Burnaby’s housing splits cleanly. The town centres — Metrotown, Brentwood, Lougheed, Edmonds — are dense high-rise, much of it built in the last twenty years. The established neighbourhoods — Burnaby Heights, Capitol Hill, Deer Lake, Buckingham — are post-war houses on larger lots.
The two produce completely different projects. A Brentwood tower kitchen is a strata job with a riser constraint; a Capitol Hill house is a panel upgrade and a load-bearing wall.
Tower kitchens in Metrotown and Brentwood
Burnaby’s newer towers follow the same pattern as downtown Vancouver: a strata alteration agreement taking two to six weeks, contractor insurance and WorkSafeBC documentation, a booked service elevator, weekday work hours, and a plumbing riser that cannot move.
Kitchen footprints in these buildings are usually 85 to 130 sq ft, open to the living space. The specification issues are the same as downtown: full-height cabinetry to recover storage, deep drawers, an integrated or counter-depth fridge so the walkway stays clear, and a quiet dishwasher because it is now in the living room.
Typical cost $26,000 to $45,000, four to six weeks on site. See condo kitchen renovations.
Houses in the Heights, Capitol Hill and Deer Lake
Burnaby’s post-war housing is mostly 1950s to 1970s: bungalows, split-levels and Vancouver Special variants. The two recurring items are a 100-amp panel that will not carry a modern kitchen, and a kitchen closed off from the living space by a wall that is usually load-bearing.
Many of these houses also have a basement suite with a second kitchen, quoted separately at $12,000 to $25,000 for a full replacement.
Capitol Hill and parts of the Heights are on slopes, which affects access and occasionally means the kitchen is half a level from the entry. We survey the delivery route at the site visit.
City of Burnaby permits
The City of Burnaby handles permits for the whole municipality. A like-for-like kitchen renovation needs no building permit. Structural work does, with an engineer’s drawings, and electrical and gas work each need their own permit and inspection.
Burnaby’s building permit timeline for residential alterations typically runs four to ten weeks, similar to Vancouver. We file during design so it runs in parallel with cabinetry manufacturing.
One difference worth knowing: Burnaby’s requirements around secondary suites are specific, and renovating a suite kitchen is a good moment to confirm the suite’s status rather than discover it at inspection.
Second kitchens and Burnaby's suite rules
A large share of Burnaby’s post-war houses have a secondary suite with its own kitchen. Renovating one is straightforward, but it is worth confirming the suite’s legal status first: work in a permitted suite is subject to the same building and electrical requirements as the main house.
Burnaby regulates secondary suites specifically, including requirements around ceiling height, egress, smoke alarm interconnection and fire separation between units. A kitchen renovation does not usually engage those, but if the suite was never permitted, opening walls is the point at which the question surfaces.
We will tell you what we can see. What we will not do is quote work that quietly assumes a suite is legal when nobody has checked — because the inspection that matters is the one a future buyer’s realtor orders, not ours.
Practically, suite kitchens get a different specification: durability over finish level, stock or entry semi-custom cabinetry, quartz or a hard-wearing laminate, and luxury vinyl plank flooring that survives tenant turnover.
Getting materials in around Burnaby's terrain
Burnaby is hillier than people who only drive Kingsway realise. Capitol Hill, parts of Burnaby Heights and the streets above Deer Lake are steep enough that a delivery route matters, and on a split-level the kitchen is often half a storey from the entry.
In the town centres the constraint flips entirely: no driveway, no place for a bin, and every load through a booked freight lift. Metrotown and Brentwood towers also have tightly managed loading bays, so deliveries arrive in scheduled windows rather than whenever the truck is ready.
We survey the route at the site visit either way — driveway grade, stair landings, door widths, lift car dimensions — because the largest piece that can physically reach the kitchen occasionally decides where a countertop seam falls.
What Burnaby projects cost
| Property type | Typical project | Cost (CAD) | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| Metrotown / Brentwood tower | Full condo kitchen renovation | $26,000 – $45,000 | 4 – 6 weeks plus strata approval |
| Post-war house, kitchen only | Full renovation, layout kept | $38,000 – $65,000 | 5 – 7 weeks |
| Post-war house, wall opened | Plus load-bearing removal and beam | $50,000 – $90,000 | 7 – 10 weeks |
| Basement suite kitchen | Full replacement, durable specification | $12,000 – $25,000 | 3 – 4 weeks |
| Refacing-led refresh | Doors, counters, hardware, lighting | $14,000 – $24,000 | 2 – 3 weeks |
