Windows & Doors in Greely: Large Lots, Large Windows

Greely is where Ottawa families go when they want a real yard: half-acre to two-acre lots along Bank Street and Mitch Owens Road, custom homes with tall window walls, and enough sky to notice the weather coming. Unisson Groupe now measures, manufactures, delivers and installs windows and doors in Greely — factory-direct from Saint-Laurent, built to the oversized openings this village is known for.

Why Unisson now serves Greely — and why a manufacturer makes sense here

Greely is Ottawa's largest rural village by area and one of its fastest-growing, with roughly ten thousand residents spread across the old village core and a string of estate subdivisions, some laid out around private lakes. The houses are big, the openings are big, and very few of them match a stock size — which is exactly the situation a manufacturer handles better than a dealer. As we extended our eastern Ontario service beyond the Ottawa River corridor into the rural south and east of the city, Greely was near the top of the list.

Factory-direct means the company measuring your openings is the company building the windows and installing them. No distributor margin sits between our production cost and your price, no third-party installer can blame the product, and no supplier can blame the installer. One written warranty covers both, and the phone number you call in year twelve is the same one you called for the estimate.

For Greely's custom homes, that matters twice over. Oversized picture windows, bow and bay assemblies, transoms over patio doors and full-height window walls are made to measure at our plant in Saint-Laurent; there is no 'closest available size' and no filler panel. Our RBQ licence 5670-0248 is a Quebec credential, but our ENERGY STAR and CSA certifications, our warranty and our bilingual service follow every unit we install in Ontario.

Greely homes: estate lots, window walls and open sky

The village was a farming community in Osgoode Township before it became a destination for large-lot living. The old core near Bank Street holds the older homes; the 1970s and 1980s added the first estate subdivisions — bungalows and two-storeys on an acre or more, many with walk-out basements; the 1990s and 2000s brought bigger custom homes and lake-side subdivisions; and building has continued since, so Greely's housing stock spans five decades. Most homes are on private wells and septic systems, and most were built by custom or semi-custom builders who gave them generous glass.

Generous glass is where the trouble starts. In 1980s and 1990s homes, large builder-grade sealed units have fogged, bow and bay windows have sagged at the mullions, and the oversized sliding patio doors to the deck leak air at the meeting stile and pool cold across the floor. In 2000s homes, vinyl windows are reaching the age where cranks strip and sashes drop out of square, and the wide steel double entry doors that came with the house have warped enough to let a draft through at the astragal. The bigger the opening, the more noticeable every one of these failures becomes.

Greely is open country. Winter wind crosses the fields from the south and west with nothing to slow it, snow drifts against exposed walls, and cold snaps near −30 °C turn a large single- or double-glazed window into a radiator running in reverse. Homes around the lakes and low-lying areas see extra humidity, which shows up as condensation on the coldest glass. The freeze-thaw swings of March and November work at the caulking around every large, exposed opening.

• 1970s–80s estate bungalows and two-storeys: original or first-generation windows, sagging bays and bows, walk-out patio doors
• 1990s–2000s custom homes: large builder-grade sealed units fogging, drafty oversized sliders, warped double entry doors
• Exposure: open south and west wind, drifting snow, lake humidity, freeze-thaw on big openings

Windows and doors sized for Greely

For most Greely homes, we recommend triple-glazed hybrid or UPVC windows. On the very large openings this village is known for, hybrid frames — a UPVC core with an aluminum-clad exterior — are usually the right call: the aluminum adds rigidity across wide spans, holds a dark exterior colour without fading, and gives a slim, modern sightline on a window wall. Where openings are more conventional, our multi-chamber UPVC frames deliver the same thermal performance at a lower price.

Every window we manufacture is ENERGY STAR certified to Canada's single national specification in force since 2020 — a U-factor of 1.22 W/m²·K or lower, or an Energy Rating of 34 or higher. On a Greely window wall we go well beyond the minimum: triple glazing, low-e coatings, argon fill and warm-edge spacers, because a large expanse of glass on an exposed wall is exactly where double glazing shows its limits in February. Bow and bay assemblies are built as a unit at the factory, with proper structural support so they do not sag again.

For doors, we build insulated entry doors — single, double or with sidelights and transoms — with multi-point locks and adjustable thresholds, so a wide entry stays sealed as the house moves with the seasons. Patio doors are where Greely homes gain the most: a multi-panel sliding or lift-and-slide door with a thermally broken frame and triple low-e glass replaces the leaky builder slider and keeps the view over the yard, and we manufacture it to the existing opening.

Ontario specifics: building code, rebates and permits

Greely is part of the City of Ottawa, so the Ontario Building Code applies rather than Quebec's Code de construction. Both provinces reference the same North American fenestration standard (NAFS / CSA A440) for windows and doors, which is why the units we build in Saint-Laurent meet Ontario's requirements as they are; where Ontario's paperwork differs — the SB-12 energy-efficiency supplement, for example — our estimators prepare it the way the province expects. On very large openings, the design pressure rating of the window matters as much as its U-factor, and we specify it for your exposure.

The rebate to ask about at the time of writing is Ontario's Home Renovation Savings Program, which offers a fixed amount per eligible ENERGY STAR window or door opening, subject to conditions on the number of upgrades and on product certification. On a Greely home with twenty-five or thirty openings, that can add up, but funding, amounts and deadlines change — check the current program terms before you budget around it. We supply the certification and invoice details the application requires.

Permits are a City of Ottawa matter. Replacing windows and doors in existing openings generally does not require a building permit; enlarging an opening, adding one, or altering a structural wall — a common request when a homeowner wants an even bigger window wall — generally does. Rules and interpretations evolve, so for anything beyond a like-for-like replacement we recommend confirming with the City's building services, and we will tell you during the estimate if your project is likely to need one.

How it works from our Saint-Laurent factory

It starts with a free in-home estimate. A Unisson estimator comes to Greely, measures every opening — including the awkward ones — inspects sills and framing, and reviews frame types, glazing, colours, grilles and hardware with you on site. You receive a written quote with no obligation. If you go ahead, your measurements go directly to our production floor in Saint-Laurent, a little over two hours away by Highway 40 and the 417.

Manufacturing typically takes several weeks depending on the season and the products chosen; large custom assemblies can take a little longer. Your units arrive on a Unisson truck and a Unisson crew handles removal, installation, insulation, interior finishing and clean-up — usually two to three days for a large Greely home. We group our eastern Ontario installations by area so your project is completed in a single visit.

A written warranty covers both the product and the workmanship, and financing options are available if you would rather spread the cost of a large project over time. When you need service years from now, you call the manufacturer directly — the same company that measured, built and installed your windows.

• Measure: free visit to your Greely home, every opening, written quote
• Build: custom manufacturing at our Saint-Laurent factory, oversized units included
• Deliver: Unisson truck, scheduled with your installation
• Install: Unisson crew, single visit, written warranty, financing available

Frequently Asked Questions