What should it cost? A homeowner's 2026 price guide
Ballpark installed prices in Canadian dollars for the jobs homeowners actually call about, what pushes a quote up, and what a fair quote should include before you sign anything.
There is no national price list for home renovation in Canada. Statistics Canada and CMHC track how much the country spends on renovation, not what your bathroom should cost, and the guides you find online come from quote aggregators and contractor cost pages that routinely disagree with each other by a factor of two.
So treat everything below as a ballpark, not a quote. Every range is an installed price in Canadian dollars, labour included, before tax. It is useful for exactly one thing: telling you whether the number in front of you is in the neighbourhood, high, or suspiciously low.
That last one matters most. A quote well under the bottom of a range is rarely a bargain. It usually means something has been left out of the scope, and you will meet that something later, as a change order, at a moment when you have no leverage left.
The big jobs, at a glance
Start here, then read the detail below for the job you actually care about. Every range assumes a standard detached or semi-detached home and an existing system being replaced rather than added from scratch.
| Job | Typical installed range | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Bathroom renovation, mid-range | $10,000 to $25,000 | Powder room from around $2,000 |
| Kitchen renovation, mid-range | $30,000 to $55,000 | Cabinetry is 40 to 50 percent of it |
| Gas furnace replacement | $4,000 to $7,000 | 95 percent AFUE is the legal minimum |
| Ducted heat pump | $6,000 to $12,000 | Cold-climate models $9,000 to $16,000 |
| Ductless mini-split, one zone | $3,500 to $6,000 | Each extra head adds $1,500 to $3,000 |
| Central air conditioning | $4,000 to $7,000 | Adding where none exists costs more |
| Asphalt shingle roof | $8,000 to $18,000 | 1,500 to 2,000 sq ft detached home |
| Metal roof | $15,000 to $45,000 | Screw-down panel through to standing seam |
| Windows, per opening | $800 to $1,500 | Full-frame adds $400 to $600 each |
| Windows, 10 to 15 openings | $12,000 to $22,000+ | Access and glazing drive it |
| Basement waterproofing, interior | $4,000 to $13,000 | Single crack injection from $500 |
| Basement waterproofing, exterior | $15,000 to $25,000 | Landscaping restoration usually excluded |
| 200-amp panel upgrade | $2,500 to $4,500 | Permit and ESA inspection included |
| Water heater, tank | $1,500 to $2,800 | Electric at the low end, gas at the high |
| Water heater, tankless | $2,800 to $6,500 | Venting and gas line capacity drive it |
If your quote sits inside the range, the price is not the thing to argue about. Spend your energy on scope and warranty instead. If it sits well below, ask what is excluded before you celebrate.
Bathrooms and kitchens
Bathrooms are where published numbers disagree most violently. One major Canadian guide puts a basic refresh at $5,000 to $10,000; another starts its entry-level full renovation at $18,000. Both are describing real projects. They are just describing different scopes and calling them the same thing.
Two of the three largest Canadian sources cluster at $10,000 to $25,000 for a standard mid-range full bathroom, and that is the band worth carrying in your head. Labour is roughly 55 percent of the total, finishing materials 30 percent, rough materials 10 percent, and permits and contingency the rest.
Kitchens are more predictable, because one line item dominates. Cabinetry is 40 to 50 percent of the budget, so the cabinet spec is the budget conversation. Everything else is rounding by comparison.
Moving a drain, converting a tub to a curbless shower, or working in a condo with booked elevators all push you toward the top of the band.
The sources do not disagree about price. They disagree about what counts as a bathroom renovation.
| Element | Range | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Cabinets, melamine | $250 to $400 | per linear foot |
| Cabinets, polyester | $450 to $600 | per linear foot |
| Cabinets, thermofoil | $500 to $750 | per linear foot |
| Cabinets, solid wood | $850 and up | per linear foot |
| Counter, laminate | $35 to $70 | per sq ft |
| Counter, quartz | $110 to $180 | per sq ft |
| Counter, granite | $100 to $200 | per sq ft |
| Cabinet refacing instead of replacing | $6,000 to $15,000 | whole kitchen |
Demolition and disposal as their own lines. The waterproofing membrane named by product, not described as waterproofing. Fixture and appliance allowances stated in dollars so you know what you are actually allowed to pick. Permit. Final clean. And a stated unit rate for hidden rot, which typically adds $2,000 to $5,000 when a wall comes open.
Heating, cooling and hot water
One thing to clear up first, because it comes up in nearly every furnace conversation. You cannot buy a mid-efficiency gas furnace in Canada any more. Federal energy efficiency regulations have required residential gas furnaces manufactured on or after 3 July 2019 to be at least 95 percent AFUE. If a quote offers you a cheaper 80 percent unit, that is a question, not a saving.
So the real spread between a $4,000 furnace and a $7,500 furnace is not efficiency. It is staging, blower type and warranty. Single-stage with a standard blower sits at the bottom. Modulating with a variable-speed ECM blower sits at the top, runs quieter, and holds temperature more evenly.
Heat pumps are where quotes vary most, because contractors are pricing genuinely different machines. A standard air-source unit and a cold-climate unit rated for output at minus 25 are not the same product, and comparing their prices side by side without checking which is which is how homeowners end up disappointed in February.
A panel upgrade is often required alongside a heat pump and adds $1,500 to $3,000. Multi-zone mini-splits run $8,000 to $15,000, with each extra head adding $1,500 to $3,000.
If nobody measured your house, nobody sized the equipment. The price is describing a guess.
Any heat pump quote should rest on a heat loss and heat gain calculation, CSA F280. An oversized heat pump costs more to buy and more to run. Also check rebate timing: most programs require pre-approval before the work starts, so a homeowner who reads a guide, hires someone, then applies has already lost the money.
Roofs, windows and the outside of the house
Roofing is priced per square foot of roof area, not floor area, and that is why two homeowners with the same size house get different numbers. Pitch, valleys, dormers, skylights and the number of existing shingle layers to tear off all change the labour more than the material.
Quebec sits noticeably higher than Ontario or the Prairies on asphalt, and the territories run 40 to 60 percent above national ranges, with roughly 30 percent of that coming from shipping material in.
Territories run 40 to 60 percent above national ranges, roughly 30 percent of that from shipping material in.
Retrofit or full-frame. Retrofit leaves the existing frame in place. Full-frame goes back to the rough opening and costs $400 to $600 more per window, but it is the only right answer when the frame or sill is rotted. A window quote that does not say which method it is, is not a quote yet.
A fair roofing quote includes full tear-off and disposal, ice and water shield at the eaves, new drip edge and flashings, ventilation, permit, and a workmanship warranty stated separately from the shingle manufacturer's. Rotten sheathing runs $75 to $130 per sheet and should be priced as a stated unit rate, not discovered later.
What trades actually charge for their time
Hourly rates are the number people find most jarring, usually because they are comparing a billed rate to a wage. An HVAC technician earning around $40 an hour is billed out at $80 to $120. The gap is truck, fuel, insurance, workers compensation premiums, licensing, warranty reserve, office overhead and profit. It is not markup on the person.
What to actually watch for is the fee structure around the rate. Service call fees, one and two hour minimums, and after-hours multipliers turn a twenty minute fix into a $400 invoice without anybody doing anything dishonest.
After hours runs 1.5x to 2x the standard rate, usually with a two to four hour minimum.
A technician earning $40 an hour is billed out at $80 to $120. That gap is insurance, licensing and warranty reserve, not gouging.
| Trade | Service call | Trip fee |
|---|---|---|
| Electrician | $100 to $200 | $75 to $150 |
| Plumber | $140 to $475, often includes the first hour | $70 to $400 |
| Any trade, after hours | 1.5x to 2x standard | Two to four hour minimum common |
Markup, contingency and tax
A general contractor's management fee runs 10 to 20 percent of project cost, and it trends toward the top of that on smaller jobs, because the coordination work does not shrink proportionally with the budget. On a fixed-price contract that fee is baked in and invisible. On cost-plus it is a line you can see. Neither is dishonest; they simply put the risk in different places.
Contingency is the one homeowners skip and then regret. For renovation work, 15 to 20 percent is the sensible floor, and 20 to 25 percent is realistic on anything built before 1980 or on any job that opens walls. New construction gets away with 5 to 7 percent because there are no surprises behind the drywall. Renovation is nothing but drywall with surprises behind it.
Then tax, which is real money on a $30,000 job and varies more than people expect.
On a $30,000 kitchen, the gap between Alberta and Nova Scotia is $3,000 in tax alone.
A $30,000 kitchen in Ontario, with a 15 percent contingency and tax, is a $39,000 decision.
Take the quote, add the contingency, add the tax, and treat that as the number. Budgeting the sticker price alone is how a good project turns into a stressful one halfway through.
Where you live changes the number
Two separate forces push prices away from the national average, and they are worth keeping apart because they behave differently.
In big cities, labour is scarce and expensive. Toronto and Vancouver trades bill roughly 30 to 45 percent above Halifax or Winnipeg. In remote areas, logistics are scarce and expensive: an hour or two outside a metro adds 20 to 40 percent to HVAC work, and three hours or more can add 50 to 60 percent, mostly in travel time and freight.
The practical upshot is that the cheapest place in Canada to renovate is neither downtown Toronto nor rural Nunavut. It is a mid-size city like Calgary or Edmonton, which sits close to the national average on almost everything.
Rural and remote pricing moves in the opposite direction for a different reason: an hour or two outside a metro adds 20 to 40 percent, three hours or more adds 50 to 60.
The short version
Use these ranges to sanity-check a quote, not to negotiate one. Price is the least interesting part of a quote anyway. Scope, exclusions, allowances and warranty are what decide whether the final invoice looks like the first one.
And if one quote is dramatically cheaper than the other two, the useful question is never why is this one so cheap. It is what is in the other two that is missing from this one.
Want a real number instead of a range?
Tell us about the job and we'll match you with one vetted local pro who quotes your actual house. Licence, insurance, workers compensation clearance and trading history checked before they can contact you.
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Where these numbers come from
Prices compiled in August 2026 from Canadian quote aggregators and contractor price guides. There is no authoritative national dataset for renovation pricing in Canada, so every range here is a ballpark for sanity-checking a quote, not a valuation. Taxes, permits, regional labour rates and site conditions vary. Always get written quotes for your own property.