Step one
Not a sales call with a tape measure. A paid visit that ends with a written scope, a fixed price, and a lab result, whether you hire us or not.
What you need first isn’t a quote. It’s someone who can tell you what this house will actually allow.
$497
Credited in full against your project if you go ahead. Keep the report either way.
Book the assessment→Check her bathroom first→
$497, credited in full against your project. Or answer six questions first, free, and see what her bathroom can take.
90 minutes · One visit · Written scope in 48 hours · Asbestos lab result included · Fully credited
Let’s deal with this first
Why does this one cost $497?
Because a price given without measuring is a guess, and you have already had three of them.
Someone walks the room for ten minutes, writes a number designed to win the job, and the number changes once the walls are open. That is not dishonesty exactly. It is what happens when nobody has measured anything.
Ninety minutes is how long it takes to do it properly. Checking joist direction, probing subfloor, measuring the alcove at three heights, pulling an asbestos sample and paying a lab to test it. Somebody pays for that. Either it is built into an inflated project price, or it is charged honestly up front and credited back.
We charge it honestly and credit it back. And if you decide we are not the right fit, the report is yours. Take it to any contractor in Durham and get a competing price on the same scope.
Not ready to pay for a visit yet
There’s a free way to find out. It just answers less.
Six questions, two minutes, no charge. It tells you which walk-in shower option is likely to fit and flags anything that could get in the way. It is not a quote and it cannot replace measuring, but it is a lot better than guessing.
What you’re paying for
The ninety minutes, accounted for.
Here’s the whole visit, block by block. If any of it looks like a pitch, it isn’t one.
0 to 10
Minutes
We sit down. Nobody looks at the bathroom yet.
What happened. Who this is for. Who’s already been out and what they told you. And the question that matters most: when you think about doing this, what’s the part that worries you? Half of families say money. The other half say they can’t lose the only bathroom for three weeks.
Kitchen table10 to 20
Minutes
The person, not the room.
If your mother is home and willing, we ask to watch her walk to the bathroom. Which hand is stronger, how she gets on and off the toilet, whether she showers sitting or standing, and whether a carer needs to be in the room at the same time. Those answers decide where every bar goes, and they’re almost never in a written report.
Wherever she’s comfortable20 to 50
Minutes
Basement first. Then the bathroom.
This is the part other contractors skip. What’s under the floor decides what can be built above it, so we start downstairs: joist direction, span, where the stack runs, whether the supply is copper or galvanized, whether the panel has room. Then upstairs to measure the room and the alcove at three heights, tap the tub, probe the subfloor at the tub apron and the toilet flange, and check the clear door opening.
Basement, bathroom, hallway50 to 65
Minutes
What we found, including the bad news.
Back at the table. Plain language, and we lead with anything expensive. If the joists run the wrong way and a curbless shower has become a structural job, you hear that from us at the table. Not from a document three days later, and never from a crew standing in your hallway on a Tuesday.
Kitchen table65 to 80
Minutes
One recommendation, one number, one date.
Not a menu. You’re paying for a judgment, so we make one, and we say why. Then the fixed price, the completion date, four working days for a low-step conversion, seven for curbless, eight to ten for a full accessible bathroom, and exactly what sits outside that price. Then the funding.
Kitchen table80 to 90
Minutes
We leave without asking you to sign anything.
There’s usually a brother or a sister who isn’t in the room. Asking for a decision without them forces a no or an awkward stall, and neither one helps you. So we tell you what arrives in 48 hours, and we call once on Thursday. If it’s a no, say so and the calling stops.
The front door
Twenty minutes underneath
Why the assessment starts in the basement.
A curbless shower needs the drain moved and the floor dropped. If the joists run parallel to the plumbing wall there is nowhere to route it without cutting one, and that means an engineer, a permit, and roughly three times the cost.
It takes four minutes to establish from underneath, and it decides everything above.
Every other contractor starts with a tape measure in the wrong room.
Why ninety minutes and not twenty
Six things that decide the price, and where they hide.
Every one of these is findable before demolition. Finding them on day two is what turns a fixed price into a moving one.
01
Which way the joists run
A curbless shower needs the drain moved and the floor dropped. If the joists run parallel to the plumbing wall there’s nowhere to run it without cutting one, and that’s an engineer, a permit, and roughly three times the cost. We find it from the basement in four minutes.
02
Whether the tub is cast iron
Iron doesn’t leave a 28-inch doorway in one piece. It’s a full day of extra labour, and on a four-day schedule a full day is the whole buffer.
03
Asbestos, on anything pre-1990
Vinyl floor tile, mastic and joint compound from that era. Ontario Reg. 278/05 requires the owner to determine whether it’s present before demolition. We take the sample in front of you and pay the lab. Most contractors never mention it, and the liability lands on you.
04
What the supply pipe is made of
Galvanized scales shut from the inside. You open one wall and discover the whole run needs replacing. Better to know at the table than with the water off and your mother in a hotel.
05
Whether the floor under the tub is still sound
Twenty years of a weeping valve lives at the tub apron and the toilet flange. It takes a probe and thirty seconds, and it’s the single most common thing discovered on demolition day and billed as an extra. We probe it while you watch.
06
The door, and the alcove
A walker needs 32 inches of clear width and plenty of older bathrooms have a 24 inch door. Widening it is a framing change, not a small job. And the alcove gets measured at three heights, because pre-1970 framing is rarely square and a base that doesn’t fit means furring the walls mid-job.
What you’re actually buying
A document, and a decision you can make with confidence.
Within 48 hours of the visit, this lands in your inbox. It’s written so that you can read it, forward it to your brother, and understand every line without phoning us to explain it.
And it’s written so that a competing contractor could price the same scope from it. That’s deliberate. If our number isn’t right, we’d rather you find out now than halfway through a job.
Delivered within 48 hours
Home Safety Assessment Report
Prepared for your address, in plain language
Just as important
What won’t happen in your kitchen.
Book it
Pick a time. Ninety minutes, one visit.
Evenings and Saturdays are available. Whoever will help make the decision should be in the house, even if that’s by speakerphone.
Home Safety Assessment
$497
90 minutes · one visit
Ninety minutes in the house with me, not a salesperson
Asbestos sampling and lab fee on pre-1990 homes
Written scope and a fixed price within 48 hours
Photographs of everything found behind and below
A funding review, including the programs you don’t qualify for
Credited in full against your project. Prefer to talk first? Call (647) 800-1302.
Still deciding
Fair questions.
You keep the report, the photographs and the lab result. It’s written so another contractor can price the identical scope from it. We’d rather lose the job to a better price than win it on a number nobody could check.
Yes. It’s collected when you book. That’s what keeps the visit an assessment rather than a sales call, and it’s why we can hold a ninety-minute slot for you on a Saturday.
Book a time when you can be there. We’d prefer it. If she’d rather not be part of the walkthrough that’s completely fine. We only need five minutes of watching how she moves, and only if she’s comfortable with it.
Yes, and send the report over beforehand. An OT tells us what your mother needs. The assessment tells us what the house will allow and what it costs. They answer two different questions and you need both.
Four working days for a low-step conversion, Monday to Thursday. Seven for a curbless shower, because the drain moves and the floor structure is opened and rebuilt. Eight to ten for a full accessible bathroom. Part of what the assessment settles is which one your bathroom actually needs, and whether the house can be without a bathroom for that long.
Then that’s what the report says, and it will say why. Sometimes the honest recommendation is a new three-piece bathroom on the main floor instead of rebuilding the one upstairs. Sometimes it’s the $2,800 safety package and nothing more. Occasionally it’s a move, and we’ll say that too.
Oshawa, Whitby, Courtice, Bowmanville, Newcastle, Newtonville, Ajax, Pickering and east Scarborough is the core radius, and that is where the four-day promise applies. We also work across Toronto, including downtown, North York, East York and Etobicoke, and out to Port Perry, Uxbridge and Brock. On a Toronto build we confirm the timeline after seeing the bathroom rather than promising four days from here.
