“[Warranty] means a lot to the people in the company,” he continues. “We still maintain the No. 1 market share in Canada. Brand loyalty has kept us at that spot.     

“People who have had product for 30 years now look at us for the replacement products.”

Renovate to Update
A strong home renovation market in Canada has been a boon to business. “The renovation market is huge,” Kandilas asserts. “The housing boom didn’t start in Canada until the 1990s, and there are a lot of homes in the Canadian marketplace that are 40- to 50-years-old, so there is a huge phenomenon of homes that are going through massive renovations. The bathroom tends to be the second most common room to renovate in the home, and the kitchen is the first.”

The most recent Renovation and Home Purchase Survey conducted by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation indicated that in 2006, approximately 1.5 million households in 10 major Canadian centers surveyed indicated they completed renovations, costing an average of more than $11,000. The main reason given by households for renovating in 2006 was to update, add value or to prepare to sell the residence.

According to Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Homebuilders’ Association, home renovation has been the solution to the high cost of living in a region frequently touted as one of the best places to live. Simpson says home renovation “is a growing trend that people need to pay more attention to in the future. In the greater Vancouver area $2.4 billion was spent on home renovation and repair in 2006,” Simpson says. Conversely, about $4.5 billion was spent on new home construction during that same period.

But not all renovation is done for the sake of boosting aesthetic appeal. An aging demographic, the shift toward working out of a home office and the need for energy retrofits all drive the renovation boom, Simpson says.