Renovations built for a climate that rains on everything.
Kitchens, bathrooms, basements and exteriors across Metro Vancouver. You deal with Azem from the first call to the last deficiency — no call centre, no handover.
- Answers fast
- Average response time of about 40 minutes.
- A real site visit
- Free, no obligation, and Azem does it himself.
- A scope you can compare
- Line-itemized in writing, with allowances named as allowances.
- No surprise invoices
- Change orders priced and signed before the work, never after.
What we do
Five kinds of work, priced line by line
Every service page carries the actual scope of work as it appears in your written proposal — eight line items, each explained. Not a bullet list of adjectives.
Kitchen renovations
A kitchen is the densest room in the house — services, ventilation, water and heavy cabinetry all landing inside four walls. Most of what goes wrong in one goes wrong behind the drywall.
What's in the scope →
Bathroom renovations
A bathroom is a small room with a water problem. Everything that matters in one is decided in the two days between the framing being closed in and the tile going on.
What's in the scope →
Basement finishing and suites
Finishing a basement is not a framing job. It is a water-management job that ends in framing, and the order matters more than anything else on this page.
What's in the scope →
Whole-home renovations
A whole-home renovation is a scheduling problem wearing a construction costume. The trades are the easy part; the order they arrive in is where projects are won and lost.
What's in the scope →
Decks, siding and exterior work
The leaky-condo crisis is living memory in this province, and it is the reason drained, vented wall assemblies are standard practice here. Everything on the outside of a house in this region is a water-management detail.
What's in the scope →We renovate existing homes. We are not a BC Housing Licensed Residential Builder, so we do not build new ones — and Azem will tell you at the first site visit if your project has drifted across that line.
Who you get
You will be dealing with Azem.
Not a call centre, not a project manager you meet once. The person who prices your job is the person who turns up to do it.
Every review Durak Homes has names him, which tells you something about how the work gets done. He answers the phone in about 40 minutes on average, quotes from a site visit rather than from a photograph, and writes the scope out line by line so you can hold it against anyone else's.
The work is carpentry-led — framing, structure, envelope, and the finishing trades that follow. Electrical and gas are carried out under permit by contractors licensed by Technical Safety BC, because a general contractor legally cannot do that work.
— Azem, Durak Homes
Reviews
What Azem's clients say
5.0 out of 5 across 5 reviews, every one of them public, attributed, and linked to where it was posted.
Azem of Durak Homes is everything that one would want in a contractor — reliable, conscientious, efficient, considerate, and knowledgeable. In short, he gets the job done, and leaves the worksite spotless. I am happy to recommend his services.
Bathroom renovation · October 2024 · Verified on Bark
Azem was extremely efficient and very professional. He got the work done and cleaned up everything afterwards. We will be utilizing his services again!
Repairs and carpentry · October 2024 · Verified on Bark
Super efficient. Azem came within an hour, assessed the work and did the repairs quickly and efficiently. He didn't leave any mess. Really happy with the service and would highly recommend him to friends.
Repairs · September 2024 · Verified on Bark
How it goes
The first four stages
First call
Ten minutes on the phone. What the job is, roughly when, and whether it is work we actually do. If it is not, we will say so and, where we can, point you at someone who does.
Site visit
We measure, we open nothing, and we look at the things that decide the price: the age of the house, where the services run, how the water currently gets away from the building.
Written scope and price
A line-itemized scope, not a lump sum. Every allowance is named as an allowance. You should be able to compare it against another contractor's scope line by line — and if you cannot, that tells you something about the other scope.
Hazardous materials survey
If the house predates 1990, a survey by a qualified surveyor happens before anything is opened up. This is not optional and it is not us being cautious — it is WorkSafeBC's requirement, and the report is yours to keep.
Common questions
The things people actually ask
Are you licensed and insured?
British Columbia does not license general contractors as a trade, so "licensed contractor" on its own means very little here — ask what specifically. What you should ask any contractor for, including us, is three documents: a WorkSafeBC clearance letter, a certificate of commercial general liability insurance, and a current municipal business licence. Ask before the deposit, not after. If a contractor hesitates on any of the three, that is your answer.
Do you build new homes?
No. New home construction in BC — and renovation extensive enough to be deemed substantially reconstructed — requires a BC Housing Licensed Residential Builder number and registered 2-5-10 home warranty insurance before the building permit issues. We do not hold that licence, so we do not take that work. We renovate existing structures.
My house is from the 1970s. What is this asbestos survey I keep hearing about?
Since January 2024, asbestos abatement contractors in BC must hold a WorkSafeBC licence, and any building that may contain asbestos must be surveyed by a qualified person before demolition or renovation disturbs materials. In practice that means any house built before 1990. The usual finds are drywall joint compound, sheet flooring and its adhesive, textured ceilings, pipe insulation and asbestos cement siding. The survey is a cost on your project and it is not optional — a contractor who offers to skip it is offering you a stop-work order.
Do I need a permit?
Layout changes, structural work, plumbing relocation and most siding replacement: yes. Like-for-like finishes in the same layout: usually not. Electrical and gas permits are separate and must be pulled by a contractor licensed by Technical Safety BC — a general contractor cannot legally pull them or do that work. We tell you which permits your job needs before you commit.
How do you handle payments?
A deposit, then progress payments tied to defined completion milestones rather than to dates. Under BC's Builders Lien Act a 10% holdback applies to construction contracts and is released after the lien period ends — we will walk you through how that works on your job, because it protects you as much as it constrains us. If you would rather not hold a deposit with us at all, we can run the job through TradeStack instead: your money sits in regulated escrow and is released only when you approve each milestone against photographs of the work. It is a payment arrangement, not a credential — TradeStack verifies our identity, it does not vet our licensing, and you should still ask us for the three documents above.
Service area
Where Azem works
These are the municipalities we actually drive to, named one by one rather than gestured at. If you are just outside the list, call anyway and we will tell you honestly whether the travel makes sense for the size of your job.
- Vancouver
- Burnaby
- New Westminster
- Coquitlam
- Port Coquitlam
- Port Moody
- Maple Ridge
- Pitt Meadows
- Surrey
- Richmond
- North Vancouver
- West Vancouver
Tell Azem what you're thinking about.
Ten minutes on the phone tells you both whether this is work he should be doing for you. If it isn't, he'll say so.