Our Services: What ICFhome.ca Builds, From the Lot to the Last Coat of Finish

Land and site work

Most people start with a plan and a budget and no lot, or a lot and no idea what it will cost to build on. We help find lots in Tiny, Tay, Springwater, Oro-Medonte, Collingwood, the Blue Mountains and the rest of the area, and before anyone signs we run a buildability review: zoning and setbacks, septic feasibility, conservation authority and shoreline rules, access and easements, tree protection, and the one question nobody asks, how hard the permit will be. Then the site work: clearing, excavation, driveways, septic, grading and drainage, through our sister company Georgian Bay Siteworks, with our own equipment. Land acquisition and lot clearing is the full description; the buildable-lot checklist is what we check.

Design, engineering and permits

We work with your designer or architect, or connect you with the ones we work with, and we sit in on the design early, because the decisions that cost money (the foundation type, the roof, the span, the mechanical room) get made on the drawing. We carry the permit in our name, the engineering, the energy compliance under SB-12, and every inspection from footings to occupancy. Designing a custom home and how to get a building permit explain the process; our most popular plan is free to download.

Custom home building

Bungalows, two-storeys, cottages and rebuilds, from about 1,400 to 5,000 square feet, as ICF houses with radiant floors unless you ask for something else, on fixed-price or cost-plus contracts with the holdback and the draw schedule the Construction Act requires. Our crews frame, form, pour, insulate and finish; the licensed trades we have used for decades do the plumbing, electrical and HVAC. The custom home building process is the whole sequence; cost to build a house in Ontario is the budget conversation we start with.

ICF foundations and walls

We pour ICF basements and above-grade walls for our own houses and for other builders, owner-builders and cottage rebuilds across the region: forms, rebar, bracing, concrete, pump and our crew, priced per square foot of wall so you can compare quotes properly. Our 2026 rate is $45 per square foot of wall for a 6-inch core and $48 for 8 inch, complete, with reinforcing steel on top at what we pay for it. ICF foundation cost explains how to read a quote and what ICF is explains the wall.

Major renovations and additions

Gut renovations, additions, foundation repairs and replacements, lifting a cottage onto a new ICF basement, energy retrofits, basement and garden suites, and aging-in-place changes, with the permits, engineering and inspections handled. Major remodelling and renovations covers what we take on and what we tell people to think twice about.

Radiant floor heating

We have installed hydronic radiant floor systems since the early 1990s: design from a CSA F280 heat loss, tubing in the slab or in gypsum overpours, manifolds, controls, and the boiler or heat pump that feeds it, in new houses and in existing ones where the floors can take it. Our showhome runs on it and costs about $100 a month to heat in the coldest part of winter. Radiant floor heating cost and radiant heat vs forced air are where to start.

Solar hot water

Evacuated-tube and flat-plate solar thermal systems for domestic hot water and shoulder-season floor heat, sized to the household and tied into the radiant system where there is one. We will also tell you when a heat pump water heater is the better buy, which in 2026 is often. Home solar in Ontario has the numbers.

Custom carpentry and woodworking

We run a wood shop with full woodworking machinery and CNC capability, so cabinetry, stairs, railings, built-ins, doors and specialty millwork for our houses can be made in-house when that makes sense, matched to the house rather than to a catalogue. Choosing kitchen cabinets explains what to look for whoever builds them.

What we do not do

• Production subdivisions, or houses we cannot stand behind for seven years.
• Builds far outside our area; if it is a good fit we will say so, and if it is not we will tell you who to call.
• Cheapest-price bidding. Our quotes include the things the cheap quote leaves out, and why construction costs what it costs explains where the money goes.

Where we work

Based in Tiny Township, we build throughout Simcoe County and the Georgian Bay area: Midland, Penetanguishene, Tiny, Tay, Wasaga Beach, Collingwood, the Blue Mountains, Stayner, Springwater, Oro-Medonte, Barrie and nearby communities, and we take projects farther afield when they fit. Our service area has the map. Call 705-533-1633, or pick the path below that matches where you are.

Related guides on this site

Sources and further reading

• HCRA Ontario Builder Directory
• Tarion: the new home warranty
• Construction Act, R.S.O. 1990

Questions people ask