Nelson Roofing and Sheet Metal marked 45 years in 2025. Four and a half decades of roofs on the same stretch of coast, put on by four sets of hands at the top of the company and a great many more on the buildings.

1980, the Comox Valley

Russ and Sharon Nelson started the company in the Comox Valley in 1980. It was incorporated in 1988. The trade then was what it is now. Get the material up, get it on properly, get off the building before the weather turns. This is a wild, wet and windy part of British Columbia, and it has never been forgiving of shortcuts on a roof.

1999, the second generation

Their son Lyle Nelson took over the company in 1999. Lyle is a past president of the Roofing Contractors Association of British Columbia, which tells you something about how the company has treated standards. Being involved in writing and governing them is a different level of commitment than following them.

2014, new owners

Chris and Tatyana Smith bought the company in 2014. The name did not change and neither did the crews. That is a deliberate thing rather than an accident. Roofing is a business built on people who know the buildings, know the suppliers and know what the weather does here in November, and none of that transfers with a sign change.

2025, the succession plan

In 2025 the company entered a partnership with Parcel B Limited to carry out its succession plan. We continue to operate under the same name, doing the same work, with the same people. A succession plan is simply the paperwork behind a fairly ordinary intention. The company should outlast the people currently running it.

Three branches

Today the work runs out of three branches. Cumberland and the Comox Valley, Campbell River, and Powell River. Not every year has been a year of adding locations. Some have gone the other way. What has held is the geography we actually serve well and the standard we hold on it.

Forty five years of that leaves a record you can look at rather than take our word for. Hospitals, schools, arenas, retail, industrial buildings, mass timber housing and a long list of houses. Most of it is in our project portfolio, and the fuller story of the company is on our about page.

The next roof

The best thing about a 45 year old roofing company is not the anniversary. It is that we have gone back to buildings we roofed twenty and thirty years ago and been able to see how the details held up. That is not available to a company that started last spring, and it is why our commercial roofing details look the way they do.

If your roof is coming due, call us at 250-336-8088 or use the contact page. Our estimates are free and include a detailed list of the work that will be done and the materials used.