Sixty-five years in the Cowichan Valley
It started as a building supply store selling materials to local contractors. The house packages, the wall system and the shipments across the Pacific all came later, and all came from the same place.
How a supply store became a house manufacturer
The construction industry has changed a great deal across those years. What has not changed is that everything is still made in Cobble Hill.
Ken McKinnon founds Pacific Builders' Supplies
Selling a variety of building materials in the Cowichan Valley, British Columbia. Everything that followed grew out of this one store.
The first delivery truck
One truck, and suddenly the whole of Vancouver Island is within reach. It is a small detail that turns out to be the beginning of a logistics business.
A larger location
Pacific Builders' Supplies moves to a new site to meet growing demand.
Pacific Truss is founded
Ken McKinnon founds Pacific Truss, making it the oldest truss manufacturer on Vancouver Island. Roof engineering has been done in house ever since, which is why the roof and the walls of a package are designed to each other rather than sourced separately.
Pacific Homes begins
Ken founds Pacific Homes and develops a custom home building process that was unusual in the industry at the time and still sets the standard the company works to. The first prefabricated home package was built and delivered on site in Terrace, British Columbia.
The live version of this page says 1981. The 30th anniversary article and internal confirmation both give 1982, which is what the schema and every other page in this rebuild use. Resolve the discrepancy, then make all references agree.
One of four in the country to computerize
Pacific Building Supplies becomes one of only four building supply stores in Canada to pioneer a computer system, built for engineering and drafting in the truss division. It was later folded into the custom home building process, which is the origin of the 3D engineering the company still runs on.
The first shipment across the Pacific
A house package leaves for Japan. That single shipment established an international market that still exists, and the relationships have since extended to Korea, Israel, Mongolia and beyond. How delivery works now.
The wall system that became SmartWall®
Pacific Homes creates its pre-insulated wall system, later named the Pacific SmartWall. It reaches award winning levels of energy efficiency within a simple prefabricated system. The test data.
Truline Truss
The company purchases Truline Truss in Creston, British Columbia, expanding volume to meet consistently growing demand.
A new truss plant in Cobble Hill
Built on site with a computerized linear saw, laser guidance for precise construction and a conveyor system for efficiency. The equipment has been updated continually since. You can walk through it.
Shipping warehouse, and a corporate umbrella
A new shipping warehouse and loading bay, built to keep up with international shipments. Pacific Building Systems is established as the umbrella covering all the Pacific Group divisions.
The Langford sales office
Opened close to Victoria so Build Specialists could serve clients in the Capital Region directly.
Joining the All-Fab Group
Pacific Homes, Pacific Truss and Truline Truss join the All-Fab Group, connecting the company with clients across Canada and beyond, and adding building experience alongside the decades already accumulated on Vancouver Island.
Still made in Cobble Hill
The company is thriving locally and internationally, and the values that got it there have not moved. Packages still leave from the same site in the Cowichan Valley, engineered and cut in the same building, on equipment that keeps getting replaced as the technology improves.
Community involvement has always been fundamental to the Pacific Homes family of companies, its owners and its employees, including consistent support for youth sports programs and other local events and organisations. Pacific Homes is a valued employer, community member and business partner in the Cowichan Valley and beyond.
Pacific Homes is dedicated to ethical business practices and enforces a zero-tolerance policy on modern slavery and human trafficking in its operations and supply chains, with regular monitoring, employee training and strict compliance. Read the Modern Slavery Act policy.
Get new house plans as they are released
We add plans through the year and photograph the homes once they are finished. Both go out by email before they go anywhere else.
- New and updated house plans
- Completed builds, with photographs
- Occasional guidance on cost, code and building conditions
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