CSA A277 is not a building code. It is a procedure: an independent agency certifies a factory’s quality system and inspects what it builds, so an inspector at your lot can trust the parts sealed inside the walls. It stops at the factory door.
Checked 2026-09-23 · What the Province's bulletin and Surrey's guidebook say about these standards. Only your municipality's building department can accept a specific unit.
On Surrey’s own cost figures for a prefab garden suite, the factory-built unit starts at $150,000. Everything else starts at $150,000 — site preparation, service connections, transportation and installation, permits and fees — bringing the floor to $300,000.
That second $150,000 is the part A277 does not cover. The standard certifies what happens inside the factory. The foundation, the connections, the crane and the permits happen on your lot, where they are inspected like any other construction. A manufacturer’s A277 label is real assurance about the first half of that floor, and says nothing about the second.
On site, the BC Building Code still governs siting, foundations, mountings, connections to services and installation of appliances.
| CSA A277 | CSA Z240 MH | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A procedure for certifying factory-built buildings | A standard for manufactured homes that works, in parts, like its own building code |
| What the home is built to | The BC Building and Plumbing Codes | The Z240 MH standard itself |
| Under the BC Building Code | Must comply; the label lets the inspector rely on the factory work | Accepted as housing under Division A 1.1.1.1.(2)(g), for the factory-built part only |
| Still governed by the BC code on site | Anything not finished in the factory, plus transport and erection | Siting, foundations, mountings, service connections, appliances |
| Accepted by Surrey for a garden suite | Yes | Yes |
| On wheels, as a garden suite | No | No |
Before its 2012 edition, the BC Building Code said it did not apply to factory-built housing certified to A277. That line was being read as “no code applies at all”, when A277 itself requires compliance with the code in force where the home is installed. The 2012 edition dropped the exemption, and the last references in its Appendix were removed on 19 December 2014.
In the City of Vancouver the reference is the Vancouver Building Bylaw rather than the BC Building Code.
The free check reads the zoning for one address and tests whether a suite of the size the bylaw permits fits once setbacks and lot coverage are taken out.
It is a Canadian standard for certifying factory-built buildings. An independent certification agency reviews a factory's quality program and inspects what it builds, so an inspector at the site can rely on the label for the parts closed up inside walls, floors and roofs. The Province's own bulletin is explicit that it is not a building code but a procedure for certifying compliance with one.
No. The BC Building Code applies the same requirements to factory-built and site-built buildings, and an A277-certified building installed in BC must be designed and built to the BC Building and Plumbing Codes or to the CSA Z240 MH standard. Before its 2012 edition the code said it did not apply to A277-certified housing; that line was removed because it was being read as no code applying at all.
A standard for manufactured homes that, in parts, works like its own building code. The BC Building Code accepts homes certified to it, but that acceptance covers only what is built in the factory: siting, foundations, mountings, service connections and appliance installation still have to meet the BC Building Code.
No. Surrey's guidebook requires a prefabricated garden suite to be built to CSA A277 or CSA Z240 MH and set on a permanent foundation. A unit on wheels cannot be permitted as a garden suite.
Yes. Certification covers the factory. Everything that happens on your lot — siting, foundations, mountings, connections to services and installation of appliances — is inspected there, under the BC Building Code, or under the Vancouver Building Bylaw in the City of Vancouver.
The rules change at every city line. These pages are built from the same bylaw reads.
What the Province's bulletin and Surrey's guidebook say about these standards. Only your municipality's building department can accept a specific unit.