Window Resealing
The hero service — per-opening pricing and the full method.
10 yr
Written workmanship warranty
Service · GTA & Niagara
Paint first. Seal second.
Exterior Painting & Caulk-and-Paint Bundles.
Caulking is the prep step nobody bills for and everybody skips. Paint applied over a cracked, shrunken bead fails at the crack within a season — so we sequence the two together, in the order that makes both of them last.
- Paint first, seal second
- Steel lintels stripped and rust-primed
- Bundled with a reseal
300+
Properties sealed & under warranty
DOWSIL
Pro-grade silicone — no big-box caulk
A+
BBB Accredited business
The part that matters
Paint first. Seal second. Not the other way round.
Almost every exterior job in this trade is sequenced backwards, and it is the reason so much exterior paint work looks tired two summers later.
The usual order
Caulk, then paint over it
- Coatings do not bond to cured silicone — they peel off the bead
- So a weaker paintable caulk gets substituted to make painting possible
- That caulk then fails in the high-movement joint it was never rated for
- The paint line cracks along every joint by the second winter
- Both trades did their bit, and the elevation still looks wrong
The Royal order
Paint, cure, then seal
- Trim, frames, fascia and lintels are prepped and painted first
- The coating is left to cure properly before anything is gunned
- The joint is then sealed with colour-matched DOWSIL over backer rod
- Paint film stays unbroken because nothing is painted over the bead
- The joint keeps full movement capability because it is real silicone
What we paint
Trim, frames, fascia, doors — and the lintels everyone ignores.
Steel lintels are the quiet failure on an older brick house. The painted steel angle carrying the brick above every window and door rusts from the ends inward, and rusting steel expands — which is what lifts and cracks the masonry course sitting on it. Repainting over the scale does nothing.
Ours get stripped back to sound metal, primed and painted with Tremclad rust paint — the anti-rust primer and the top coat from the same system — and left to cure. Only then is the joint above them sealed with colour-matched DOWSIL over backer rod. Done in that order, the lintel is protected, the joint moves, and the brick above it stops being pushed around. Window lintel painting is one price for every steel lintel from the selected openings, sold only as an add-on to a window reseal — tick it with your openings in the estimator.
Garage frame bottoms get the same honesty (see where the patch goes). The bottom few inches of a wooden garage door frame sit in splash and snow all winter and are the first part of it to go soft. Where that has started, the rot is cut back to sound wood, repaired, and the bottom sealed with two-part wood filler — a polyester filler that cures by chemical reaction rather than drying, does not shrink, is water-resistant and sands to a hard edge. Where the wood is still sound, the bottom gets a filler seal over the wood anyway, so the end grain is closed before the primer goes on. Either way it is then primed and painted. The rebuilt bottom sheds water instead of wicking it, which is extra waterproofing you get with the repaint rather than a soft corner hidden under fresh coating.
The exterior coating on wood frames and trim is Benjamin Moore Command, over Stix bonding primer wherever the surface needs priming and is not a steel lintel. Any joint that is going to be painted gets DOWSIL Contractors Paintable Sealant (CPS); everything else gets DOWSIL CWS silicone.
Typical scope
- Window and door trim, casings and brickmould
- Entry doors, side doors and garage man-doors
- Fascia, soffit and frieze boards
- Window lintels — stripped, Tremclad-primed and painted, then sealed
- Garage frame bottoms — rot cut back and repaired, or sound wood filler-sealed, then primed and painted
- Corner boards, columns, railings and porch trim
- Frame repairs and filler work where the substrate needs it before paint
Why they belong together
One mobilisation, two trades’ worth of work.
If the ladders are up and the elevation is already being worked, adding the coating is the cheapest it will ever be. It is also the only moment the sequencing can be done properly.
You are already paying for access
Ladders, staging and set-up are a fixed cost on any elevation. Running the paint scope in the same visit spreads that cost across both jobs instead of paying it twice.
The prep overlaps almost completely
Scraping, cleaning and sound-substrate prep is the same work whether the next step is a bead or a brush. Doing them separately means doing that prep twice.
The sequence can only be right if one crew owns both
Paint-first-then-seal needs one team controlling the order. Split the work between two contractors and you get whichever order suits whoever is free.
Bundled pricing applies when painting runs alongside a reseal on the same elevation. Tell us both scopes when you ask for the quote and we will price them together rather than as two visits.
Straight answers
Painting questions.
Do you paint whole houses, or just trim?
Our exterior painting is built around the weatherproofing scope — trim, frames, fascia, doors, lintels and the details around the joints we are sealing. Tell us what you have in mind and we will be straight about whether it is work we take on.
Can you paint over the caulking?
Not over silicone, and no reputable exterior crew should. Coatings will not bond to it. That is precisely why our sequence is paint first, cure, then seal with a colour-matched bead — so nothing has to be painted over.
What if I already have caulking that needs painting?
We will look at what is there. If the existing bead is a paintable product still in good condition, it can be coated. If it is failed or it is silicone, it comes out, the surface gets painted, and a fresh bead goes in after.
What paint do you use?
Benjamin Moore Command on wood frames and trim over Stix bonding primer; Tremclad rust primer and paint on steel lintels; two-part wood filler on every garage frame bottom — rebuilding a rotted one, sealing a sound one; DOWSIL CPS for any joint that gets painted.
My lintels are rusting and the brick above has cracked. Is that a paint job?
Partly. Stripping, rust-priming and repainting the lintel stops the expansion that is doing the damage, and sealing the joint above it keeps water off the steel. Cracked or displaced masonry itself may need a mason — we will tell you what we are seeing rather than paint over it.
Is there a discount for doing both?
Yes — bundled pricing applies when painting runs alongside a reseal on the same elevation, because the access and prep costs are shared rather than paid twice. Give us both scopes up front so we can price it that way.
Garage door frames
The bottom of the frame, rebuilt — not hidden.
The bottom few inches of a wooden garage door jamb sit on concrete, soak up every splash and every snowmelt, and rot from the end grain up. Painting over it lasts a season. If it has rotted we cut the rot out, repair it and seal the bottom with two-part filler; if it is still sound we seal the wood with filler anyway — then prime, paint and, if you want it, reseal the joints in the right order. Here is exactly where the patch goes.
Why a filler, and why that one
The bottom of a jamb is a small, non-structural piece of wood doing one job — carrying the weatherstrip and closing the gap to the door. Replacing the whole jamb to fix the last four inches means pulling trim, weatherstrip and often the brick-mould for a result you cannot see. A two-part filler rebuilds that four inches in an hour, to the exact profile, with no joint for water to find.
We use a two-part polyester filler — the same chemistry as automotive body filler. It cures by a chemical reaction, not by drying — so it does not shrink, it is sandable in 15–30 minutes and paintable in under an hour, and it is rated for exterior use once it is coated. Its weakness is that it is rigid and wood is not. Three things keep that from mattering on a frame bottom: the patch is short, the wood above it is hardened so it stops moving as much, and the end grain no longer sits in water, which is what drove the movement in the first place.
The order, on the day
- Probe. A screwdriver finds any soft wood. No rot: the bottom is sanded and filler is sealed over the end grain and the lower face, then it goes straight to step 5. Rot: the jamb is cut square above the last of it, usually 2–6 in. up. If it is soft higher than that, we say so and quote a new jamb instead.
- Dry and harden. The cut end is left to dry, then a penetrating wood hardener is brushed in until the fibres above the cut stop drinking it.
- Build the profile. Filler goes on in thin layers against a backer, carved to the jamb profile while it is still green, then sanded flush at 80 and 180 grit.
- Leave the gap. The rebuilt jamb stops a finger's width above the slab. Water at the bottom of the door is supposed to run out, not up.
- Prime, paint, cure. Stix bonding primer, then two coats of Benjamin Moore Command. The filler is water-resistant only once it is coated, so this is not optional.
- Seal — the $50 add-on. Repainting the frame is a painting price; the caulking is separate. With a repaint in your estimate, resealing that frame's joints is a $50 add-on instead of the $140 opening price: once the paint has cured, the frame-to-brick joint gets its DOWSIL bead and the garage-side joints get the paintable sealant. Then the weatherstrip goes back on.
Pricing
Priced per opening, painted before it is sealed.
Count the window frames and garage frames you want refinished — $150 per window, $250 per garage. Resealing a frame we have just refinished is a $50 add-on per frame, instead of the opening price. Any exterior painting carries a one-time $200 materials charge, added automatically with the first frame. White is included; any other colour adds the cost of the paint. The lintel package is sold only with a window reseal — tick it with your openings in the window resealing estimator.
Paint first, cure, then the seal over it — on the same visit. Every job carries a minimum charge — before HST, a little more when the job is several small items — and books with a deposit plus HST.
Where we work
Serving the GTA and Niagara.
We specialize in large and heritage homes where the original seals have failed. Proudly serving:
EtobicokeTorontoNorth YorkEast YorkMississaugaOakvilleVaughan / WoodbridgeMarkhamRichmond HillAncasterNiagara-on-the-LakeSt. Catharines
Including The Kingsway, Rosedale, Forest Hill, Lawrence Park, Lorne Park, Mineola, Hoggs Hollow, the Bridle Path, Kleinburg, Old Ancaster, Dundas and the Niagara wine country. Not on the list? Call — routing decides more than distance, and we cluster work by neighbourhood.
Ready when you are
Seal it and paint it in the right order.
Price the reseal and the paint scope together and only pay for the access once.