Every cost figure on this site is produced by a reproducible three-layer pipeline. This page explains each layer, its data sources, and its limitations.
For each of the 50 services, we extract a national baseline cost using contractor pricing data from across the Canadian market. The baseline represents a typical professionally installed project in Ontario — the national labour-index reference province (index = 1.0).
Each extraction uses a two-pass process: an initial estimate followed by a self-critique pass that checks whether the range reflects realistic contractor rates. Low-confidence and high-variance results are flagged for manual review before being used.
Contractor labour rates vary significantly by province. We apply a provincial labour index derived from Statistics Canada’s Building Construction Price Index (BCPI):
Ontario is set as the baseline (index 1.0). Provinces with higher labour costs — such as Alberta (approx. 1.14) and British Columbia (approx. 1.18) — produce higher adjusted estimates. Provinces with lower labour costs produce lower estimates.
Within each province, costs also vary by city size. Major metros command a small premium; smaller cities pay slightly less. We calibrate a size modifier for each city using CMHC residential renovation spending data:
Cost data (Layers 2 and 3) is refreshed quarterly using the latest StatsCan BCPI release. Page content is reviewed annually, or sooner if GSC data shows declining performance. Cost-updated timestamps on each page reflect the most recent data refresh.
These estimates do not account for:
These figures are reference estimates. Always obtain at minimum three written quotes from licensed, WCB-covered contractors before committing to a project.
The same service priced across four provinces — each adjusted by its own labour index.
Or browse all renovation services and cities.