Flooring and Tile in Ontario: Costs, Hardwood, Vinyl, Tile and Showers, Floors Over Radiant Heat, and How to Hire the Installer, From a Builder

RenovationsFlooring & Tile

Flooring and Tile in Ontario: What Floors Cost Installed, What Goes Under Them, and Why the Subfloor Is the Expensive Part

Written by a builder who has floored 300-plus houses, most of them over heated concrete, and has seen every way a floor can fail. Prices are Ontario rates checked October 2026, per square foot of finished floor, installed.

The finished floor is the part you pick from a sample. It is almost never the part that goes wrong. What goes wrong is the slab that was never tested, the plywood with a hump in it, the shower pan that was never flood-tested, the heated floor run too hot under a wood that could not take it. A good floor is a flat, dry base, a product that suits the room, and an installer who follows the sheet that came in the box. These pages cover the costs by material and grade, the subfloor and moisture rules, tile and showers, floors over radiant heat, and how to hire and inspect the people who do it.

Price my floors Read the cost guide Review my quotes, $99

The numbers

Central Ontario, per square foot of finished floor, mid grade, installed, before HST and before tearout. Checked October 2026.

$6luxury vinyl plank
$11engineered hardwood, nailed
$16porcelain tile, 12×24
$3,800a 36×60 tiled shower, no glass

A 2,000 sq ft house with a sensible mix (engineered in the living areas, tile in the wet rooms, vinyl in the basement, carpet in two bedrooms) is about $21,000 installed; with a flight of oak stairs and a tiled ensuite shower it is $27,000 before HST, $30,500 with. A builder’s allowance of $4 to $6 a square foot buys builder-grade vinyl and not much else.

Start here

Flooring costs and installation

Every material priced by grade, what your budget buys, hardwood vs vinyl, removal, measuring, carpet, stairs, and new-home allowances.

Hardwood and engineered wood

Engineered vs solid, costs, wear layers, nail, glue or float, acclimation, cupping and gaps, and refinishing explained.

Vinyl, laminate and basements

LVP and laminate costs and problems, basement floors, slab moisture, subfloor levelling, and the inspection before the first plank.

Tile, showers and waterproofing

Tile costs, the $3,800 shower, waterproofing systems, porcelain vs ceramic, large format, lippage and grout, curbless.

Floors over radiant heat

What a heated floor really runs at, best floors ranked, engineered and vinyl over heat, electric bathroom floors, R-value, and our heated ICF slabs.

Contractors, quotes and inspection

Hiring, comparing quotes, the contract, inspecting the work, repairs, warranties, and the order things go in on a new house.

The calculators

Three of them, on one set of rates. Use the one that matches the job.

Flooring cost calculator

Any mix of hardwood, vinyl, laminate, tile and carpet, room by room, at three grades, with tearout, subfloor work, moisture control, baseboard, transitions, stairs and HST. Start here.

Tile and shower cost calculator

Floor tile, the shower pan, wall waterproofing, wall tile by size and pattern, niches, bench, curbless, heated floor, backsplash and demolition, each on its own line.

Radiant floor compatibility checker

Pick the heating system, the floor and the install method; get a verdict, the real floor temperatures against the warranty line, the R-value and the conditions to write into the quote.

Hydronic radiant heating cost

Already on the site: what the heating system under the floor costs, so it is never counted twice with the flooring.

Six things I tell every customer about floors

  1. Test the slab before anything goes on it. Not “it feels dry”. A probe in a hole, 75% RH or less, or the floor is a mould farm with a nice finish. Floors on concrete.
  2. Flat is not level, and flat is what matters. 3/16 in. in 10 ft for wood and vinyl, 1/8 in. for big tile. Most old floors are neither, and the levelling line is the one the cheap quote left out. Levelling.
  3. Buy the wear layer, not the colour. Two engineered planks that look the same can have 1 mm or 4 mm of wood on top. One can be sanded twice; one cannot be sanded at all. Wear layers.
  4. The tile is the paint; the membrane is the roof. Grout is not waterproof. A shower without a named waterproofing system and a flood test is a leak on a schedule. Waterproofing.
  5. Over radiant heat, know what the floor runs at. Our slabs take 40 C water and the floor runs 30 to 37 C; the wood and vinyl makers put 27 to 29 C on their sheets and the warranty hangs on it. Decide which you are living by, on purpose, with a floor sensor so the number is known. The rule.
  6. Count the stairs. Fourteen oak treads at $150 is $2,100 that is never in the first quote, and the hardwood looks odd stopping at a carpeted staircase. Stairs.

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

For $99, I put your flooring or tile quotes on one grid, check the square footage and waste against your rooms, name the product each one actually promised, price the tearout and subfloor work that was left as “extra”, check that a shower quote names a waterproofing system, and tell you which one to sign. For a new build or a basement, $249 turns your plans into a room-by-room takeoff of materials, stairs, subfloor notes and showers, with a budget by grade, that three installers can price the same way.

Flooring and tile quote review, $99 Flooring and tile takeoff, $249 Check the quotes yourself first

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