A hoarding wall does more than hide the mess
On a new building, hoarding is a fence around a site. Inside an occupied mall or a live retail block, it is a wall between a construction zone and people who did not sign up to be near one. That changes what it has to do.
It has to hold back dust and keep noise inside the work area. It has to read as a finished surface to a shopper walking past, not as a plywood sheet with tape peeling off the seams. And it has to sit inside whatever egress, life safety and hours-of-work rules apply to the property, which are set by the landlord and the local authority, not by the general contractor's preference.
A hoarding wall that is only judged on square footage will price low and cause problems later. One that is scoped against these four things prices correctly the first time.
The landlord's rules come before the drawings
Most shopping centres and mixed-use properties run construction behind hoarding under a tenant design or fit-out criteria manual, not just the building code. That document usually sets a minimum height, a required finish, whether graphics or signage are allowed on the public face, and which routes a contractor may use to move material and debris. It also spells out working hours, since noisy framing and boarding work is commonly restricted to before opening or after closing so the concourse stays usable during trading hours.
None of that is optional once it is in the lease or the fit-out package. A hoarding wall built off spec is one of the more common reasons a landlord back-charges a tenant, because the property manager has to send someone back to bring it up to standard. Get the landlord's hoarding requirements in writing before the wall is priced, not after it is framed.
Egress and fire separation are not the drywall trade's call to make
A hoarding wall that crosses or narrows a path of travel touches life safety, and that decision sits with the authority having jurisdiction and the property's fire safety plan, not with the framing crew. Anything the wall does to an existing exit route, an exit sign line of sight, or a fire hose cabinet has to be reviewed and, where required, permitted before the wall goes up.
The same caution applies to fire rating. Many properties require hoarding that faces an occupied space to carry a rating, and the specific requirement is set by the property and the local code official on a project by project basis. Treat that as a question to confirm with the landlord and the authority having jurisdiction before pricing, not a default to assume either way.
What a drywall subcontractor can control is building the wall to whatever assembly is specified, keeping the work area contained so dust and debris never reach the public side, and coordinating around anything the fire watch or the property's life safety plan requires during the work.
What the requirements do to the price
A basic plywood hoarding and a framed, boarded, taped and finished steel stud hoarding are not close to the same cost, and the gap is entirely in the requirements above.
| Requirement | Plain plywood hoarding | Framed, boarded and finished hoarding |
|---|---|---|
| Public-facing appearance | Reads as temporary, seams and fasteners visible | Paint or graphics ready, no visible joints |
| Dust and noise control | Gaps at seams and the floor line | Sealed joints, continuous wall to the ceiling line |
| Rework risk | Often replaced partway through a long build | Built once for the duration of the work |
| Access door | Frequently improvised | Framed opening, hung door, lockable |
| Typical use case | Short duration, low-visibility location | Long duration or a high-traffic public frontage |
Duration is usually the deciding factor. A two-week interior repair behind a back corridor rarely needs a finished wall. A build-out that will sit behind hoarding for months, in a concourse shoppers walk past every day, is worth framing properly the first time.
What we built for a KFC unit in a GTA mall
A KFC unit inside a GTA mall was being built out behind a plain boarded hoarding with a single door, the kind that reads as temporary from across the concourse. The landlord and the tenant's contractor wanted it replaced with a proper full-height wall that could carry paint or graphics and hold up for the length of the build.
We removed the old hoarding and framed the new wall in light gauge steel stud to the mall's ceiling line, working from scissor lifts in the concourse. The wall was boarded, taped and finished to a paint-ready surface and fitted with a lockable access door. Framing and boarding ran on the mall's clock: work done while the concourse was closed, with lifts, tools and material cleared before the doors opened each day.
That is the shape of most occupied-retail hoarding work. The landlord sets the standard and the hours, and the wall gets built around both. Send the lease drawings and the landlord's construction rules and we will return a bid and a schedule that works around the property's hours.