Wood Rot Repair in Surrey, BC
Rotten sheathing, soft trim, spongy siding. We open the wall, show you the damage, and fix what’s actually broken.
Request an Inspection. Call 604-603-0257
Wood Rot Doesn't Start Where You Can See It
By the time a homeowner calls us about wood rot, the visible damage is usually the last stage, not the first.
Rot needs three things: wood, moisture, and time. Surrey gives it all three. Rain sits against a wall through October to March, and if there’s no way for that moisture to dry out, the wood behind your siding stays wet for months at a stretch.
Here’s the part most people don’t expect. The siding itself often looks fine. It’s the sheathing behind it, the framing, or the bottom plate that’s gone soft. We’ve pulled boards off walls in Cloverdale that looked perfectly normal from the driveway and found sheathing you could push a screwdriver through.
That’s why we won’t quote wood rot siding repair over the phone or from photos. We come out, we press, we probe, and if we need to pull a board to see what’s happening, we pull a board.
Where We Find Rot Most Often on Surrey Homes
- The bottom 24 inches of any wall. Splashback from the ground, sprinkler overspray, and grade that's crept up over the years all keep this strip wet.
- Under and around window sills. If the sill pan flashing was skipped or installed backwards, water runs into the wall instead of out of it.
- Behind and below fascia boards. A gutter that overflowed for two winters will rot the fascia and then the roof sheathing behind it.
- Deck ledgers and wall-to-deck junctions. These are the highest-risk detail on any house, and they're often the last place anyone looks.
- Corner boards and trim joints. Two pieces of wood meeting at a joint with failed caulking is a funnel straight into the wall.
The Woodpecker Clue Most People Read Backwards
Gus gets calls every spring about woodpecker damage. Homeowners want the holes patched.
Fair enough. But here’s what we’d want you to know first: Northern Flickers are the main culprit around Metro Vancouver, and when they’re drilling into wood cladding or trim, they’re often after insects. Insects in your wall means the wood is already damp enough to host them.
So patching the hole without checking what’s behind it usually means the bird comes back, because the food source is still there.
One more thing worth knowing. Northern Flickers are protected under the BC Wildlife Act and the federal Migratory Birds Convention Act. You can’t remove them or their active nest. What you can do is fix the moisture problem that made your wall attractive in the first place, and repair the cladding so there’s nothing soft left to drill into. That first part is waterproofing and moisture protection work, correcting the flashing or drainage detail that let the wall stay wet.
We’ll tell you straight whether the holes are cosmetic or a symptom.
How We Handle Wood Rot Repair
Every job starts the same way, whether it’s one soft board or a whole elevation.
On full siding replacement projects, we include sheathing repairs of up to 100 square feet in every estimate. If we open the wall and find more than that, we stop, show you, and give you options before we go further. No surprise invoices.
- We inspect the full exterior, not just the spot you called about. Rot travels along a stud bay. If it's in one place, we want to know how far it went.
- We open up enough to see the real edge of the damage. Cutting back to sound wood is the whole job. Stopping short is why rot repairs fail and come back in two years.
- We replace the rotted material with like-for-like or better. Sheathing, framing members, blocking, trim, whatever's gone.
- We fix the reason it happened. New building paper or a self-adhered membrane, corrected flashing, a proper drainage path. Otherwise you're paying us to rebuild the same wall again in 2031.
- We put the cladding back and seal the joints properly. Then we walk you around the finished work before we ask for anything.
Why Older Surrey Homes Rot Faster Than Newer Ones
The BC Building Code has required rainscreen construction across coastal BC since 2006. That means new builds have a drained air cavity behind the cladding, so water that gets past the siding can run down and out, and air can move through to dry the wall.
Homes built before that shift often have siding nailed flat to the sheathing. No gap. No drainage. No drying.
A lot of the housing stock in Cloverdale, Newton, Fleetwood and Guildford went up in the 1980s and 1990s, right in that window. Same in older parts of Langley and Maple Ridge. Those are solid homes, but the wall assembly was designed for a drier climate than the one we actually have.
That’s why we treat wood rot repair on a pre-2006 home differently. We’re not just replacing wood. We’re deciding whether it makes sense to add a rainscreen cavity while the wall is open, so the next thirty years go better than the last thirty.
Sometimes it does. Sometimes the rot is contained and a straightforward repair is the right call. We’ll tell you which one you’re looking at.
We handle wood rot repair across Surrey, White Rock, South Surrey, Langley, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.
What Wood Rot Repair Costs in Surrey
We won’t pretend there’s a flat price, because the honest answer depends entirely on what’s under the siding.
A single rotted trim board or a small section of sheathing behind one siding panel is a same-day job. Rot that’s travelled through the framing on a two-storey wall is a different project.
What we can tell you is how we handle the money side. We don’t take a deposit. You don’t pay a final invoice until you’ve seen the work and you’re satisfied with it. That policy exists specifically because rot work is the kind of job where a homeowner can’t verify what happened inside the wall unless someone shows them.
So we show you. Photos of the open wall, before the new sheathing goes on.
Our estimates are free, and we work by appointment so you get a project manager who can actually walk the house with you rather than a salesperson with a tablet.
Ready to Find Out What's Behind the Wall?
If something feels soft, smells musty, or a bird has taken an interest in your siding, get it looked at before the wet season. Call 604-603-0257 or email info@micasaexteriors.ca to book a free inspection. No deposit, and no final payment until the work is done right.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if it's wood rot or just weathered wood?
Press it. Weathered wood is grey and rough but still hard. Rotted wood gives under thumb pressure, feels spongy, or crumbles. A screwdriver tip that sinks in easily is the clearest test. If it sinks more than a quarter inch without much force, that’s rot, not age.
Do you serve White Rock and Langley for wood rot repair, or just Surrey?
Yes, we cover White Rock, South Surrey, Langley, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows along with all of Surrey. Our shop is at 19340 65 Ave in Cloverdale, so East Surrey and Langley are close to home for our crews. Call 604-603-0257 and we’ll confirm we can get to you.
Do I need to pay a deposit before you start rot repair?
No. We don’t take deposits on any job, including rot repair. You pay when the work is finished and you’re satisfied with it. We photograph the open wall before we close it up so you can see exactly what was replaced.
Can you repair rot without replacing all my siding?
Often, yes. If the rot is contained to one area and hasn’t travelled through the framing, we cut back to sound wood, replace what’s damaged, and reinstall matching siding. Full replacement only makes sense when rot shows up in several places or the wall assembly itself is the problem.
What happens if you find more rot than the estimate covered?
We stop and show you before doing anything else. On full siding replacements we include up to 100 square feet of sheathing repair in the estimate. Past that, you get the findings and your options in writing before we continue. We don’t add work you didn’t approve.
Are woodpecker holes in my siding a sign of rot?
Often, yes. Northern Flickers drill into cladding looking for insects, and insects are usually already there because the wood is damp. Patching the hole without checking the wall behind it tends to bring the bird back. We check for moisture and soft sheathing before repairing the surface.
Do you subcontract rot repair to another crew?
No. Every job is done by our own in-house crews. That’s a deliberate choice, because rot repair is the kind of work that gets rushed or hidden when it’s handed to a sub who’s paid by the square foot.