Working Hours: Mon - Fri: 9:00 to 18:00 | Sat - Sun : Closed
Working Hours: Mon - Fri: 9:00 to 18:00 | Sat - Sun : Closed
Follow the Otonabee River north from downtown Peterborough past the Lift Lock and it leads you to Trent University; follow Chemong Lake Road the other way and it leads to Bridgenorth cottages that only fill up on weekends. Somewhere between those two roads is where most of our repair calls start. IntraBuild reads the damage, sizes it to a tier, and leaves the wall primed and ready for a roller — with a written number agreed before the first cut goes in.
The Trent-Severn waterway runs right through the middle of Peterborough, and it's a decent way to picture how differently this county's houses have aged — century homes in the Avenues downtown, newer places along Chemong Lake, rentals a short walk from Trent's Symons campus, farmhouses out past Douro-Dummer that predate the survey lines. IntraBuild repairs drywall in every one of them, plus Lakefield, Bridgenorth, Selwyn and the townships further out — cut back to something solid, taped and feathered wide, sanded flat, primed, with the number quoted in writing before any of that starts.
A moving dolly that clipped a stairwell on one of the Avenues, a door swung too hard in a rental near campus — either way, backing goes behind it, the fill builds in layers, and the edge feathers out until there's nothing left to see.
A hairline line over a downtown doorway has little in common with a nail pop in a five-year-old build near the edge of town — each gets cut to sound material, re-fastened or re-taped, finished flush so next winter doesn't undo the work.
Bubbled tape under a repaint, a joint shadowing through the finish, a corner opened by years of settling — the old tape comes out, mesh or paper tape replaces it, fresh compound buries the seam for good.
Lake humidity in a shut-up Chemong cottage marks a ceiling differently than a downtown apartment leak, but the fix runs the same either place — soft board cut to dry material, stain-blocking primer, patched or re-boarded overhead.
Trent's Symons campus on one end of the city, Fleming's Sutherland campus on the other — a wide stretch of Peterborough runs on the same lease calendar every year, and that turnover is one of our steadiest sources of patch calls.
The Avenues neighbourhood carries some of the oldest housing stock in the city, much of it original lath and plaster under decades of later drywall work, and it cracks along its own pattern rather than the tidy lines a newer wall would show.
A Chemong or Buckhorn cottage shut up all winter takes on humidity swings and freeze-thaw movement a heated, lived-in house never experiences — a ceiling corner is usually the first place it shows once the place reopens.
Peterborough's newer subdivisions on the west and north sides move a little through their first couple of winters as everything dries out — a hairline crack over a doorway is a normal, easy part of that.
There isn't a lake-house rate and a downtown rate — the number comes from what the repair actually needs, a two-minute nail pop or a ceiling section cut back and sealed against an old leak. As a guide, expect $120–650 per repair depending on tier, with a service-call minimum of $200, before HST.
| A single small patch | $120–200 |
|---|---|
| A bigger hole, backed properly | $220–380 |
| A stained ceiling section | $350–650 |
| Whole rooms or a full skim | quoted on site |
Folded into that number: the fill, the tape, the sanding, a coat of primer — none of it changes whether the visit's five minutes from downtown or forty-five past Bridgenorth. A single repair tends to land close to the $200 floor. Before HST, and just a starting point until we've had a look.
The last two weeks of April bring a predictable wave of calls from landlords near both campuses — hallway scuffs and closet holes from a graduating class of tenants, needing a patch before the incoming lease starts.
Homes in the Avenues, plenty of them well over a century old, still carry original plaster and lath under later drywall work, and the two materials meet in odd places — we know that seam well enough to tie a new repair in without it showing.
Every spring, owners along Chemong Lake and up toward Buckhorn open a place that's sat shut since fall, and more often than not there's a ceiling stain or a soft patch near a window waiting for them — easy enough once the source is confirmed.
Streets built in the last few years are still working through their first winters, and a home-inspection report often catches the same hairline cracks a buyer wants dealt with before the moving truck shows up.
A furnace inspection leaves a cut panel, a speaker-wire hole goes unpatched, an electrician opens a section and moves on once the job's done — someone else's leftover opening, closed properly instead of hidden behind a picture frame.
Trace that brown ring back far enough and it almost always lands on a bathroom floor one storey up, quietly leaking longer than anyone realized. Once whoever's handling the plumbing confirms it's actually stopped, we open the soft spot and put the ceiling back together.
Moving day leaves the same kind of mark all over the county — a corner caught by a dresser, a hallway scraped by a mattress — and most of those visits wrap up start to finish in one trip.
Selwyn, Douro-Dummer, Asphodel-Norwood — head out any of those directions and the farmhouses you'll find predate drywall by decades, plastered by hand in a way that cracks along its own meandering path rather than a straight line. Fighting that pattern with a stiff modern patch usually loses; working with it usually wins.
No slower queue for small jobs here — one hole gets the same booking priority as a full ceiling repair, which matters when a landlord's racing a lease-turnover date near Trent or Fleming.
Compound sanding throws fine dust down the hall if you let it, so the sander draws it into its own canister and the doorway gets sheeted off besides — true in a rented unit or an Avenues century home alike.
You'll have a number before any tool touches the drywall, downtown or out toward the Kawarthas, and it holds once we start — the crew cutting into your wall is fully insured either way.
Our last step is always a coat of primer and a smooth sand, ready for whatever colour comes next. Landlords turning a unit around fast often just have our painters do that match in the same appointment.
Text or email clear shots, or book a visit outright — most repairs get quoted straight from photos, tier and all, before a tool leaves the truck.
Furniture is shifted and covered, floors are protected, and poly seals off the immediate work zone before the first cut into the wall even happens.
Whatever's cracked, soft or torn gets cut back until what's left is solid, then backed with board, mesh or framing that can actually hold the fill.
The gap gets packed with board or filler, every joint picks up a strip of mesh or paper tape, and a first pass of compound follows shortly after.
Compound builds up in thin layers feathered well past the edge of the repair, then gets sanded until a hand run across the wall finds nothing.
A stain-blocking primer covers anywhere it's needed, we go over the finished repair with you, and the wall's ready for a coat of paint that same day.
Most repairs clear all six stages in a single appointment — a cottage ceiling out past Bridgenorth might need a short second trip once the compound's cured. Either way, it's the same crew start to finish.
Between $120 and $650 depending on tier — a small patch toward the low end, a water-damaged ceiling toward the top — with a $200 service-call minimum, before HST. A written quote from photos confirms the exact figure.
In most cases, yes — we feather the compound wide and match knockdown, orange peel or smooth finishes so the patch reads as part of the original surface, not a flat modern square once it's painted.
The drywall repair is our part; the source — a roof, an ice dam, a plumbing line — needs solving first, or the mark returns next season. We can supply dated photos and a written scope if your insurer wants documentation.
Yes — older plaster and newer knockdown or orange-peel drywall need different techniques to blend properly, and we adjust to whichever wall's in front of us rather than using one method everywhere.
Typically — a wall job happens standing on your own two feet, while overhead work means setting up bracing or a platform first, which usually pushes the price about a quarter to a third higher.
Yes — late April through May is our busiest stretch for exactly this, and we can usually quote from photos and land the visit before the new lease starts.
Yes — plenty of Chemong and Buckhorn repairs get booked around a specific weekend or the window before guests arrive. Send photos ahead and we'll often line up the visit for the day you're there.
There's a clear tipping point — a couple of holes and one cracked seam still make sense as a repair, quicker and cheaper than any alternative. Past that, once a room's cracked in five places or a ceiling's mostly compromised, a full re-board through our drywall installation service tends to land around the same total, with a tidier result.
Drywall repair isn't limited to Peterborough County — IntraBuild works right across the GTA and Southern Ontario, all on one written per-square-foot price with no separate travel fee.
A cottage owner near Buckhorn once sent three photos of a ceiling stain on a Tuesday morning and had a written number back before lunch. Downtown or out on the water, that's the pace we aim for: a few photos, a short note on what's going on, and a reply usually inside 48 hours.
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