Windows & Doors in Nepean: Replacements Built for Ottawa Winters

Nepean stretches from the 1960s bungalows of Bells Corners to the newest streets of Barrhaven, and every one of those homes faces the same test each January: an Ottawa winter that drops to -30 °C with the wind and stays cold for months. Unisson Groupe now brings factory-direct windows and doors to Nepean from our plant in Saint-Laurent, Montréal — measured by us, built by us, installed by our own crews, and engineered for exactly this climate.

Why Unisson Groupe Now Serves Nepean

Nepean was its own city until 2001 and remains one of Ottawa's largest residential areas, with well over 100,000 people spread across the west and south-west of the capital. From our factory it is the far end of the run — a little over two hours via Highway 417 and the 416 or Hunt Club Road — but the sheer number of homes reaching window-replacement age made it an obvious place to extend factory-direct service.

Factory-direct means Unisson Groupe designs and manufactures every window and door at our own plant, delivers on our own trucks and installs with our own employees. No dealer margin, no subcontracted installer, one warranty covering both the product and the work. When a company builds what it installs, it also builds for the conditions it installs in — and we have been building for -30 °C winters in Montréal for years.

Nepean is less francophone than the east end, but far from unilingual: federal workers, families from Quebec and francophone schools are part of the fabric, and bilingual households are common from Bells Corners to Barrhaven. Our estimators, office staff and installers work in French and English as a matter of course.

Nepean Homes and the Winter They Face

Nepean's housing tells the story of Ottawa's westward growth. Bells Corners' Lynwood Village was built almost entirely between 1958 and 1966 — hundreds of bungalows in a few years — with Westcliffe Estates following from the late 1960s. Crystal Beach, Craig Henry, Centrepointe and the Merivale corridor filled in from the 1970s to the 1990s with split-levels, two-storeys and townhouses, and Barrhaven grew from a village into a suburb of tens of thousands from the 1990s onward, with Longfields, Davidson Heights, Stonebridge and Half Moon Bay still being built out in the 2000s and 2010s.

The failures track the age. Bells Corners bungalows often carry aluminum sliders or early vinyl from a 1980s replacement, with frost on the frames and fogged sealed units. Centrepointe and Craig Henry homes from the 1980s are at the 30-to-40-year mark for builder-grade double glazing. Even early-2000s Barrhaven houses are hitting twenty years, when builder-grade sealed units and steel entry doors on exposed lots begin to fail — and Barrhaven, built on open former farmland south of the Greenbelt, gets the wind.

Ottawa's winter is the common enemy. January lows around -25 °C are normal, -30 °C with wind chill is routine, and the season runs from November well into March; then a humid summer follows and the freeze-thaw cycles of spring and fall work water into every failing joint. Condensation and ice on the inside of a window are the classic Nepean symptom — the frame is conducting the cold straight through.

• Ice on the inside of the frame: aluminum or failed weatherstripping — the frame is a thermal bridge.
• Fogged glass: failed sealed units, common at 20–30 years.
• Wind-driven drafts: especially on Barrhaven's open lots and west-facing walls.
• Warped steel doors: daylight at the corners after decades of freeze-thaw.

Products Built for Nepean Winters

The frame comes first. A welded multi-chamber UPVC window does not conduct cold the way aluminum does, never needs paint, and holds its shape through the swing from -30 °C to +30 °C. For exposed walls — Barrhaven's west-facing facades, the open lots around Crystal Beach — casement and awning styles seal by compression against the frame and stay tight in wind that a slider would let through.

Then the glass. Canada has had one national ENERGY STAR specification for windows since 2020 — a U-factor of 1.22 W/m²·K or lower, or an Energy Rating of 34 or higher — and all of our windows meet it. For Nepean we recommend triple-glazed Low-E argon units as the default: the extra pane and the warm-edge spacer keep the inside surface of the glass warmer, which is what stops the condensation and ice that so many Nepean homeowners chip off in February.

For doors, an insulated steel or fibreglass entry door with a multi-point lock, a composite sill and an adjustable sweep stops the front-hall draft. A Low-E patio door with stainless rollers and a thermally broken frame replaces the builder slider that ices up at the track. And for anyone modernizing a 1980s or 2000s facade, our hybrid windows pair a dark aluminum exterior with a PVC interior for the look without the cold.

Ontario Code, Rebates and Permits in Nepean

Nepean is part of the City of Ottawa, so the Ontario Building Code — not Quebec's — governs the work: bedroom egress, safety glazing near doors and floors, and product performance to the CSA A440 / NAFS standard. Ontario has no equivalent to Quebec's RBQ licence for renovation contractors; our RBQ 5670-0248 is a mark of accountability, and our crews are insured for work on Ontario job sites. Your invoice carries Ontario HST rather than GST and QST.

On rebates, the Home Renovation Savings Program delivered by Enbridge Gas and Save on Energy has been offering a fixed rebate per ENERGY STAR window and door opening, typically conditional on a home energy assessment and on bundling windows with a second upgrade such as insulation or air sealing. Eligibility depends in part on how you heat — much of Nepean is on natural gas, which falls under the Enbridge stream — but amounts, terms and deadlines change, so check the current program conditions before committing. We provide the ENERGY STAR documentation for every unit.

As for permits, replacing a window or door with one of the same size in the same opening generally does not require a building permit in Ottawa. Enlarging an opening, adding a basement egress window or turning a window into a patio door does. Our estimator will flag it, and the City's Building Code Services line (311) can confirm for your address.

From Saint-Laurent to Nepean: The Process

Everything starts with a free in-home estimate. Our technician drives to your Nepean home, measures every opening, inspects frames and sills, and goes through styles, glazing and colours with you in English or French. The quote comes from the manufacturer, in writing.

After approval, your units are custom-built at our Saint-Laurent factory. Allow several weeks from signature to installation depending on the season — and yes, we install in winter; a properly staged crew replaces one opening at a time so the house never sits open. A firm date is confirmed once production is under way. Delivery is on our own trucks; installation is by our own crews, typically one to two days for a Nepean two-storey or bungalow, including removal, perimeter insulation, exterior capping and cleanup.

One warranty covers the product and the installation, from the company that made both. Financing is available for Ontario homeowners, which makes replacing the whole house before next winter a realistic plan rather than a five-year project.

• 1. Measurement — free, at home, in French or English.
• 2. Manufacturing — every unit built to measure in Saint-Laurent.
• 3. Delivery — our own trucks, Highway 417 to Nepean.
• 4. Installation — Unisson crews, year-round.
• 5. Warranty and financing — direct from the manufacturer.

Where in Nepean We Install

Our crews cover the whole of the former City of Nepean: Bells Corners and Lynwood Village, Crystal Beach and Bayshore, Craig Henry, Centrepointe, Merivale, Manordale, Tanglewood and Fisher Heights, and all of Barrhaven — Longfields, Davidson Heights, Stonebridge, Half Moon Bay and Chapman Mills. Kanata and Stittsville are on the same route.

If your home is west of the Rideau River and south of the Ottawa River — inside or outside the Greenbelt — it is on our regular run.

Frequently Asked Questions