Surrey’s flashing shop: steel and aluminium bent to the job, and a crew that will come and install it.
Klassen Building Supplies has been fabricating steel and aluminium flashings in Surrey since 2004. They are now one of the Lower Mainland’s leading suppliers of flashings, aluminium siding and fabricated metal products, including wood-grain metal panelling. They bend to the job rather than stocking a catalogue, and they install as well as supply.
- Custom, not catalogue. Flashings and profiles bent to the drawing, for the building actually being built.
- Supply and install. Their own installation crews, which makes them a subcontractor as much as a supplier.
- Steel, aluminium and panelling. Including wood-grain metal panelling for exteriors that want the look without the maintenance.
- Locally owned since 2004. Surrey based, serving the Lower Mainland.
- Since
- 2004, locally owned and operated
- Based
- Surrey, BC
- Fabricates
- Steel and aluminium flashings, aluminium siding and fabricated metal products
- Also
- Wood-grain metal panelling and custom profiles
- Installs
- Their own installation side, not just supply
- Serves
- The BC Lower Mainland
The problem worth solving
Flashings and cladding get bought in a narrow window on any given site. The whole job is knowing which sites are in it.
- Routes were planned from habit. Without a picture of where active construction actually was, the week got built from memory and the same familiar loops.
- Driving past live work. Sites that were exactly at the cladding stage went unnoticed because nobody knew they existed.
- Calling on sites that had stalled. The other half of the same problem: time spent on projects that were nowhere near needing metal.
- Fuel and hours, both wasted. A territory this spread out punishes an unplanned route twice: once in diesel, once in the calls not made.
How BuildMapper helped
He plans the day, or the whole week ahead, on the map, then works the route.
- The map shows where the work is. Active construction across his territory on one screen, which is the input he never had. His own words: “the map shows where the construction sites are.”
- A route, not a list. Sites are grouped by area so he drives one loop with the least backtracking. “Less downtime, less fuel, and see more clients.”
- Day by day, or a week at a time. He plans the next day the evening before, or blocks out a full week when it suits, both off the same map.
- Contacts go straight onto the pipeline. A name picked up on a site visit becomes a tracked lead the same day, instead of a note that gets lost.
What changed
More clients per day, fewer kilometres, and a follow-up list that does not leak.
- Less downtime, less fuel. The route is planned around where the work actually is, which is exactly the gain he names first.
- More clients in the same day. Grouping visits geographically means the driving shrinks and the conversations multiply.
- There at the right stage. Sites are visited while the cladding and flashing decisions are still open.
- Nothing falls through. Every contact from a site visit is on the pipeline with a next step, rather than on the back of a business card.
How Klassen Building Supplies uses BuildMapper
Feature by feature: who leans on it, what they actually do with it, and what it gave them back.
He opens the map the evening before, or at the start of the week, reads where the active sites are across his territory, and sets a route that runs them in one loop.
Active construction across the Lower Mainland on one screen, filtered to the building types that need flashings, siding and panelling.
Contacts and site details picked up on the road go onto a tracked board the same day, with a stage and a next step.
The builder behind a site, their other projects and who to ask for, plus a first message that names the actual job.
What changed
Day-by-day or a week at a time, the route comes off the map instead of out of habit.
Visits grouped by area mean the driving shrinks, the saving he names first.
The hours that used to go into backtracking go into conversations.
Sites are reached at the cladding stage, not after the metal has been ordered.
Every contact from the road is on the pipeline with a next step.