Nelson Roofing and Sheet Metal Ltd. has been named Subcontractor of the Year at the 2026 Vancouver Island Construction Association Awards. The award was for North Island College Student Housing, Cladding.

The night

The VICA Awards, also known as the Vancouver Island Building Industry Awards, were held at the Royal BC Museum. This was the third annual gala, presented in coordination with the Canadian Home Builders Association Vancouver Island. Shantanu Bahadkar, PMP, one of our project managers and estimators, accepted the award for the company.

An award like this one is not handed to a person. It is handed to whoever is standing there on behalf of the fabricators, the installers, the foremen and the office staff who did the job. That is how we are reading it.

The building it was won for

The North Island College student housing project, tul'al'txw, is two four storey mass timber buildings holding 217 beds. We did the cladding and the architectural sheet metal, and we wrote about how that package went together in our post on the NIC student housing build.

What cladding work actually is

Cladding is judged twice. Once by eye, from the ground, where every panel line either holds true across an elevation or does not. And once by water, over the following winters, where the joints and the flashings either keep it out or let it in. Both judgements are decided long before install, in the shop and on the shop drawings.

That is why our commercial cladding work starts with layout. Panels get set out, sequenced and fabricated to suit the building rather than cut to fit on site. By lifting material to the wall only when it is required, we minimize the number of times the material is handled, which is the single biggest cause of dents, scratches and rework on a metal package.

Working on mass timber

Mass timber buildings put the trades under a different kind of pressure. The structure is the finish in a lot of places, it does not tolerate standing water the way concrete shrugs it off, and the schedule is built around getting the envelope closed. That means the cladding crews are not the last trade to think about. They are part of the plan from early on, and the sequencing has to hold.

Thank you

Thanks to VICA and to the Canadian Home Builders Association Vancouver Island for the recognition, and to the general contractor, consultants and college staff we worked alongside. Awards are pleasant. Buildings that stay dry are the actual job.

If you have a project coming up and you want the envelope scoped properly before it goes out to tender, call us at 250-336-8088 or send the drawings through our contact page. Our estimates are free and include a detailed list of the work that will be done and the materials used.