Drywall Installation in Ontario: Cost Per Square Foot, Sheet Counts, Board Types, Ceilings and ICF Walls

Drywall, Taping & PaintingInstallation

Drywall Installation: What It Costs, How Much You Need, Which Board Goes Where, and the Ceiling Rule Nobody Tells You

Board, hanging and finishing priced per square foot of wall and ceiling, Ontario, October 2026, with the sheet count a yard will ask for.

Hanging drywall looks easy from the doorway and it is, for about four sheets. Then the ceiling comes, 12-ft boards at 70 lb each, the plumber’s vent is where the joint wants to be, and the framer left a wall a quarter inch proud at one stud. A good boarder makes all that disappear and leaves the taper a surface he can finish. These pages cover what that costs, how much board a house takes, the thicknesses and types and where each belongs, and what is different about the ICF houses I build.

Price my drywall The cost guide How many sheets

The numbers

$0.75board only, delivered, per sq ft
$1.95supplied and hung
$3.45hung, taped, sanded, Level 4
150sheets of 4×12 in a 2,000 sq ft house

The guides

Drywall cost in Ontario

Per square foot of wall, not floor: board, hanging, taping, and three real houses priced through to HST.

How many sheets of drywall

Measuring a room, 8-ft vs 12-ft sheets, waste, and why the boarder orders more than the math says.

1/2 in. vs 5/8 in. drywall

Where each belongs, the ceiling-sag rule, the cost difference and the weight your framer will complain about.

Fire-rated drywall in Ontario

Type X, the garage wall, the furnace room, and what the Building Code actually asks for in a house.

Moisture-resistant drywall

Green board, purple board, cement board: which goes where in a bathroom and which one is a mistake behind tile.

Soundproof drywall

What QuietRock and double layers really do, resilient channel, and the cheap things that work better.

Ceiling drywall

Board thickness by joist spacing, the lift, perpendicular to the joists, truss uplift, and why ceilings get done first.

Drywall on ICF walls

Screwing to the plastic webs, the furring question, the vapour barrier that is already there, and the bucks.

Four rules for boarding a house

  1. Ceilings first, then walls, so the wall board holds the ceiling edge up. And ceiling board goes perpendicular to the joists. Ceilings.
  2. Long sheets, few butt joints. A 9-ft wall gets 12-ft board run horizontally with one joint at 4 ft, not 8-ft board stood up with a joint every 4 ft. Sheets and waste.
  3. Screws, not nails, set just below the paper. A screw that breaks the paper holds nothing and pops in a year. Pops.
  4. Nothing goes up until the inspections pass. Framing, rough-ins, insulation, vapour barrier. The boarder who starts early to make a date is costing you the wall you will open later. The sequence.

Have quotes or plans in hand? Let a builder read them first

For $99, I put your drywall, taping or painting quotes on one grid, check the square footage against your rooms, name the finish level and the coats each one actually promised, and tell you what is missing and which one to sign. For a new build or a basement, $249 turns your plans into a room-by-room takeoff of board, finish levels, primer, paint and trim, with a budget by grade, that three contractors can price the same way.

Drywall and painting quote review, $99 Interior finishing takeoff, $249 Check the quotes yourself first