AI Analysis: Residential renovation price indexes, by project

Executive Summary

Statistics Canada's residential renovation price index dataset (Table 18100286) tracks 700 time series across 25 regions and 46 project types from 2017 to 2026, revealing that Canadian renovation costs have risen dramatically — the national composite index climbed 72.9% from its lowest recorded value to 107.2 by January 2026. The data shows broad-based inflationary pressure across nearly all renovation categories, with 720 project-type pairs exhibiting correlations of 0.9 or higher, suggesting economy-wide forces such as pandemic-era demand surges and supply chain disruptions are the primary drivers. Solar panels, heat pumps, and major landscaping projects have seen the steepest cost increases relative to the 2023 baseline.

Key Findings

• The national composite renovation price index reached 107.2 in January 2026, representing a 72.9% increase from its lowest recorded value, reflecting sustained cost inflation across the 2017–2026 period.
• Index values span a wide range from a low of 29.7 to a high of 138.1 (base year 2023=100), with a mean of 89.6 and a median of 94.5, indicating slight left skew driven by lower early-period values.
• Solar panels, heat pumps, and major landscaping are the top 3 renovation categories by average price index, signaling that energy-efficiency and outdoor projects have experienced the most pronounced cost growth.
• 720 out of all project-type pairs show absolute correlations of 0.9 or higher, with Interlock and Patio achieving a perfect correlation of r = 1.000, confirming that broad macroeconomic forces drive prices across virtually all renovation categories simultaneously.
• The middle 50% of all 21,484 index values fall between 77.2 and 102.3 (IQR of 25.10), with a standard deviation of 16.6, indicating moderate but meaningful variability across project types and time periods.
• No statistical outliers (|z-score| > 2.5) were detected within individual geographic regions, suggesting price trends have been internally consistent within each province or CMA despite wide variation across the full dataset.
• Price growth accelerated notably after 2020 across all key regions — including Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, and Alberta — likely reflecting pandemic-driven demand surges and construction supply chain disruptions.