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Siding Cost in Ontario (2026): Every Cladding Priced by Grade, the Tearoff, Wrap, Flashing and Scaffolding Lines, and Three Houses Worked Through to the HST
Exterior Finishes
What Siding Costs in Ontario, Per Square Foot of Wall You Actually Have, With the Lines the Low Quote Leaves Off
Siding is priced by the square foot of wall, and the first thing to know is that your house has more wall than it has floor. A 2,000 sq ft two-storey carries 2,200 to 2,600 sq ft of net wall once the gables are in and the windows are out. Put mid-grade vinyl on that at $9.50 and it is about $22,800. Put fibre cement on it at $18 and it is $43,200. Those are the siding numbers. Then come the tearoff, the house wrap, the flashing at every window, the rot nobody can see yet and the scaffolding for the third storey, and that is where two quotes for the same house end up $12,000 apart.
The numbers
$9.50mid-grade vinyl, installed
$18mid-grade fibre cement, installed
$2.00old vinyl off and in the bin
$62,828a 2,400 sq ft custom home in three materials, with HST
| Cladding | Builder | Mid | Premium | What the grades mean |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vinyl siding | $7.50 | $9.50 | $12.50 | Builder is a 0.040 in. panel in white or beige. Mid is 0.042 to 0.044 in., deeper profile, darker colours. Premium is insulated vinyl or a 0.046 in. panel. |
| Fibre cement lap | $16 | $18 | $22 | James Hardie or equal. Premium is prefinished colour, wider boards, more trim. Board and batten $20 at mid. |
| Engineered wood | $15 | $17 | $20 | LP SmartSide or equal. Board and batten $18. |
| Cedar or prefinished wood | $17 | $20 | $26 | Knotty cedar at builder, clear or prefinished at premium. Needs a rainscreen and a stain schedule. |
| Steel or aluminum | $15 | $18 | $23 | Horizontal or vertical panels at mid; standing seam and heavy gauge at premium. |
| Acrylic stucco, wood frame | $13 | $15 | $18 | On ICF, subtract $2: $11 / $13 / $16. The bands and trim are extra and they are the whole story. |
| Traditional cement stucco | $18 | $21 | $25 | Three coats over lath. Heavier, harder, cracks more honestly. |
| Manufactured stone veneer | $26 | $32 | $38 | Adhered. Corners, sills and the lath under it are what the grade buys. |
| Natural thin stone, adhered | $42 | $50 | $62 | Full-bed natural stone, mason-laid: $55 / $65 / $85. |
| Brick veneer on a ledge | $30 | $36 | $45 | Starts at about $30 and moves with the brick and the wall. Needs a ledge to sit on. |
Every rate carries the material, fasteners, normal trim and corners, the sheathing membrane and standard flashing allowance for that system, and the labour, on a sound wall up to two storeys with ladders. These are the rates in the exterior cladding cost calculator, which does the walls one at a time in any mix.
What the rate never includes
The siding rate is the part everyone quotes. The job is the siding rate plus whatever it takes to get the wall ready and get at it, and those lines are where the quotes come apart. Here they are, priced, so you can see which ones are missing from the one that looked cheap.
| Line | Rate | When it shows up |
|---|---|---|
| Tearoff and disposal: vinyl or aluminum | $2.00 per sq ft | Every re-side. Wood siding $2.50, stucco or adhered stone $6.00, brick $9.00, plus a $550 bin per house. |
| Sheathing replacement | $6.50 per affected sq ft | Rot found under the old siding, usually below windows and at the bottom of the wall. Framing repair $400 to $900 per window. |
| House wrap as a separate line | $0.85 per sq ft | Re-sides where the old wall has no sheathing membrane, which is most houses before the 1990s. |
| Rainscreen strapping | $2.50 per sq ft | Cedar, and any wall where the product or the exposure wants a drained cavity. |
| Exterior continuous insulation | $4.50 EPS 1.5 in. / $7.00 mineral wool 2 in. | Plus $150 per opening for jamb and sill extensions and $18 per lf of soffit rework. |
| Scaffolding or lift | +$1.50 per sq ft above 20 ft | Any wall a ladder cannot work safely. Difficult access +$3.00. |
| Window and door flashing kit | $85 per opening | Sill pan, head flashing, tapes, on a re-side. Missing from most low quotes. |
| Trim | $9 to $14 per lf | Aluminum capping on wood trim $9; PVC or fibre-cement trim boards $14; corner posts $12. |
| Minimum job | $2,500 | One wall of a garage still costs a crew a day. |
Three houses worked through
A 1,200 sq ft bungalow, re-sided in mid vinyl, old vinyl off. Net wall is 1,400 sq ft once the gable ends are counted. Siding 1,400 at $9.50 is $13,300. Tearoff 1,400 at $2.00 is $2,800, bin $550. The 1988 wall has no house wrap, so wrap 1,400 at $0.85 is $1,190. Flashing kits at 12 openings, $85 each, $1,020. Total $18,860 before HST, $21,312 with. The siding was 71% of it, and nothing on the rest of the list is optional unless you like a wet wall.
A 2,400 sq ft net wall custom home, new, mid grade, three materials. Fibre cement on 1,600 sq ft at $18 is $28,800. Manufactured stone on the front, 500 sq ft at $32, is $16,000. Engineered wood accent on 300 sq ft at $17 is $5,100. Cladding $49,900. Aluminum soffit and fascia, 150 lf at $25, $3,750. Eavestroughs 150 lf at $13, $1,950. Subtotal $55,600, HST $7,228, $62,828. The same house in all vinyl with vinyl soffit is 2,400 at $9.50, $22,800, plus soffit $1,200 and eaves $1,950: $25,950 before HST. That is the real cost of the look, and it is a fair question whether the look is worth $29,650. On the front, usually yes. On the back wall facing the bush, usually no, which is why I mix.
An 1890s two-and-a-half storey in town, 2,800 sq ft net wall, old wood siding off, mid fibre cement on. Siding 2,800 at $18 is $50,400. Wood tearoff at $2.50 is $7,000, bin $550. The crew finds 120 sq ft of soft sheathing under two windows, $780 at $6.50. House wrap 2,800 at $0.85 is $2,380. About 900 sq ft of wall is above 20 ft, so scaffolding adds $1,350 at $1.50. Flashing kits on 22 openings, $1,870. Total $64,330 before HST, $72,693 with. The siding was 78% of it and the rot was 1%, which is about right; what the rot does to a budget is not the dollars, it is the three days.
The tearoff is always a unit rate by what is coming off. If a quote has “remove existing siding: $4,000” as a lump, ask what the rate was and what the area was, because one of those two numbers was a guess.
What moves the number
- The grade, inside the material. Vinyl runs $7.50 to $12.50; the premium panel is two thirds again what the builder panel is. The jump is thickness, colour and profile, and in a Simcoe winter the thickness is the part that matters. Vinyl siding problems explains why the thin panel cracks at minus 25.
- The shape of the house. A plain rectangle is the cheapest wall there is. Dormers, bays, bump-outs and three materials meeting at corners add 15 to 25% per square foot at the same area, because every change of plane is trim, flashing and cutting.
- The height. Up to two storeys the crew works off ladders and the rate holds. Above 20 ft it is scaffold or a lift, $1.50 a foot on the wall above that line, and the whole job slows down.
- What is under the old siding. Nobody knows until it is off. Get the sheathing rate and the per-window framing allowance in writing before the first panel comes down, so the change order is arithmetic and not a negotiation.
- The second plane of protection. The Ontario Building Code (9.27) wants a sheathing membrane behind the siding, flashing at every opening and transition, and 6 in. of clearance between siding and grade. A quote with no wrap line and no flashing line on a 1980s house is a quote that plans to skip both. What good flashing looks like, with pictures to take.
- Whether you add insulation while the wall is open. It is the only cheap time to do it. $4.50 to $7.00 a foot plus the jambs, against a wall that will be closed for 30 years. Exterior insulation at re-siding runs the payback.
On the ICF houses we build the rates do not change, but the installer has to find the plastic webs in the foam, every 8 in. or 12 in., and fasten to them; the wall itself is the second plane and the sheathing membrane line disappears. The finishes that work on ICF, with their costs, are in the best exterior finishes for ICF walls, and the attachment details are the business of ICFPro.ca.
Questions people ask
How much does siding cost per square foot in Ontario?
Installed, per square foot of net wall, before HST: vinyl $7.50 to $12.50, engineered wood $15 to $20, fibre cement $16 to $22, cedar $17 to $26, steel $15 to $23. Add $2.00 to $2.50 to take the old siding off, $0.85 for house wrap on an old wall and $85 per window for flashing.
How much does it cost to side a 2,000 sq ft house?
A 2,000 sq ft two-storey has about 2,200 to 2,600 sq ft of net wall. At mid-grade vinyl, $9.50, that is $20,900 to $24,700 for the siding alone; at mid fibre cement, $18, it is $39,600 to $46,800. Tearoff, wrap and flashing add $7,000 to $10,000 on a re-side.
What is the cheapest siding?
Builder-grade vinyl at $7.50 a square foot installed. It is also the thinnest panel, and the one most likely to crack in a Simcoe January or ripple in July. Mid vinyl at $9.50 is the cheapest siding I would put on a house I had to look at.
Is siding priced by the square?
Suppliers sell it by the square, which is 100 sq ft. Installers quote it by the square foot or the square. A 2,400 sq ft wall is 24 squares; add 10% waste and the order is 27 squares. How to measure it yourself before the salesman does.
Does the price include removing the old siding?
Not in the rates on this page, and not in most quotes unless it is a separate line. Tearoff is $2.00 a square foot for vinyl or aluminum, $2.50 for wood, plus a $550 bin, and it should be a unit rate by area, never a lump sum.
Get your own number
The exterior cladding cost calculator takes each wall, the material on it, the tearoff, the wrap, the flashing and the height, and prices the house at these rates with the HST. If you already have siding quotes and they are far apart, the $99 review reads up to three of them against this list and tells you which lines are missing from which.
Sources and further reading
- Ontario’s Building Code, Section 9.27 Cladding: the first and second planes of protection, sheathing membrane, flashing at openings and transitions, and the clearances from grade and roofs that every siding and stucco job has to meet.
- Vinyl Siding Institute: the installation manual every vinyl warranty points to: loose nailing, expansion gaps, laps and the J-channel details.
- James Hardie installation instructions: the clearances, fastening, flashing and primed-cut rules a fibre-cement warranty depends on; the installer is held to this sheet.
