Hi There,
We have just discovered BE and finding it really useful. We applied in 2004 and have just been told that we need to have medicals, so fingers crossed if all goes well, we could be there very soon. Does anyone have information on Sunshine Coast or Maple Ridge. Also, shipping costs, is it worth taking your own furniture or buy new. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks Annette and Pete

[F]Hi Annette & Pete,

We have lived on the Sunshine Coast since 2005. We live in Powell River.

As always, where you end up living will be dictated by work. If you have a good job arranged in advance, arguably any location in BC can work out fine.

I came to Powell River with my work already arranged as I am on a Work Permit. I also travel to work in Sechelt regularly. The main different between Powell River and Sechelt is nearness to Vancouver. Consequently, Sechelt being closer, their house prices have rocketed during the past 2 years. Powell River prices have also increased, but have not reached the same levels as Sechelt.

Life on the coast is very pleasant. It's a beautiful environment and very friendly. People with children tell us it's a very good place to raise them (we don't have kids, but they seem to have a very healthy lifestyle here).

You would have to check out the job situation if you were thinking of moving to the Sunshine Coast. I'm aware of there being a huge demand for medical staff, retail, tradespeople etc. I get the impression there isn't a lot of choice in other professions e.g. administration etc.

So, come and check it out and see what you think of the Sunshine Coast.

Regarding Maple Ridge. Funnily enough, we visited there a couple of weeks ago. It is going through a huge building boom (where isn't in BC!!) due to the near completion of the Golden Ears bridge. This will bring easy access to other communities such as Langley south of the river (where the house prices are higher).

Maple Ridge itself has a very urban feel, although we did see the countryside was easily accessible. The Golden Ears park is very popular. One thing I didn't like was the Lougheed Highway. It connects communities like Mission, Maple Ridge etc to Vancouver. We drove back into Vancouver on a midweek midmorning and frankly it was terrifying. Construction everywhere, scary drivers. I used to commute into London in years gone by, and thought the Lougheed Highway was a worse driving environment. I'm sure there are more people on the forum who use this road daily who will give their opinion.

Regarding, bringing your furniture. We chose to bring a part container for 1500 UK pounds. We bought things like boxes of books & CDs, 2 beds, welsh dresser, sofa & armchair, suitcases of clothes etc. It was all collected from our home in Kettering and packed for us. We chose to collect everything from the shipping agent in Vancouver with a van as it saved us a bundle.

We're glad we bought furniture with us, as it saved the initial hit of arriving with nothing and having to purchase everything. We were hoarding our meagre savings for a house deposit, and were really relieved that we had the basics to begin with. By the way, bring all your duvets and duvets covers with you. Apart from Ikea, these products are particularly expensive and (IMO) not as nice as stuff you'd find in Asda or Tesco!

So, I would say your choice of destination will be dictated by what sort of work you do. If you happen to be a medical professional, you can probably live wherever you like. Tradepeople are very much in demand, but BC has some of the most stringent licensing requirements of anywhere. Still once they are recognized, they'll earn pots of money.

Anyway, that's enough of my rambling. Hope it helps!

Sarah[/FONT]

Hi Sarah

That was great, thank you...I have thousands of questions as you can imagine. Did you/can you take your electrical items with you. I have heard that its different voltage. Do you know what the voltage frequency is, in the UK its 50hz. Pete is an Electrician, we are hoping he will find work when we get there, do you know of any website he can look on for jobs. I work for Rentokil, in a call centre as a manager, not hoping to work when or if we get there.

We really appreciate you taking the time to reply to us, its given us a good start

Hopefully speak soon

Annette

North American standard for electrical is 110 volt 60hz. Some items run on 220 volt, electric stoves and clothes dryers are the most common items.

As an electrician your husband will have to take some tests in order to be able to work in his trade here in Canada. If you do a search for Red Seal testing it'll give you some idea on what he will have to do.

Here is a link to one thread discussing this: http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...light=Red+Seal

Cheers
Steve

Great thanks Steve, can you offer any other advice. We are waiting for our medicals, they are on the 3rd July. The only reservation I have is that my younder son (9yrs) has just been diagnosed with Retinitus Pigmntosa (RP) basically he will slowly loose his vision, its currently only his night vision thats affected, I just hope this does not go against us.

Thaks
Annette

[F]Hi,

As Steve P said, Electricians are very regulated in BC.

However, once qualified, there seems to be limitless work available. We waited a long time for our 1930s knob & tube replacement work to be done. In the end, it was only because a friend from our car club (semi-retired) agreed to take the work. He did it at approximately half the price of a commercial electrical company.

We didn't bother bringing any electrical goods with us. We still have a washing machine in my parents garage! We had heard using an inverter was possible, but we didn't want to bother as we didn't have a lot of electrical stuff to bring. Besides, I'm still holding out for the behemoth washer dryer set that I keep seeing advertised on the TV.

I haven't heard of any websites offering contractor work. That website Steve recommended sounds a good start. Do everything you can though to research the electrical contractor regulations before you arrive. I get the impression that an employer won't touch you if you are not a card-holding electrician. A lot of it is due to Worksafe-BC. (The Workers Compensation Board of BC). Employers have to pays dues on staff working, and they have to be adequately licensed.

Hope this helps,

Sarah[/FONT]

There is a thread regarding info. about Maple Ridge.
http://britishexpats.com/forum/showt...13#post4643613
Sorry, can't tell you much about Sunshine Coast,only went there once for
a weekend to visit friends' farm, lovely place but not for me.

Yoong

Sorry to hear about your son's diagnosis, what a shock that must be to hear. We have a nine year old too and I just cannot imagine how this diagnosis must be affecting your lives and plans.
I can't offer any advice as to whether this will affect your application but there are so many active members on here and someone may be able to offer their experience.
We are on the verge of submitting our SW PR application so have a long way to go, years probably, unless we find a job in or around Comox/Campbell river in the meantime, where I have family.
Welcome to the forum, and if you would like to meet some of us then come along with Peter and the kids to one of our Meets, they are great fun.

Hi

We have lived in Maple Ridge since February and love it here. I do agree that the Lougheed Highway is busy, but I don't consider it dangerous or scary by any means. We lived nearer to Vancouver previously and I found that much more busy and scary, but saying that we did live there in the winter!

Maple Ridge is a lovely area for families and you can drive 10 minutes and be somewhere rural. The local rec centre offer fantastic facilities for kids and is reasonably priced. For instance I have booked my kids onto an arts and craft summer club for a week and it was $20 each.

I'm sorry to hear about your son's condition, I don't know if this will affect your medicals, we've not even been through this yet as we're on work permits. Fingers crossed that all goes well for you

HTH
Mel

Hi Mel,

Thanks for the advice. How old are your children, what are the schools like, I have heard they may be over crowded in Maple Ridge. How long are you hoping to stay there for. Once we know about our medicals we are hoping to visit to look for rented accommodation to start off with, what the monthly cost for a 4 bed in that area.

Are you working in Maple Ridge, or your partner. You said your on a work permit, were you sent there from a Company in the UK.

Thanks again
Annette

Hi Annette

My children are 7 & 4, so only the eldest one is in school. I put her into the nearest school to me and had no problems with over-crowding. I've heard that the Kanaka Creek Elementary school is over-subscribed as it is a year round school, instead of having the long summer break, they have a month off every 3 months, so they are off April, August and December. This is great for parents that want to plan holidays at off peak prices

We have bought a house so can't comment on how much rentals are, you could have a look on Craigslist to get a better idea.

We've just applied for PR via PNP, so no plans to move away at the moment.

I'm not working at the moment, my hubby works in Vancouver so commutes. He applied for jobs whilst in the UK and then we all came over in October once his work permit was approved.

HTH

We found it near impossible to get nice bedding at a reasonable rate. Bed sizes are different here so if bringing beds from UK bring lots of sheets and duverts covers.

They don't have many duverts here, rather comforters which are like duverts but with fixed covers, so you have to buy a new one everytime you want to change your bedroom colour scheme.

It might be worth checking out the Canadian Ikea for all the sizes.

Next time we go back to the UK, I'll be hitting Argos and Tesco for some cheap but cheerful bedding sets! Even Walmart is useless out here.

As for exlectrical items, electric toothbrush and laptops works, but hairdryer and Nokia charger don't. Didn't bring anything else. I think some people have had problems with compatiability of TV's with DVD players and playstations etc. Also, in our experience, only the cheapest Canadian DVD players play UK DVDs.

Evening,

Thanks for the reply. Hopefully we wil be going out to Canada at the begining of October, we are waiting for the visas to come back. My house has been up for sale for 2 days and we had a viewing yesterday, he wants to come back again tomorrow and we have another two tomorrow. Im getting sick and tired of having to keep my house clean and tidy, especially in the school holidays.... not good (haha):-)

Ow well, its a small price to pay....
Thanks
Annette and Pete

Hi Annette

CONGRATS on finally getting to the PPR stage! I remember the stress of selling the house, glad that's out of the way! We took a risk in the end and came over before completion and left the sale in the hands of the solicitor and estate agents, but it dragged on and on. We were left in limbo for a couple of months but it worked out in the end. I wouldn't recommend that route to be honest, but we had to move over as my hubby needed to start his job and I didn't want to be left behind to finalise the sale, pack up with 2 kids. I know a few do and I take my hat off to them, cause that must be so hard

As for tvs and dvds; we brought the kids' combos and run them on transformers and they're fine. Actually the combos play Canadian dvds too! The only thing we couldn't get to work was my hubby's PS2, but I think he may have blown a fuse or something as others have managed to get theirs to work.

Agreed on bedding, stock up before you leave and ship your duvets and covers cause they are expensive here.

Good luck with selling your house

Hi Sarah~...just wanted to say i tried to send you some Karma..but it wouldn't let me ..i dont' know why, that has never happened before..anyways...an excellent post ..very informative...