Restoration quotes vary more than almost any trade in this county, and the reason is very rarely greed.
It is that “sort out the water” describes at least four different jobs at four different prices, and nobody tells you which one you are being sold. Two crews can walk into the same wet basement in Collingwood and produce estimates $6,000 apart, both honestly, because one has priced drying the walls in place and the other has priced taking them out.
So here is what the work actually costs in South Georgian Bay in 2026, and what moves the number.
The numbers
| Job | Typical South Georgian Bay cost |
|---|---|
| Emergency extraction and drying, one room, caught same day | $1,200–$2,400 |
| Extraction and drying, finished basement | $2,400–$4,400 |
| Burst supply line, found within a day | $2,500–$6,000 |
| Burst supply line, building empty for weeks | $9,000–$18,000+ |
| Sewer backup, unfinished basement | $2,000–$4,500 |
| Sewer backup, finished basement | $4,500–$9,000 |
| Storm or overland flood cleanup | $1,800–$9,500 |
| Ice dam leak, interior drying and ceiling | $1,500–$8,000 |
| Appliance or supply line leak, caught early | $900–$2,200 |
| Slow appliance leak, found months later | $2,500–$5,000 |
| Mould remediation, EACO Level 1, under 10 ft² | $700–$1,400 |
| Mould remediation, EACO Level 2, 10–100 ft² | $1,400–$3,200 |
| Mould remediation, EACO Level 3, over 100 ft² | $3,200–$6,000+ |
| Independent moisture inspection and written report | $300–$550 |
Meaford and the far Clearview concessions carry a travel component on smaller jobs. None of the figures above include the rebuild — the drywall, the flooring, the cabinets and the paint are a separate contractor and a separate number.
What actually drives the price
Equipment days, not floor area
Drying is billed as units of equipment on site per day. An air mover and a dehumidifier in a room for two days is a small line. The same equipment for six days is three times that line, and nothing about the room changed.
So the question that decides your invoice is what ends the drying. If the answer is a date, you are buying a guess. If the answer is a reading taken against unaffected material elsewhere in your own building, you are buying a measurement, and it will stop as soon as it is finished. That comparison is called a dry standard, and how to tell when a building is actually dry covers what it looks like on paper.
How much has to be removed
This is the single biggest fork in any estimate, and it turns on the category of the water rather than the volume of it.
Under the ANSI/IICRC S500 standard, water is classed by its source and by what it has since touched, and clean water does not stay clean. Supply-line water that has stood in a carpet and moved through a wall assembly is no longer treated as clean water. Once that line is crossed, porous materials — carpet underlay, batt insulation, particleboard, stored cardboard — come out rather than being dried.
That is why a sewer backup is expensive even when the water is shallow, and why a burst pipe found the same morning is cheap even when the water is deep.
How old the building is
Around six in ten dwellings in the Collingwood area were built before 1990 and roughly one in five before 1960. In a building of that age, Ontario Regulation 278/05 requires the asbestos question to be answered before material that may be disturbed is opened up — vinyl floor tile, tile adhesive, some plasters and older mechanical insulation are all candidates.
That adds a step and sometimes a cost. It is not optional, an emergency does not suspend it, and a crew that skips it has skipped a legal requirement rather than a cautious one.
Which town it is in
Not for travel — for cause. A basement in Wasaga Beach taking groundwater up through the slab needs drying and honest advice about drainage, and it will do it again. A basement in Creemore that took the Mad River in a spring freshet is contaminated water and a removal job. Same amount of water, two different invoices, and the difference is the entry route.
What you should refuse to pay for
A scope with no readings behind it. If nobody has measured anything, the amount of material being removed is an opinion. Opinions are free and drywall is not.
Antimicrobial spray as a substitute for removal. On a hard non-porous surface it has a place. Applied to a saturated porous material as an alternative to taking it out, it changes the colour of the problem and nothing else.
Air sampling to answer “do I have mould”. Sampling has real uses — a dispute, a tenancy, a sale, verification after a Level 3 job. Answering a question you can already see the answer to is not one of them, and the remediation does not change based on the species.
Equipment left running with nobody reading it. Monitoring is the service. Equipment on site without a daily log is rental.
A rebuild quoted by the person who decided what to remove. It is not automatically wrong, and it is worth knowing that it is the arrangement. Keeping the two separate is the cheapest control available to a homeowner.
Where the insurance sits in all this
For a loss at the small end, the arithmetic frequently says do not claim at all: the deductible plus what the claim does to your renewal can exceed the repair, and a reported claim counts whether or not it is paid. Whether to claim water damage on your insurance works through that properly, including the endorsements most Ontario policies do not carry by default.
For a loss at the large end the policy is exactly what it is for, and the number above stops being the number that matters.