Roofing companies have been been dealing with emergency repair calls across Chilliwack in the wake of last week's fierce wind storm.
Roof shingles and overlay flew off hundreds of homes in the gale force winds of up to 70 km/hr last Tuesday.
Fraser Valley Roofing fielded about 350 service calls, mostly to repair various types of wind damage, said general manager Ron Peters.
They have about 70 roofers and at least 10 have been chipping steadily away at the backlog, even putting a halt on their other jobs to focus on it.
"Putting up tarps, that's mainly what we've been doing," said Peters. "We're sealing them up and getting them watertight."
The estimates and repairs have started, as owners get insurance quotes.
"Some people are upset; others are understanding about the waits."
Heavy winds swept across Chilliwack, tearing shingles and underlay off the bare plywood. In some cases even the plywood came up.
Sardis area was the hardest hit, said Howard Schlamb, GM and owner of Chilliwack Roofing, which employs about 30 roofers.
"It's the worst storm we've seen in 25 years," he noted. "Sardis was the hardest hit, south of the highway, from west of Vedder to Lickman Road."
About 150 service calls came in that were storm-related, and they have a couple still under tarps. They use a synthetic felt tarp to protect roofs from water damage.
"But we've serviced all our calls we got last week, and did our emergency repairs," Schlamb said. Now the roofers will be going back and either re-roofing or conducting permanent repairs.
Home owners are facing costs anywhere from $150 for a basic repair of a few shingles, up into the thousands if they end up losing the whole back end of a house.
"Typically we're seeing damage to roofs that are at their life expectancy, or in some cases, improperly installed," he said.
Penfolds Roofing out of Vancouver hasn't seen a deluge of service calls, but the calls out of Chilliwack definitely went up.
"We probably saw an increase of up to 15 per cent," Jason Apps, Penfolds field supervisor said.
Most calls were for asphalt shingles blowing off, damaged flashing, or even trees crashing down on roofs.
"Some we have to patch up."
Penfolds fielded storm-related calls from Chilliwack, Abbotsford and the North Shore.
"We've had those bad storms before. It seems to be once or twice a year around this time. It causes quite a bit of damage."
jfeinberg@theprogress.com
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