By Savino Construction · Published September 12, 2026 · No prices in the guides; every number comes from a site walk. Anything in [brackets] is confirmed before launch.
What a second storey keeps
A second storey keeps the lot, which in most of the GTA is the most valuable thing you own. It keeps the street, the school, the neighbours and the trees. It keeps the ground-floor plan if that plan works, and it keeps you out of the land transfer tax, the agent's commission and the moving costs that come with a sale and a purchase.
It also doubles the floor area without touching the footprint, which is why it is the addition of choice on the narrow lots of Toronto and East York and the bungalow streets of Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York.
What has to be true
Three things decide whether the second storey is the right call.
- The foundation can carry a floor, with reinforcement. The engineer decides from a test pit. Reinforced footings are the simple case; new corner footings and a steel moment frame are the harder one. Both work, at different prices.
- The by-law leaves room to go up. Every street has a height limit. A design above it goes to the Committee of Adjustment, which adds months and is not guaranteed.
- The ground floor is worth keeping. A second storey changes the stair and usually the mechanical, but if the kitchen, the living room and the entry all need to move, the job is a whole-home renovation with a second storey on top, and the sums start to look like a new house.
What the build asks of you
For most second storeys the roof comes off and the family moves out for a period. The house is weather-protected while the floor is framed and closed in, but it is not a place to live. Savino Construction tells you the length of that period at the site walk and writes it into the schedule, so the rent or the stay with family is a known cost, not a surprise.
When moving wins
If the foundation needs replacing, the plan needs to change on every floor and the lot has room for a rear addition anyway, a new house on the same lot can cost less than fixing everything in place, and moving can cost less than either. If the height limit rules out a second floor and the lot is too narrow to go back, the house has reached its ceiling and the question becomes where else you want to live.
The honest answer comes from the site walk, the test pit and the zoning check, not from a preference for one kind of job. Savino builds all three: second storeys, custom homes and whole-home renovations. We do not need the answer to go one way.