Our Editorial Standards

Most home projects in Canada begin with a season. The freeze-thaw that heaved the interlock, the ice dam that worked under the shingles, the eavestroughs that gave up in November, the spring melt that found the basement. Then comes the search, then three quotes that disagree, then the uneasy business of deciding who to let in the door. Our guides are built to walk beside you through that whole stretch, and this page sets out the standard each one must meet at every point where you might lean on it.

When you first look up what a job should cost

Every figure in our guides is a range in Canadian dollars, and every range carries the year it was gathered, because materials, labour and fuel do not hold still. Our prices also refuse to pretend Canada is one market: a roof in Halifax and a roof in Calgary are priced by different labour pools, different codes and different winters, and a short exterior season can compress schedules and push quotes up. Every number traces to a source we opened and read ourselves, never another site's retelling. When the best available figure comes from an industry source we could not independently confirm, we name that source right in the sentence, so you know exactly whose number you are reading.

When you check whether a contractor is legitimate

Licensing and consumer protection in Canada are provincial, and the differences are not trivia. Who may touch your wiring, whether your deposit is protected, what a renovation contract must say before it binds you: the answers sit in provincial law and with provincial bodies, and our guides name the actual authority, whether that is a provincial electrical or technical safety regulator, a new-home warranty body, or your municipal building department on the permit question. When a guide states province-specific rules, it covers the provinces we verified against each province's own authority, names them, and shows you how to look up yours. Where we have not verified a province, we say so and give the general rule, because an admitted gap beats a confident guess about your house.

When a guide warns you about a scam

Storm-chasing roofers, deposits that vanish with the contractor, door-to-door furnace and driveway schemes: we cover them because they cost Canadian homeowners real money, and we cover them to protect you, not to alarm you. Every warning sign we describe is paired with the step that defends against it, including the rights your provincial consumer protection act gives you, which differ from province to province. We do not name or imply that particular businesses are wrongdoers, and we do not publish accusations we cannot verify.

Before any of that reaches you

Every guide passes an independent fact-check, separate from the writing, which re-opens the cited sources and confirms each number, name, rule and date against them. No guide skips it. You will find no invented homeowners in our pages, no fabricated quotes, and no credentials our editorial team does not hold. When a job legally requires a licensed professional or a permit, the guide says so plainly. No contractor, manufacturer or firm pays for coverage in a guide or reads one before you can. Our guides are written in English; where a provincial regulator or consumer office publishes its resources in both official languages, we point you there so you can read them in the language you prefer.

After we publish

Each guide carries a dated line telling you when its facts were last verified, and its visible updated date changes only when the substance changes, never for appearances. When we get something wrong, we correct it in the guide itself, where the error lived, with a dated note. If a figure does not match the quote on your kitchen table, or your province has changed a rule, tell us through the site's contact page, naming the guide and the line. If you are right, the correction goes in with a date on it, and the next homeowner reads a better guide.