Bathroom Renovation Timeline: Steps and How Long Each Takes

A bathroom renovation takes about 1 to 8 weeks for a main bathroom, longer for a large ensuite, and up to 14 weeks in total once ordering, permits and inspections are counted. The work runs in a fixed order, and the waterproofing and its cure times set both the pace and whether the shower lasts. In a house with one bathroom, plan around the days it is out of use, not the contract's start and finish dates.

How long a bathroom renovation takes, by scope

Scope sets the weeks. A refresh keeps the walls and drains, a gut strips the room to the framing, and an ensuite adds a larger shower, more tile and often a moved drain.

The table sets four 2026 schedules side by side. Three count the weeks once demolition or construction starts, not the planning before it; the Kitchener-Waterloo renovator gives a timeline per tier without saying where it starts.

Three things move a bathroom from the short end to the long one: how much plumbing moves, how much tile goes on, and how long the job waits between steps. A tiled shower with a niche and a bench takes days of setting and curing that an acrylic tub surround does not, and a moved drain brings a permit and an inspection.

The same scope line sets what a bathroom costs: an Ontario price list puts a refresh at $20,000 to $35,000, and Ontario and Calgary lists put a main bathroom gutted to the studs at $30,000 to $60,000 in 2026. Where a kitchen's schedule hangs on one long cabinet order, a bathroom's is set by several short waits: the specialty orders, the inspections and the cure times.

Bathroom renovation steps, in order

A bathroom follows the order of any renovation of a house, packed into a small room: services first, inspection before anything is covered, then the waterproofing, the tile and the fixtures. The times are from an Ontario bathroom supplier's 2026 schedule, with GTA and Metro Vancouver renovators' figures where they differ.

Before demolition: choose and order everything

Every fixture is chosen and the long-lead items ordered before the room comes apart, because a bathroom stripped to the studs cannot be used while it waits for a shower pan. Frameless glass, custom shower pans and premium faucets can take 4 to 12 weeks to arrive in the supplier's figures.

Two choices are tied to the rough-in. The shower valve goes into the open wall, so the trim it matches has to be chosen before the plumber starts. If the toilet drain stays where it is, measure the rough-in, the distance from the finished wall to the centre of the drain, before ordering a toilet: one made for a 12-inch rough-in does not fit a 10-inch one without moving the drain.

Demolition, and what older bathrooms hide

Demolition takes 1 to 3 days, and it is when a bathroom's age shows: rot under an old toilet or tub, worn supply pipes, and in older houses, materials that may contain asbestos. In homes built before 1985, an Ontario bathroom supplier adds an asbestos survey to the job, and removal, where the survey finds asbestos, to the schedule.

Rough-in and the inspection

The plumber sets the drains, supply lines and shower valve in 1 to 3 days, and the electrician wires the fan, lights and outlets in 1 to 2 more. Where a permit was taken, an inspector sees this work before anything covers it: Toronto's inspection stages for small buildings call for the plumbing rough-in inspection at completion and ready for testing, and anything covered before it passes has to be uncovered.

In Toronto an inspection can be booked from the next business day, and the inspector comes on the booked day or the day after. In Ontario, electrical work also needs a notification to the Electrical Safety Authority before it starts, and it stays uncovered until ESA has reviewed it; keep the Certificate of Acceptance, which ESA calls important for insurance and resale. A Metro Vancouver renovator readies every rough-in trade for a single inspection visit, and puts the corrections after a failed one at another 3 to 7 days.

Tile, grout and cure times

Tile takes 5 to 10 days in the supplier's schedule and 5 to 7 in a GTA renovator's, because each surface is set, left to cure, then grouted. By the supplier's figures, the thin-set under the tile needs at least 24 hours before grout, or 48 for large-format tile, and the grout needs at least 72 hours before the shower takes water. The data sheets for the thin-set and grout set the exact times.

A tiled shower floor, a niche and a bench each add cutting and setting time. Order about 10% more tile than the measured area for cuts and breakage, since a tile that runs out mid-job may be discontinued by the time more is ordered.

Fixtures, glass and the final inspection

Once the grout has cured, the plumber sets the toilet, vanity and shower trim and the electrician installs the fan and lights, in 2 to 3 days. Frameless glass is measured only after the tile is on, because the panels are made to fit the finished walls, and a GTA renovator puts fabrication at about a week from measuring. In Toronto, the plumbing occupancy inspection comes once every required fixture is installed, and a final inspection closes the permit.

Shower waterproofing: the step that decides whether it lasts

Tile is not a waterproof layer. Water passes through grout lines and has to be stopped by a membrane behind them, and a shower that is not sealed can leak into the framing and the floor for years before anyone sees it. The membrane covers every wet wall, the shower floor and any niche or bench, with every seam and corner lapped.

Ask which membrane system the firm uses and check that its data sheet lists ANSI A118.10, the standard for load-bearing, bonded waterproof membranes under thin-set tile. Then get the system named in writing: a quote that leaves it out cannot be compared with one that names it.

Sheet membrane or liquid membrane

Both work when installed to the maker's instructions. They differ in how the thickness is controlled and in what the tile waits for.

The supplier's schedule and a Metro Vancouver renovator's both allow 24 to 48 hours for the membrane before tile goes on, which is why backer board, membrane and shower pan together take 2 to 6 days rather than one.

The shower flood test

A flood test proves the shower floor holds water before tile hides the membrane. The drain is plugged, the pan is filled with water to just below the curb, the level is marked, and the water is left for the time the membrane maker sets. Afterwards the level is checked, along with the ceiling or floor below, and a drop means the leak is found while the fix is a patch, not a rebuild.

Curbless showers

A curbless shower changes the work before the membrane. With no curb to hold water in, the floor under the shower is recessed or sloped toward the drain, about ¼ inch per foot in the supplier's schedule, and that is settled at the drawings stage because it can mean lowering part of the subfloor. The membrane then runs past the shower onto the bathroom floor.

Bathroom permits and inspections in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver

Replacing a toilet, vanity or tub where it stands usually needs no building permit, while moving a drain, adding a fixture or adding circuits brings permits and inspections. For bathroom renovations in Toronto, the City's permit rules list repairing and replacing plumbing fixtures as work with no building permit, and installing or modifying plumbing systems as work that needs one.

When a permit is needed, the wait is short for simple work. Toronto aims to review stand-alone plumbing and drain permits and interior alterations to a house within 3 business days through its Express Services. The City of Calgary puts its building permit review at about 7 days.

Condo bathrooms

A condo bathroom needs approval from the condo board or strata corporation before any change to the structure or common property, and the concrete slab is where it slows down: moving a drain can mean drilling through it, which one Vancouver renovator prices at $5,000 to $12,000, against $2,000 to $5,000 or more in a house. Ask the building which hours trades may work, since a shorter working day stretches every step of the schedule.

Living without the bathroom, and what delays it

The bathroom is out of use from demolition until the toilet and shower are back, which is the full span of the work: about 1 to 5 weeks for a refresh and 3 to 8 weeks for a gut. In a house with one bathroom, plan those weeks before the start date, whether that is a basement bathroom, family nearby or a gym; an Ontario supplier puts gym access for showers at $50 to $100 a month.

• Selections made late. A specialty order placed after demolition can add 4 to 12 weeks to a room that is already stripped.
• A failed rough-in inspection. Corrections and a second visit add 3 to 7 days.
• What demolition finds. Rot, old pipes or asbestos add work, and asbestos removal adds 1 to 2 weeks.
• Cure times cut short. Tile on a fresh membrane or water on fresh grout turns into a repair, and an Ontario supplier prices a rushed grout fix at $800 to $2,500.
• Glass measured late. The doors cannot be measured until the tile is on, so a late booking adds days at the very end.

We would hold a contingency of 10 to 20% of the budget, the span between a Metro Vancouver renovator's 10 to 15% and an Ontario supplier's 15 to 20%, and 20% in a house built before 1980.