Vancouver's Shaughnessy, near where Kinsella lives, water is a problem...... but they have ways of dealing with it

(8)  Where a sleeve flashing is installed on a flat roof, it shall extend at least 150 mm above the flood level and on a sloped roof shall be at least 150 mm high on the short side.

150 mm = 5.90 inches   Let's call it six inches, eh.   In this photo, the Stacks, the vent stacks, the waste stacks have been extended by about 8 feet!   Could it be that the home owner felt that there was some truth to the weather reports that WE are in for a super duper El Nino dump of Snow in Vancouver's Shaughnessy area, or could it be that the home owner, during the Summer months was receiving a heavier dose of something that SMELLS from the Lower floor venting systems from a Kitchen and/or the Bathroom, that ended up wafting into the top floor living area when the windows are open........ or maybe they were sold a bill of goods that suggested that the upstairs bathrooms, when the drains were pulled, would overflow outside from the top of the six inch high vent pipes, therefore the eight feet was extended.   The vent pipes are there to provide air pressure so that there's no suction to pull the water out of the P-Trap.     The P-Trap, filled with water (or hair) YUCK, creates a gasket to stop sewer gases from coming into a house.  On the rare occasion, that sewer gas has demolished a house.

Same block of Shaughnessy, different house, actually its a garage, Shed, because its built upon concrete blocks at the corners, needs no permit, but its a tad OVERSIZE...... where off at the far end of the building, at the roof gutter level, a vertical downpipe is spied.  It SHOULD be the low end of the circuit, but it appears that this particular owner had to do a little bit of finagling to solve his problem of drainage.

In this next photo the owner to the Left has the right idea, but the guy to the right, hmmm, I wonder if the BC Property Assessment people spotted this.... and did the Owners get Permits from City Hall for Shed and the Venting pipes.