What plasterers, carpenters, window specialists and masons charge for a historic home in Canada

What to take away

How to read a restoration quote in Canadian dollars by trade

Most Canadian restoration quotes arrive as one number with no breakdown. That number is useless to you. Ask for labour and material separated, by trade, with the unit each trade prices in.

Plasterers usually quote per square foot of wall or ceiling, or per day. Carpenters quote per hour, per day, or per linear foot of trim. Window specialists quote per unit, and the unit price changes with what they do to it.

Masons quote per square foot of wall face for repointing and per cubic foot or per unit for rebuilding.

Once you have units, you can compare bids honestly. A quote of "$18,000 for plaster" tells you nothing. A quote of "4,200 sq ft at $4.25 per sq ft, three-coat, lime putty finish" tells you what you are buying and where to negotiate.

Ask each trade for the same three things: the unit, the quantity, and the exclusion. Exclusions are where restoration budgets break. Plaster quotes often exclude lath replacement. Masonry quotes often exclude scaffolding. Window quotes often exclude re-glazing and hardware.

Contractors quote within a business tax framework that shapes how they price labour and materials, and the federal business taxes guidance sets out how GST/HST registration and reporting work for them.

If you want a stage-by-stage structure before you call anyone, work through a realistic budget first, then hand the same structure to each trade.

The unit prices that matter

A worked example: a two-storey Ontario brick house

Take a 1,900 square foot two-storey brick house in a designated Ontario heritage district. The owner needs interior plaster repair, some joist sistering, twelve window restorations, and repointing on two elevations.

Here is how the trades price it, in round figures an owner can sanity-check against bids.

The total lands somewhere between $35,500 and $66,100 before permits, design fees and contingency. That range is wide because scope is wide. Your job is to narrow it, not to pick the middle.

Plasterers: price ranges and what drives them

Plaster work is where Canadian owners most often underestimate cost, because plaster is labour, and labour in a heritage house is slow.

Expect roughly $4 to $7 per square foot for patching and skim coating over sound existing plaster. Full three-coat work on new or replaced lath runs about $9 to $14 per square foot in most Canadian markets.

Day rates for a skilled plasterer commonly sit between $55 and $95 per hour, with heritage specialists at the top of that band.

What drives the number up: ceiling work, because it is overhead and slow. Curved walls and cornices, because they are hand-run. Lime putty finishes, because the material costs more and cures on its own schedule. Access, because a third-floor room with a narrow stair adds hours.

What drives it down: small patches, flat walls, and a plasterer who can match your existing surface without removing it. Keeping original plaster is almost always cheaper than replacing it, and it is usually the better conservation decision too.

Ask whether the quote includes lath. In an old house, lath is often split, loose or burnt. If the lath goes, the plaster goes with it, and your square-foot price roughly doubles.

Lime versus gypsum

Lime plaster costs more per bag and takes longer to set. Gypsum sets fast and is cheaper. In a solid masonry wall, lime lets the wall breathe, which matters in Canadian freeze-thaw cycles. In a modern framed addition, gypsum veneer plaster is fine.

The cost difference is real but smaller than the cost of getting it wrong. Repointing and re-plastering a wall that cannot dry out leads to spalling brick and another bill.

Carpenters and framers: rough versus finish work

Carpentry splits into two businesses with two price structures, and conflating them is the most common budgeting error.

Rough carpentry covers structural repair: sistering joists, replacing sill plates, rebuilding a sagging floor, reframing an opening. It is priced by the hour or the day, commonly $75 to $120 per hour for a licensed carpenter in Canada, or $500 to $900 per day. It is fast, dirty and hard to predict.

Finish carpentry covers trim, casings, baseboards, doors, stairs and built-ins. It is priced per linear foot or per unit, and it is where heritage millwork commands a premium. Custom-milled trim to match a profile that no longer exists can run several times the cost of off-the-shelf material.

A heritage carpentry shop will also charge for knife grinding if your moulding profile has to be recreated. That is a one-time setup cost, and it is worth asking about before you commit, because it can be shared across every linear foot you order.

Where rough work hides

Rough work hides behind plaster and under floors, so nobody quotes it accurately until walls open. Budget a structural contingency of 10 to 20 percent of your carpentry line, and do not spend it on finish work.

If a carpenter quotes a fixed price for structural repair before opening anything, treat that quote as an estimate with a scope limit written into it. Ask what happens when the limit is reached.

Window specialists: repair, restore and rebuild pricing

Windows are the highest-stakes line in a Canadian restoration budget, because replacement and restoration are not the same product and are not priced the same way.

Repair means the window stays in place. Sash is freed, re-glazed, re-puttied, weatherstripped and painted. This is the cheapest option and often the best for a heritage-designated façade.

Restore means the sash comes out, joints are re-glued and re-pegged, decayed wood is dutchman-repaired, and the unit goes back into the same opening. It costs more and lasts longer.

Rebuild means new sash built to match the original profile, reusing what hardware and glass can be saved. This is the most expensive option and is usually reserved for units beyond repair.

Typical Canadian ranges: repair at roughly $300 to $700 per unit, restore at $700 to $1,400, and rebuild at $1,200 to $2,500 or more, depending on size, glazing and hardware. Storm windows, where they exist, are a separate line and often a cheap way to extend a restored window's life.

Why replacement is not automatically cheaper

A cheap replacement window can cost less up front and more over time. In a designated district, replacement may also require a heritage permit, and removing original windows can affect resale value and grant eligibility.

Ask the specialist to price all three options for the same window. Then compare against the installed cost of each option over a twenty-year horizon, not just the invoice date.

Masons: repointing, rebuilding and stone versus brick

Masonry is the trade most likely to produce a five-figure surprise, because mortar failure is invisible until water gets in.

Repointing, also called tuckpointing, is priced per square foot of wall face. In Canada, expect roughly $12 to $22 per square foot for brick and $18 to $35 for stone, with higher rates for narrow joints, decorative coursing or work above the second storey. Scaffolding is a separate cost and can add thousands.

Rebuilding is priced per unit or per cubic foot, and it is where matching matters. Salvaged brick that matches the original is scarce and priced accordingly. Stone is heavier, slower to lay and usually more expensive than brick in every province.

The critical technical point is mortar. Heritage brick and stone were laid with lime mortar, which is softer and more permeable than modern Portland cement. Repointing with cement mortar traps moisture and spalls the masonry it was meant to protect.

Ask any mason what mortar mix they propose and why. A mason who specifies a lime mix matched to the original is telling you they understand old walls. One who defaults to cement is telling you something too.

Water management first

Before repointing, fix what is putting water into the wall: failed flashing, blocked weep holes, leaking gutters, cracked parging. Repointing a wet wall is money spent on a symptom.

Regional variation across Ontario, Quebec, the Atlantic and the prairies

Restoration labour is local, and Canadian price variation between regions is large enough to change what you can afford.

Southern Ontario, especially Toronto, Ottawa and heritage districts in smaller towns, runs at the top of national ranges. Demand is high, heritage trades are busy, and permit processes in designated districts add design and consulting costs.

Quebec sits somewhat lower for labour, though Montreal and Quebec City are closer to Ontario rates. Quebec has its own cultural heritage framework and its own tax administration, which affects how work is treated at tax time.

Atlantic Canada, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador, generally offers lower labour rates but a thinner pool of heritage specialists. Travel and mobilization can eat the difference, particularly on islands and in rural areas.

Alberta and the prairies fall in the middle for labour, but material costs are higher for imported or salvaged heritage material because it has further to travel. British Columbia is closer to Ontario pricing, with Metro Vancouver at the top and interior markets lower.

The practical lesson: get three local bids, not a national average. A range from a national article is a starting point for a conversation, not a price.

What else changes by province

Heritage designation and permit rules are provincial and municipal, not federal. Ontario, Quebec and most other provinces have heritage legislation, and municipalities keep registers that trigger permits for exterior change. Federal bodies such as Parks Canada and the Canadian Register of Historic Places record significance but do not set your local price.

Building code requirements come from the National Building Code of Canada as adopted provincially, and local property standards bylaws cover maintenance. CMHC publishes renovation guidance that is useful for financing and scope planning.

How CRA rules affect what owners can claim

The Canada Revenue Agency does not offer a renovation credit for restoring your own home, and any article that says otherwise is describing another country.

What CRA rules do affect is how restoration spending interacts with income, capital gains and the Principal Residence Exemption. If the property is your principal residence for every year you owned it, the exemption generally covers the gain on sale, and renovation spending is not deductible along the way.

If part of the building is rented, or if the property is not your principal residence, the picture changes. Renovation costs may be treated as capital expenditures or as current expenses depending on what they are, and the distinction affects your taxes.

The CRA forms and publications library is where the actual wording lives, and it is worth reading the relevant guide before you assume anything.

There are also targeted programmes from time to time, including credits aimed at making homes more energy efficient or more accessible. These change with each federal budget, so check the federal tax hub for what is currently open rather than relying on last year's rules.

For Quebec residents, provincial treatment is administered separately by Revenu Quebec, and Quebec's finance and income tax pages are the place to confirm how a given expense is treated there.

Keep the paperwork regardless

Even when nothing is deductible, keep every invoice, permit and specification. If you ever sell, rent the property, or face a capital gains calculation, that file is your evidence. It also helps with insurance claims and future grant applications.

Contractors should be aware that their own tax obligations, including GST/HST registration and reporting, affect how they quote. Most provinces also license or certify trades through their own bodies, and the business and industry hub is a reasonable starting point for checking how a trade or contractor is regulated.

Building a trade-by-trade budget owners can defend

A defensible budget is one you can explain line by line to a contractor, a lender or a heritage committee without hand-waving.

Start with scope, not price. List every trade and what it is doing. Then attach a unit and a quantity to each. Then attach a price range. Then add contingency. In that order.

If you want a structure a contractor cannot pick apart, build your restoration estimate on measured quantities and published unit ranges rather than round numbers.

Use a checklist before you sign

Before you shortlist anyone, work out where the money actually go across the whole project, because trades are only part of the total. Soft costs, permits and contingency routinely add a third on top of trade work.

Then interview at least three contractors using the same set of money questions, so you can compare answers rather than personalities.

Defending the number

When a contractor says your budget is unrealistic, ask which line they disagree with and why. If they cannot name a line and a unit price, they are guessing. If they can, you have just improved your budget.

A budget built this way survives bad news. When the plasterer finds split lath, you know exactly which line absorbs the cost and how much contingency is left.

Common questions