, factory-finished, the most common spec across Richmond townhome complex replacements.
German-engineered premium townhome door. Common spec for higher-end Richmond townhome complexes wanting a contemporary look.
Heritage carriage-house aesthetic for older Richmond townhome complexes. Insulated, factory-finished.
Alberta-made replacement for builder-grade townhome doors. Common spec for budget-conscious Richmond strata refresh.
It depends on three things: your strata plan, your bylaws, and whether the strata is a building strata or a bare land strata. In most building stratas with the BC Standard Bylaws, the strata is responsible for "the structure of a building" — and the garage door is bolted to that structure. But many strata corporations have registered amendments that explicitly make the door the owner's responsibility. In a bare land strata, the door is almost always the owner's. We read the Form B and the bylaws before we quote, and we tell council in plain English what the strata is on the hook for. If you're not sure, send us the strata plan and we'll review it free.
Yes — and it's almost always cheaper per unit than replacing them one at a time. We coordinate with council on a 3-month, 6-month, or 12-month rolling install schedule, work in batches of 4–10 doors per visit, and finish with a single warranty across the whole complex.
Yes. Send us the Form B and the relevant bylaw sections. We'll come back with a written quote and a clear answer on what the strata pays for and what individual owners pay for. No charge, no obligation.
Roughly 12–20% off the residential rate per door, depending on the work. A spring pair replacement that runs $827 on a single residential call drops to $689 on a 10+ door coordinated visit. A builder-grade opener swap drops from $1,287 to about $1,098 per unit on the same scale.
Almost always, yes. Most townhome complexes have all their springs installed in the same week by the same builder using the same builder-grade galvanized parts rated for 10,000 cycles. At two cycles a day, that's 13–14 years to first failure. Once the first one snaps, the others are weeks-to-months behind on the same fatigue curve.
Absolutely. Most of our townhome work is owner-paid. If your strata has negotiated rates with us, you'll get those rates. If not, you'll get our standard residential pricing.
Galvanized springs are cheaper, weaker, and rated for about 10,000 cycles. Oil-tempered springs are 2–3× more expensive at the part level, but rated for 20,000+ cycles and don't need annual tensioning. On a 30-door townhome strata, oil-tempered springs cost more on year one but cost dramatically less over the 20-year life of the complex — and they fail far less often.
Usually not. Spread across a 3-year capital plan and ordered at volume rates, the cost typically fits inside the operating budget without a levy. We can run the math for your specific complex and council can decide.
Yes. We can either match the existing colour with a factory-finish replacement, or recommend whether the whole complex is overdue for a refinish cycle anyway.
Two-year labour warranty as standard on every job. Parts carry the manufacturer warranty (LiftMaster, Hörmann, etc.). On strata maintenance contracts, the warranty is held in the name of the strata corporation.
Yes. We work with FirstService, AWM-Alliance, Crossroads, Pacific Quorum, Tribe, Bayside, Quay Pacific, and most of the independent Richmond strata managers. We email PDFs in whatever format you use, reference your work-order numbers, and invoice in the AP format you need.
No site visit needed for the proposal. Email council@stevestongaragedoors.ca with your strata plan number, your bylaw amendments (if any), and a rough door count. We'll come back within one business day with a written quote and a plain-English summary of what the strata pays for and what owners pay for.