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Carpet Installation Cost in Ontario (2026): Carpet and Pad Installed by Grade, Stairs per Tread, Measured on the Roll, and the Rooms Where Carpet Still Wins
Flooring & Tile
What Carpet Costs Installed in Ontario, Why It Is Measured on the Roll, and the Four Places It Still Belongs
Carpet is the one floor still sold the honest way: one price, supplied and installed, pad included. Mid grade is $5.00 a square foot and that is the whole number. It is also the one floor that is measured in a way homeowners find infuriating, by the piece of 12-ft roll it takes to cover the room, not by the room. Here are the grades, the stairs, a three-bedroom job added up, and my opinion on where carpet still earns its place in a house, which is a shorter list than it was in 1985 and not an empty one.
The numbers
$4.00builder grade, with pad, installed
$5.00mid grade, with pad, installed
$7.50premium, with pad, installed
$40per stair tread
| Grade | Per sq ft, installed | What you get | Where it goes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Builder | $4.00 | Polyester or olefin cut pile, light face weight, a 6 lb rebond pad. Looks fine at the walk-through, mats in the traffic lane in three years. | Rentals, a spare room, a house you are selling. |
| Mid | $5.00 | Nylon or a good solution-dyed polyester, heavier face weight, 8 lb pad. The carpet most houses should have. | Bedrooms, family rooms, finished basements. |
| Premium | $7.50 | Dense nylon or wool, patterned or loop, a memory-foam or 10 lb pad, moisture-barrier pad in a basement. | A master bedroom, a media room, a staircase that is the first thing you see. |
| Stairs, any grade | $40 per tread | Tread and riser wrapped, pad, tackless strip, hand-stretched. Pie stairs and open ends are slow and the price knows it. | Every staircase that is not hardwood. |
| Remove old carpet and pad | $0.90 | Cut, roll, pull strip and staples. | Every renovation. |
Builder carpet upgraded by a better pad is the cheapest improvement in flooring: the pad is what you feel and what the carpet wears against, and an 8 lb pad under a $4 carpet beats a 6 lb pad under a $5 one. Ask what pad is in the quote. The flooring cost calculator carries carpet as one installed line per room and stairs by the tread.
Measured on the roll, not the room
Carpet comes 12 ft wide, sometimes 13 ft 6 in. or 15 ft, and the installer buys the length of roll that covers your room in one piece, or in pieces he can seam where you will not see. An 11 by 10 bedroom takes a 12 by 10 cut: 120 sq ft of roll for 110 sq ft of floor. A 12 by 12 is a clean 144. A 14 by 16 family room is a 12 by 16 piece plus 2 ft of width from another 16-ft length, seamed along the quiet wall, and that second length is mostly scrap. The $5.00 is per square foot of roll in most quotes, so always ask which number the price is on.
Good installers plan the cuts on paper so one room’s scrap becomes the next room’s closet. Bad ones round every room up to the next 12 ft and charge you for it. The difference on a three-bedroom house is 30 to 60 sq ft, which is $150 to $300. How carpet and everything else is measured.
Three bedrooms and a staircase, added up
| Line | Room | Roll needed | Rate | Before HST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bedroom 1, 12×12 | 144 sq ft | 12×12 = 144 | $5.00 | $720 |
| Bedroom 2, 12×11 | 132 sq ft | 12×11 = 132 | $5.00 | $660 |
| Bedroom 3, 11×10 | 110 sq ft | 12×10 = 120 | $5.00 | $600 |
| Stairs, 14 treads, closed | – | – | $40 | $560 |
| Remove old carpet, rooms and stairs | 386 sq ft floor | – | $0.90 | $347 |
| Before HST | $2,887 | |||
| HST at 13% | $375 | |||
| With HST | $3,262 |
The rooms are 386 sq ft of floor and 396 sq ft of carpet, and the $5.00 is on the 396. The stair tearout is about 75 sq ft of carpet and three hundred staples, carried in the $0.90 on the floor area for simplicity; some installers charge the stairs separately at $5 to $8 a tread to pull. A job this size clears the $1,500 minimum easily; a single bedroom at $720 does not, and you will pay the minimum or wait for the installer to have another job on your street.
Where carpet still makes sense
- Bedrooms. Warm underfoot at six in the morning, quiet, and nobody drops a pot in a bedroom. A mid-grade nylon in a bedroom lasts fifteen years.
- Basements over a cold, unheated slab. Carpet with a moisture-barrier pad is the warmest finished basement floor there is per dollar, provided the slab is dry; test it first. Basement flooring goes through the alternatives.
- Stairs, for noise and for grip. A carpeted stair is quiet and nobody slides down it in socks. At $40 a tread against $150 for oak, it is also the cheap one by $1,540 on a 14-tread flight.
- Media rooms. The one room where you want the floor to absorb sound instead of bounce it.
Where it does not belong: over a heated slab. Carpet and pad are insulation, about R-2 together, sitting between your heating system and the room. The slab has to run hotter to push heat through it, and the floor you paid to heat is the one place you cannot feel it. If the room has hydronic heat in the floor, use tile, engineered or vinyl plank and keep the pad for a bedroom upstairs. Flooring R-values over radiant has the numbers, and the compatibility article has the rule for every floor.
Where homeowners go wrong
- Comparing carpet quotes by the carpet. Compare the pad weight and thickness first, then the face weight, then the fibre. The pad is a third of the comfort and half of the life.
- Letting the installer skip the stretch. Carpet is power-stretched onto tackless strip; a knee-kicker alone leaves ripples by year two. Ask how it will be stretched. If the answer is a shrug, it is a knee-kicker.
- Carpet in a basement with a damp slab. Mould under the pad, a smell by August, and a floor that has to come out. Test the slab, or put down a raised panel subfloor at $3.50 and then the carpet.
- Seams in the traffic lane or across a window’s light. Ask where the seams will be before the carpet is cut. A good installer has a plan and will show you.
Questions people ask
How much does carpet cost installed in Ontario?
$4.00 a square foot for builder grade, $5.00 for mid, $7.50 for premium, all with underpad and installation, before HST, in 2026. Stairs are $40 a tread. A 12×12 bedroom is about $720 in mid grade, but most installers have a $1,500 minimum.
How much does it cost to carpet stairs?
About $40 a tread for a closed staircase, so $560 for 14 stairs, in any grade of carpet. Open-ended or pie-shaped stairs run more because every tread is hand-cut and wrapped.
Why is the carpet square footage more than my room?
Because carpet is 12 ft wide and is cut from the roll in pieces that cover the room, so an 11 by 10 room uses a 12 by 10 piece. The leftover strip is yours; it just does not fit anywhere.
Is carpet cheaper than vinyl plank?
Mid carpet at $5.00 installed is a dollar less than mid vinyl plank at $6.00. Over fifteen years it is a wash: the carpet wears out first, the vinyl costs more to begin with. Pick by the room, not the dollar.
Can you put carpet over radiant floor heating?
You can, and you will regret it. Carpet and pad insulate the slab from the room and the system has to run hotter for less heat. If you must, use the thinnest dense pad made for radiant and keep the total under R-1, and expect the room to be slow to warm. Tile, engineered or vinyl plank are the floors for a heated slab.
Price the bedrooms and the stairs
The flooring cost calculator carries carpet by grade, stairs by the tread, and the tearout, and mixes it with hardwood or vinyl in the next room. If you have a carpet quote with one number on it, the $99 review will tell you what pad and what square footage that number is probably on.
Sources and further reading
- Keeping the Heat In: Natural Resources Canada: basement floors, insulation under slabs and the moisture that comes through concrete.
- Addressing moisture and mould in your home: Health Canada: what mould under a floor means, when it can be cleaned and when the floor comes out.
- DRIcore: the raised panel basement subfloor and what it does for a cold, damp slab.
