Bent on site to your frame
Garage door capping in Ottawa: aluminum over tired wood trim
Garage door capping wraps the exposed wood around your opening in custom-formed aluminium, so the trim stops rotting and stops needing paint. Look at the frame of your door. If the paint is lifting or a corner has gone soft, that is the part failing, not the door.
What is garage door capping?
Garage door capping is a skin of aluminium, bent to the exact profile of the wood trim around your door opening and fastened over it. The wood stays. The aluminium takes the weather from then on.
You will hear the same job called aluminum capping, aluminium cladding, wrapping, or flashing trim, and around a door specifically it often gets called brickmould capping after the moulding it covers. They all describe one thing: a formed metal cover over exterior wood so the wood stops being the surface that rain, snow and sun land on. The sheet is bent on site with a brake, so the profile follows your frame rather than your frame being made to suit a stock part.
Why does trim around a garage door rot in Ottawa?
Because of freeze and thaw, not because of rain alone. Water gets into a hairline paint crack, freezes, expands, and widens the crack. Ottawa does that cycle dozens of times a winter, and each pass opens the wood a little further.
Garage door trim gets it worse than the rest of the house for two reasons. It sits at ground level, so it catches splash-back off the driveway and sits in the snow the plough throws against it. And the bottom few inches of a door jamb are end grain, which drinks water far faster than a flat painted face does. That is why rot on a door frame almost always starts at the bottom corners and works upward, and why a frame can look fine at eye level and be soft where it meets the concrete.
What does capping change, in one picture?
The same opening, the same camera position, the same light. On the left, painted wood that has cracked, blistered and split at the bottom corner where it meets the concrete. On the right, the same trim wrapped in aluminium.
Nothing structural moved. The wood is still there, doing the same job it always did. What changed is the surface the weather lands on, and that is the whole idea.
What does capping actually cover, the frame or the header?
Both, normally. A standard job caps the two side jambs and the header across the top, which is the full run of exposed wood framing the opening. That is the surface that shows and the surface that fails.
If your opening also has brickmould, a decorative surround or a return into the wall, those get formed and capped too, and that is where bending on site earns its keep, because those profiles are rarely square. What capping does not cover is the door itself, which is already steel, and anything structural behind the trim. If a probe finds the wood underneath has gone soft, we replace that piece before capping over it. Capping sound wood protects it. Capping rotten wood just hides it, and the smell finds you two winters later.
Is aluminum capping better than painting the trim?
For most Ottawa homeowners, yes, and the reason is time rather than looks. Fresh paint and fresh capping both look good on day one. The difference is what each one asks of you in year five.
Exterior paint on a door frame here generally wants scraping, sanding and recoating every few years, and every cycle you skip is a cycle the water is working. Capping is done once. It wants a wash when the rest of the house gets one, and that is the whole maintenance schedule. The honest counterpoint: paint is cheaper today, and if you are selling next spring, paint may be the right call. If you are staying, the arithmetic goes the other way and it is not close.
What affects the cost of garage door capping?
Four things: how much trim there is, how complicated its shape is, whether any wood has to be replaced first, and the finish you pick. A plain single opening in a standard colour is the low end. A wide double with a decorative surround is not.
Width is the obvious one, because a double opening is roughly twice the run of a single. Shape matters more than people expect: a square jamb is a fast bend, and a moulded brickmould profile with returns takes several. Rotten wood is the variable that moves a quote most, because replacing a jamb is carpentry before it is capping, and we would rather find it with a probe at quoting time than discover it with the trim off. We measure your opening and quote the whole job in writing before anything starts, and you approve that number before we begin. If you want to see how we price other work first, our how we price the rest of our work are published in full.
Should you cap the trim while a new door is going in?
If you are replacing the door anyway, yes. The old door is off, the frame is fully exposed and easy to measure, and there is no second mobilisation to pay for. It is the cheapest hour capping will ever cost you.
There is a cosmetic argument too, and it is the one people notice from the street. A new door against twenty-year-old trim draws the eye straight to the trim, because the door is now the freshest thing on the front of the house and the frame is the oldest. Doing both at once is what makes the opening read as finished. If you are already planning a new garage door, ask us to price the capping on the same visit, and if you are still deciding between doors, the material and finish options are worth reading first so the two colours are chosen together.
How long does aluminum capping last?
Decades, if it is fitted properly. Aluminium does not rot and does not rust, and the factory finish is baked on rather than brushed on, so it holds colour far longer than site-applied paint on wood does.
What ends a capping job early is almost never the metal. It is water getting behind it, which happens when the top edge is not tucked and sealed correctly, or when fasteners are placed where they collect run-off. That is a workmanship question, which is why it is worth asking anyone quoting you how they detail the top return. Our work is covered by the the written 90-day promise on our labour, and we cap frames across Ottawa, Gatineau and the surrounding suburbs.
- Every major brand serviced
- Factory-trained
- Insured and WSIB-covered
Same-day service
We carry the common springs, cables, rollers and opener parts on every truck, so most repairs are one visit.
A written price before we start
You get a firm price, quoted before we start and never after, and there is no overtime fee at night or on a weekend.
Guaranteed work
Every repair is backed by our written 90-day Done-Right Promise, parts and labour included.
Factory-trained and owner-operated
factory-trained, owner-operated, and servicing every major garage door and opener brand.
Free estimate, and the service call is free with any repair over $250. Ask about financing on approved credit.
From call to fixed, in 4 steps
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Call or book
Tell us what is happening. We give you a real arrival window.
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We diagnose on-site
A technician inspects and shows you exactly what is wrong.
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You get a firm quote
We price the fix and walk you through your options, before any work.
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We fix it, you test it
Most repairs done the same visit, backed by our 90-day promise.
Before you decide on capping
Free, no-pressure guides written by our factory-trained technicians. Read up, then call when you want it done right.
Garage door materials compared
Steel, wood and composite, and how each one ages in an Ottawa winter.
Read the guideWhat every part of a garage door is called
Jamb, header, brickmould and the rest, in plain language.
Read the guideWhat a new garage door costs installed
The full price ladder by size, material and insulation.
Read the guideThe other place water gets in around a garage door opening.
Read the guideHUSH guarantees its labour for 90 days
The Done-Right Promise covers our labour for 90 days on every repair. If the work is not right, we come back and fix it free. Premium parts carry their own manufacturer warranty.
We can promise this because most of our repairs are done right on the first visit, so callbacks are rare. On the rare one, fixing it is on us, never you.
Trim gone soft at the bottom corners?
We measure the opening and quote the capping in writing before anything starts.
Same-day, 7 days a week. Open daily, 7am to 9pm.