Scarborough

Scarborough is not one kind of housing, and anyone who quotes it like it is will get it wrong. The City of Toronto’s 2021 Census profile for the Scarborough Community Council Area counts 218,920 dwellings. Of those, 22.1 per cent were built in 1960 or earlier and another 36.9 per cent were built between 1961 and 1980. Single detached houses make up 37.2 per cent of the stock. In plain terms: close to six in ten Scarborough homes are at least 45 years old, and the detached ones are mostly bungalows, sidesplits and backsplits sitting on wide postwar lots.

Our shop is at 1352C Woodbine Ave in East York, a few minutes north of Danforth. From that door it is roughly 15 minutes to Birch Cliff and Cliffside, about 20 to 25 minutes to Wexford, Bendale and Scarborough Village, and 25 to 35 minutes out to Agincourt, Guildwood, West Hill, Highland Creek and Malvern depending on the hour. We are an east end company working east end houses.

We do the full range in Scarborough: kitchens, bathrooms, basements, secondary suites, electrical, plumbing, tiling, flooring, drywall, painting, decks, fences, roofing, eavestroughs, and small handyman jobs booked by the hour. Every renovation gets a fixed price before we start and a project manager who is on site while the work is happening. If we look at your house and think the job you are asking for is the wrong job, we will say so before you spend money.

The postwar bungalow belt

Bendale, Wexford, Cliffside, Scarborough Village and West Hill filled in with detached bungalows through the 1950s and 1960s, and the pattern repeats street after street: around 1,000 to 1,200 square feet on the main floor, three bedrooms, one bathroom, a side door partway down the wall, a full basement, and a lot that is wide and deep by Toronto standards. West Hill in particular is still mostly two and three bedroom bungalows on lots larger than the city average, because it was laid out late with curved streets and generous setbacks.

The problem we get called about more than any other in these houses is basement height. A 1958 bungalow basement is commonly 6 ft 6 in to 7 ft under the joists, and once you drop a bulkhead under the trunk duct you are at head height for anybody over five foot ten. That is why underpinning is such common work for us here. It is also why the side door matters: a bungalow with an existing side entrance is a much shorter path to a legal second unit than one where we have to cut a new entry through the foundation wall and excavate a stairwell. We look at that door first on every basement suite quote.

Sidesplits and backsplits

The split level is a Scarborough signature. The postwar backsplit, one storey at the front that splits into an upper and a lower level toward the rear yard, was built through the 1950s and 1960s and is concentrated in Scarborough and North York, usually with a long driveway, a garage tucked into the roof line, a central interior stair, and a secondary entrance off the side yard. Agincourt, Guildwood, Wexford and the older parts of Highland Creek are full of them.

Splits renovate differently from bungalows, and the difference is structural. The half levels mean the load path and the duct runs are stacked in ways that make an open concept main floor harder than it looks, because the wall you want gone is often carrying the upper level. The lower rear level that walks out to the backyard is usually only a few feet below grade and is the obvious candidate for a family room or a suite, but the front portion of that same level is often a true basement with a crawl space beside it. We measure every level separately on a split, and we open the ceiling to confirm what is bearing before we price a beam.

Aluminum wiring, galvanized supply and asbestos

If your Scarborough house was built between about 1965 and 1978, expect aluminum branch circuit wiring. The Electrical Safety Authority notes that homes built from the mid 1960s to the late 1970s may have it, and that aluminum wiring is safe when the connections and terminations are made correctly and the wire is not damaged. That is the whole issue: the wire itself is rarely the failure, the terminations are, at receptacles, switches, splices in the panel, and fixture boxes where somebody has twisted aluminum onto copper with a standard marrette. We remediate with devices and connectors rated for aluminum, pull an ESA permit, and finish with an inspection and a certificate, which is the piece of paper your insurer actually wants.

Two other things come with the same era. Galvanized steel supply piping, common in the older pockets around Birch Cliff and Cliffside, scales up on the inside until a second floor shower drops to a trickle when the kitchen tap runs, and it cannot be repaired, only replaced with copper or PEX. And asbestos: 9 by 9 inch vinyl floor tile and its black mastic, tape wrap on old octopus ducts, and some board and pipe insulation, all normal in Scarborough houses of this age. We do not rip that material out on a hunch. It gets tested, and if it is positive it goes to a licensed abatement contractor before our trades set foot in the room.

Clay soil, ravines and the Bluffs

Scarborough’s south edge is the Bluffs, which run about 15 kilometres from the foot of Victoria Park Avenue to the mouth of Highland Creek and reach roughly 90 metres at their highest point. They are the old shoreline of Glacial Lake Iroquois, which means layered sand, silt and clay rather than rock. The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority attributes the ongoing erosion to wave action undercutting the toe of the slope, water running off and seeping out of the tableland above, and freeze thaw cycling.

For a homeowner in Fallingbrook, Cliffside, Scarborough Village or Guildwood, the practical version of that is drainage. We grade away from the building, get downspouts discharging to splash pads well clear of the wall rather than into an old clay drain of unknown condition, and on properties near the crest or backing onto Highland Creek we tell homeowners up front when a project is likely to need Conservation Authority review, rather than finding out at permit stage. Inland, the clay soil under most of Scarborough holds water instead of shedding it, which is why so many basement jobs here start with an interior drainage membrane, weeping tile, a sump pump and a backwater valve before a single stud goes up. Toronto’s Basement Flooding Protection Subsidy raised its maximum to $6,650 per property as of May 1, 2026, up from $3,400, and now includes $300 toward a sump pump battery backup. We walk clients through eligibility as part of the quote.

Our East York crew handles the full range of HandyForce services for Scarborough homeowners.

Renovations

• Bathroom Renovation – full gut, tiling, plumbing, fixtures
• Kitchen Renovation – custom 3D cabinet design, stone counters, full finishing
• Basement Renovation – waterproofing, underpinning, finishing, income suite conversions

Trades and Specialties

• Electrical – knob-and-tube replacement, panel upgrades, ESA permits, EV chargers, pot lights
• Plumbing – licensed master plumber, fixtures, rough-in, backwater valves
• Tiling – ceramic, porcelain, natural stone, heated floors, large format
• Flooring – laminate, LVP, hardwood, squeak repair, stair treads
• Drywalling – new installs, patching, lath and plaster repair
• Painting – interior, exterior, cabinets, deck staining
• Handyman Services – hourly, booked by the job, no project too small

Exterior

• Decks – pressure treated and composite, permit procurement included
• Fences – cedar, pressure treated, composite
• Roofing – shingles, flat roofing, repairs
• Exterior Painting – brick, siding, trim, porches
• Windows & Doors – replacement windows, entry doors, patio doors
• Eavestroughs – installation, repair, cleaning, gutter guards

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Why Scarborough Homeowners Choose The HandyForce

• Fixed-price quotes – the number in your contract is the number you pay
• Dedicated project manager on-site every day for every renovation
• All staff are employees – not subcontractors, not referrals
• One-year workmanship guarantee on all labour – with a 6-month follow-up
• 63% of the project value held by the client until they’re satisfied
• Local East York office on Woodbine Ave – 15 minutes from Scarborough, not dispatching from the suburbs

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The Neighbourhoods We Also Know

We serve homeowners across the east end of Toronto. The Scarborough sits at the centre of it – surrounded by neighbourhoods we’ve been working in for years.

• East York – our home base, wartime bungalows and semis, 15 years of local work
• The Beaches – detached homes of every era, lakeside exposure, decks and porches
• Leslieville – postwar semis, ventilation issues, and the legacy of fast flips done poorly
• Leaside – solid brick homes, dirt floor basements, water table issues
• Cabbagetown – Victorian and Edwardian heritage homes, Heritage Conservation District constraints
• Rosedale – grand Victorian and Edwardian homes, high-end renovations and specialty basement conversions
• Danforth / Greektown – Edwardian and interwar semis, knob and tube rewiring, and kitchens that have waited a long time
• St. Clair West – Edwardian semis on narrow lots, hillside drainage, and basement lowering
• York / Weston – wartime houses, knob and tube, and basements in the Humber flood plain
• Midtown Toronto – pre-war brick houses around Yonge and Eglinton, plus condo and apartment unit work

Our East York office is at 1352C Woodbine Ave, East York, Ontario M4C 4G2 – roughly 15 to 30 minutes from most of Scarborough. We’re open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Call us at 647-427-7366 or toll-free at 1-888-910-7366 or click Request a Quote.