Demolition & Removal

A tear-out looks like the simple part of a renovation, yet it sets up everything that comes after. Take out too much and you pay to rebuild things that could have stayed; take it out carelessly and you damage the subfloor, the shared wall with next door or the drain stack the new bathroom depends on. We handle interior demolition for homeowners, landlords, property managers, general contractors and businesses across Toronto and the GTA, either as the opening stage of one of our renovations or as a stand-alone scope handed over clean to the next trade.

Tear-out scope, and who disconnects what

We strip kitchens and bathrooms back to studs and subfloor; take out cabinets, counters, tile, flooring, drywall and plaster; remove non-load-bearing walls, closets and bulkheads; clear out basements; and gut office and retail interiors ahead of a commercial fit-out. Anything connected to a service is disconnected first by the right licensed trade: an electrician makes the wiring safe, a plumber caps water and drain lines, and a gas fitter shuts off and caps any gas line. Load-bearing structure is not cut without an engineer's design and a building permit. A non-structural wall can need a permit too: the City of Toronto counts removing a wall that alters a room's size or use as permit work, so we confirm where your project stands before a wall comes down.

Materials to test before anything comes apart

Houses and buildings from before the 1990s can contain asbestos in places you would not guess: plaster, textured ceilings, vermiculite insulation, vinyl floor tiles and their adhesive, drywall joint compound and old pipe wrap. Ontario has specific rules for work that disturbs it. Where a building is old enough, we ask for suspect materials to be sampled and tested by a qualified company before demolition begins. If a result is positive, an abatement specialist removes that material, and our work starts once the area has been cleared.

How a tear-out runs

1. Walk-through. We mark what stays, what goes and what you want saved for reuse, and note where water, drain, gas and electrical lines run.
2. Disconnections. The licensed trades make services safe and cap them.
3. Protection. Floors along the route out are covered, plastic dust walls with zip doors seal off the work area, and vents in the room are covered so dust does not circulate through the house.
4. Removal from the top down. Fixtures and cabinets come out first, then wall and ceiling finishes, then flooring, so falling debris lands on material that is leaving anyway.
5. Open-wall check. With finishes off, we look at the framing, subfloor and earlier repairs, and photograph anything that affects the rebuild, such as rot, old water damage or notched joists. Nothing is added to the job without your approval.
6. Clean-out. Debris is loaded out, protruding nails and screws are pulled or cut flush, and the space is swept and vacuumed so the next trade starts on a clean shell.

When the tear-out is the first step of a kitchen renovation with us, we take things apart with the new layout already in hand, so framing that will be reused is left standing and protected.

Bins, elevators and neighbours

Getting debris out often needs more planning than taking it down. A bin on your driveway is simplest; without a driveway, a bin on the street generally needs a municipal permit, and some jobs are better served by bagged removal. In condos and apartment buildings, management sets the rules: a booked service elevator, protection for hallways and lobbies, the times when noisy work is allowed and where debris may wait for pickup. In semi-detached and row houses we work carefully along the shared wall, and we tell you before the loudest work so you can give the neighbours a heads-up.

What makes one tear-out harder than another

Two rooms of the same size can be very different tear-outs. Tile set in an old mortar bed takes far more effort than a floating floor, and plaster and lath are heavier and dustier than drywall. The number of storeys debris has to travel, the distance to the bin, elevator booking windows, the volume going to disposal, testing and waiting on disconnections all affect the quote and the schedule. After a flood or leak, the extent of the damage sets the scope, and the tear-out usually becomes part of a larger damage repair project.

Call or message us with the rough age of the building, what is coming out and what has to survive the tear-out. We will walk through it with you and price removal, protection and disposal as separate lines in a free written estimate.