A 1970s and 1980s hillside street where the water comes from a pipe and the sewage stays on the lot.
Where Fir Road sits, and the other places we attend
around Davis Bay. Every name on the map is a link.
On the slope behind Mission Point
Fir Road is a local street in the District of Sechelt, set on the Davis Bay slope uphill of Highway 101. The house at 4741 Fir Road sits at 49.444807 north and 123.724434 west, a few hundred metres inland of the point where Chapman Creek meets the sea, and carries the postal code V7Z 0B4, which is shared with the 4700 block of Laurel Avenue. This is a Davis Bay address rather than a Wilson Creek one, on the near side of the creek to the hospital, the fire hall and the RCMP detachment. Listings for the street describe ocean views, sunsets over the water, and beaches and shops within walking distance. Zoning on the documented lots is R1, single family, and lot sizes run from roughly 7,800 to 9,100 square feet, about a fifth of an acre.
The water is piped and the sewage is not
This is the fact that decides what goes wrong here in January. Houses on Fir Road are supplied with municipal water, which on this side of Sechelt means the regional district's Chapman system, but the listing record for 4787 Fir Road states plainly that the property is on a septic system. The District of Sechelt operates more than 50 kilometres of sanitary sewer serving about 6,000 connected residents, with the oldest parts dating from the 1960s, and this street is not on it. A septic field at an occupied house announces its own failures, because somebody is using it and somebody notices. At an empty house nothing is drawn through the system for weeks, a saturated field after a wet December shows only as soft, wet ground above the tank, and nobody is standing on that ground to feel it.
A 1974 house and a 1981 house, and what has happened to them
4787 Fir Road was built in 1974 in a Tudor style, three bedrooms and two bathrooms, on a lot of 72.62 by 110.0 feet, which is 7,841 square feet. It has gas heat and a gas fireplace, a single garage and a covered deck with an ocean view. Its roof and insulation were replaced in July 2015, and its 2021 property tax was $3,694. 4741 Fir Road was built in 1981, five bedrooms and three bathrooms, 2,357 square feet on 9,148 square feet of ground, PID 007-150-423. Its 2026 property tax was $5,277.05. It was listed at $989,000 and sold on 1 July 2026. The previous sale of the same house was on 22 May 2003, for $229,900. Those two numbers, 23 years apart on one address, are the clearest available measure of why the ownership on this street has turned over and why a growing share of the owners are not from here.
A pathway at the end of the block reaches the school
One of the listings on the street notes a pathway at the end of the block leading to Davis Bay Elementary School, which stands at 5078 Davis Bay Road. A foot connection of that kind does two things at once. It gives the street a second route in and out that is not visible from any driveway, and it puts children along the back of the lots twice a day through the school year. A back fence, a gate and a shed facing that path are worth a different kind of attention from the ones facing the road.
Wind is what takes the power out
The record on this coast is about wind rather than tide. In November 2024 a restoration contractor counted roughly 20 tree impacts on buildings across the Coast in 24 hours, BC Hydro named Sechelt among the hardest hit areas, and the contractor's point was that older buildings and cabins do not take that kind of hit the way newer ones do, and that the average homeowner cannot find $20,000 for the repairs. In November 2022 about 9,000 Sunshine Coast customers lost power, some of them for more than four days, with drought-stressed trees coming out of the ground root and all. On a wooded hillside street a tree that comes down on a service drop takes the heat with it.
What a check on Fir Road covers
The septic tank lid, the field and the ground above it, including soft or wet ground after a run of rain
Fixtures run briefly so the traps stay sealed and the tank is not left completely still
The house holding heat, or the supply shut at the main and every line drained
Gas fireplace, furnace and hot water tank, with the smell test done at each
Trees leaning over the roof, the deck and the overhead service drop after a southeast or west blow
Deck boards, railings and stairs on a view lot exposed to salt-laden wind
The back fence, gate and shed facing the pathway at the end of the block
Gutters, downspouts and the driveway culvert running clear into the roadside ditch
A dated set of photographs of all of it, filed on the day
Almost every home policy attaches a condition to leaving a house empty in winter: attendance by a competent person on a fixed cycle, frequently at gaps of four days or fewer, or the water off and the pipes emptied. The permitted interval varies between insurers and between products. Read the wording you actually hold before settling on a frequency.
What it costs
A scheduled check at Fir Road is
$55 a visit, plus
$10 travel. The travel charge is the same
everywhere between Gibsons and Egmont. There is no minimum term and no joining fee.
See the full price list.
Where these facts come from
Every figure, date and quotation on this page was taken from one of these. They are
listed so you can read them yourself.
