Windows & Doors in Ottawa: Unisson Groupe Now Serves the Capital

Unisson Groupe has been building UPVC and hybrid windows and doors in Saint-Laurent, Montréal, for years — and Highway 417 puts Ottawa just two hours from our factory floor. Starting this season, homeowners across the capital can have their windows and doors measured, manufactured, delivered and installed by one company, in English or in French. Here is what that means for an Ottawa home.

Why Unisson Groupe Now Serves Ottawa

Ottawa is the largest city between Montréal and Toronto, with a population of roughly one million and a housing stock that spans every era from Victorian brick to last year's infill. That is an enormous number of windows and doors reaching the end of their service life at the same time. For a manufacturer whose factory sits at the Montréal end of Highway 417, extending delivery and installation to the capital was the logical next step — our trucks already run the 417 corridor through Hawkesbury and Prescott-Russell.

Factory-direct is not a slogan; it is a different supply chain. Most window companies in any city are dealers: they sell products built by someone else and subcontract the installation. Unisson Groupe designs and manufactures the units at our own plant in Saint-Laurent, delivers them with our own trucks and installs them with our own crews. There is no dealer margin, no third-party installer, and only one phone number to call if anything ever needs service.

Ottawa is also a genuinely bilingual city. Roughly one resident in seven has French as a mother tongue, and far more work in both languages every day. Our estimators, office staff and installers work in French and English as a matter of course, which matters when you are discussing sill details or warranty terms and want to do it in the language you think in.

Ottawa Homes: From Century Brick to Suburban Vinyl

The capital's housing stock is remarkably varied. The Glebe, Old Ottawa South, Sandy Hill and New Edinburgh hold pre-war brick homes with tall wood double-hung windows. Alta Vista, Carlington, Elmvale Acres and much of the former cities of Gloucester and Nepean were built out with post-war bungalows and split-levels in the 1950s to 1970s. Then came the great suburban wave — Orléans, Barrhaven, Kanata — largely built between the 1980s and the 2010s with builder-grade vinyl or aluminum windows and steel entry doors.

Each era fails in its own way. Century homes suffer from rotted sills, rattling sashes and single glazing behind storm windows. Mid-century houses often still carry their first aluminum sliders, which conduct cold straight into the room and frost up in January. Suburban homes from the 1980s and 1990s are now hitting the 25-to-40-year mark, when builder-grade sealed units lose their seal and fog between the panes, slider tracks wear out and steel doors warp or rust along the bottom rail.

The climate accelerates all of it. Ottawa is often cited as one of the coldest national capitals in the world; January nights regularly reach -25 °C and -30 °C with wind chill, while July brings humid 30 °C afternoons. In between, the Ottawa Valley delivers dozens of freeze-thaw cycles every year that work water into every failing joint and seal. If the Rideau Canal Skateway is open, your windows are being tested.

• Fogged or milky glass: the sealed unit has failed and the insulating gas is gone.
• Frost or ice on the inside of the frame: typical of aluminum frames and worn weatherstripping.
• A slider that needs two hands: worn rollers, a bent track or a frame that has racked out of square.
• Daylight around the entry door: a warped slab or a compressed, cracked sweep.

Which Windows and Doors Fit an Ottawa Home

For most Ottawa houses, a multi-chamber UPVC window with fusion-welded corners is the best value: the frame itself does not conduct cold, it never needs painting and it is stable through the valley's temperature swings. Where the architecture calls for slim black frames — modern infill in Westboro or Hintonburg, for instance — our hybrid windows pair an aluminum exterior with a PVC interior for the look without the thermal penalty.

Glazing matters as much as the frame. Since 2020, Canada uses a single national ENERGY STAR specification for windows: a U-factor of 1.22 W/m²·K or lower, or an Energy Rating of 34 or higher. Our double-glazed Low-E argon units meet it; our triple-glazed units exceed it comfortably, and for north- and west-facing rooms in an Ottawa winter we recommend triple glazing as the default, not the upgrade.

For doors, an insulated steel or fibreglass entry door with a multi-point lock and a proper composite sill stops the draft that most Ottawa homeowners feel at the front hall. For the back of the house, a sliding or garden-style patio door with Low-E glazing and stainless rollers replaces the original builder slider that has been dragging for a decade.

• Casement and awning windows: compression seals that close tight against wind — the best choice for exposed walls.
• Hung and slider windows: for heritage streets or where an outward-opening sash would hit a walkway.
• Bay, bow and picture windows: to open up a mid-century living room without losing insulation.
• Entry, patio and garden doors: built and installed by the same crew that does your windows.

Ontario Rules, Rebates and Permits

Work in Ottawa falls under the Ontario Building Code, not Quebec's, and we specify accordingly: egress requirements for bedroom windows, safety glazing near doors and floors, and product performance rated to the CSA A440 / NAFS standard. Ontario has no direct equivalent to Quebec's RBQ licence for renovation contractors, so our RBQ 5670-0248 is best read as a sign that we are a regulated, insured manufacturer-installer rather than a requirement — our crews are insured for work on Ontario job sites. Invoices for Ontario projects carry Ontario HST rather than GST and QST.

On rebates, the main program at the time of writing is the Home Renovation Savings Program delivered by Enbridge Gas and Save on Energy with provincial support. It has offered a fixed amount per ENERGY STAR window and door opening, typically conditional on a home energy assessment and on combining windows with at least one other upgrade such as insulation or air sealing. Program terms, amounts and deadlines change — check the current terms before you commit, and we will supply the ENERGY STAR documentation the program requires.

For permits, a like-for-like replacement — same size, same location, same rough opening — generally does not require a building permit in Ottawa. Enlarging an opening, adding a new window, or converting a window to a door does. Homes in a Heritage Conservation District (parts of the Glebe, Sandy Hill, New Edinburgh and Lowertown, among others) may also need a heritage permit for visible changes. When in doubt, the City's Building Code Services line (311) will confirm, and our estimator can flag it during the measurement visit.

How It Works From Our Montréal Factory

It starts with a free in-home estimate. Our technician drives to your Ottawa home, measures every opening, checks the existing frames and sills, and discusses styles, glazing and colours with you in English or French. You receive a written quote from the manufacturer, not a dealer's mark-up of one.

Once you approve, the order goes straight to production at our Saint-Laurent factory. Lead times vary with the season — spring and early fall are the busiest — so plan on several weeks between signature and installation; we confirm a date rather than a vague window. Your units travel to Ottawa on our own trucks, and our own crews install them, typically in one to two days for an average home, including removal of the old units, insulation of the perimeter, exterior capping and cleanup.

Because we built the product, we warrant the product and the installation together, and a service call comes from the same company. Financing is available for Ontario homeowners, which lets you replace the whole house at once rather than two windows a year — usually the more economical path once you factor in repeat installation trips.

• 1. Measurement visit — free, at your home, bilingual.
• 2. Manufacturing — custom-built at our Saint-Laurent factory.
• 3. Delivery — on our own trucks via Highway 417.
• 4. Installation — by Unisson crews, not subcontractors.
• 5. Warranty and financing — from the manufacturer, in writing.

Where in Ottawa We Install

Our crews cover the whole city inside and outside the Greenbelt: Orléans, Gloucester, Vanier and Beacon Hill in the east; the Glebe, Centretown, Westboro and Hintonburg in the core; Alta Vista and Hunt Club to the south; Nepean, Barrhaven, Bells Corners and Kanata to the west. Rural Ottawa — Cumberland, Navan, Manotick — is on the route too.

Because Highway 417 runs through Prescott-Russell on the way, the same trucks serve Hawkesbury, Rockland, Clarence-Rockland, Casselman and Embrun. If you are anywhere along the Ottawa River between the Quebec border and the capital, you are inside our service area.

Frequently Asked Questions