When you buy your home you are buying a certain piece of construction history. The average old house in the Vancouver region is about a hundred year old house and at that time cedar shake was the only viable roofing product. At the time asphalt which is the by-product of refined oil was not being used. Cedar was in plenty in the pacific North West. What was amazing was this cedar was all old growth and as a result it would last for forty to fifty years. When the Cedar shake started to finally expire asphalt had just hit the town of Vancouver in the fifties and was the hottest trend. You could cover the cedar shakes like a blanket and it would last at least two decades.

At the time new construction was making multi family homes with shiplap decks and asphalt shingles. At the time this was a good idea but today we find shiplap and asphalt are not a good mix. Between the early fifties and the late seventies, cedar was not a common product being used. Even for new construction there was a limit to the quantity of cedar available. With demand in the US at this time for lumber as well as the basic trend here in British Columbia resulted in the lack of Cedar shake roofing.

Diamond and interlock shingles were the trend for the next fifty years on new and re-roofing with cedar shake making a comeback in the early 80's when there was another boom in new construction. This trend hasn't changed with new construction getting a cedar roof and asphalt roofing tending to replace the cedar shake when it expires.

The rules on how roofing should be done have changed but the products have remained pretty much the same. Vancouver homes may all look the same but the designs and product in which the homes are made are unique to the pacific north west.