By Breaker Demolition · Published September 12, 2026 · No prices in the guides; every number comes from a site walk. Anything in [brackets] is confirmed before launch.
What the law requires
Ontario's Occupational Health and Safety Act requires a designated substances survey before a construction or demolition project on a building where such substances may be present, with the results handed to the contractor before work begins. Asbestos is one of the designated substances. Disturbing it is governed by O. Reg. 278/05, which sets out how asbestos is handled, who may do it and what protection is required.
The regulation sorts asbestos work into three types. Type 1 is low risk work, such as removing a small amount of non-friable material without breaking it. Type 2 is moderate risk, with enclosures and respirators. Type 3 is high risk, which covers most removals of friable material and most larger jobs, with full enclosure, negative air and decontamination. A survey tells you which type applies before anyone touches the material.
Why 1990 is the line
Asbestos was in common building products through the 1980s. A house built before 1990 is assumed to possibly contain it, so it gets surveyed. That does not mean a 1975 house is full of asbestos, and it does not mean a 1995 house has none. It means the survey is required for the first and a judgment call for the second. When in doubt, survey.
Where it hides in a Toronto house
None of these is a problem sitting still. All of them become a problem when a sledgehammer goes through them, which is the whole point of surveying before demolition rather than after.
- Vinyl floor tile and the black mastic under it
- Vermiculite attic insulation, often loose under the batts
- Pipe and duct insulation, the white wrap on old heating lines
- Plaster, and the drywall joint compound in houses from the 1960s to the 1980s
- Textured or stipple ceilings
- Cement board siding and soffits
- Roofing felts and some shingles
What the survey involves
A qualified consultant walks the building, samples the suspect materials, and sends them to a lab. The report lists each material, whether it contains asbestos, and the work type under O. Reg. 278/05 that removal would need. [Survey cost, Kam confirms.] [Turnaround from site visit to report: n days, Kam confirms.]
If the report is clean, demolition proceeds. If it finds asbestos, the materials are removed by a licensed abatement crew, under the controls the work type requires, and cleared before the strip-out or the tear-down continues. [Whether that crew is ours depends on licensing Kam confirms.] [Abatement cost range, Kam confirms.]
What it means for your schedule and your permit
The survey and the demolition permit run in parallel, so order the survey the day you decide to demolish. Abatement, if needed, sits between the survey and the demolition and takes its own days on the calendar. On a pre-1990 house the survey report is part of the file the contractor works from, and no strip-out on an older house starts without it.
What to do now
If your house predates 1990, tell us the year built and what is coming out. We tell you whether a survey is required and what the report needs to cover. Book a site walk and you get the survey sequenced into the schedule, before the bin arrives.