A drafty exterior door wastes heat and makes the entry uncomfortable. We replace worn weatherstripping, door sweeps and perimeter seals across Ottawa and the Ottawa Valley, and we check the door’s alignment so the new seals actually make contact.
Worn weatherstripping and thresholds replaced so doors stop leaking air and water.
In an Ottawa winter, a gap around an exterior door lets warm air escape and cold air in. The entry gets cold, nearby rooms develop cold spots, and heating costs go up, often without anyone tracing the problem back to the door. Weatherstripping that hasn’t been replaced since the house was built is a common cause. At Fix My Door Now Ottawa, weatherstripping and door seal repair is one of our busiest services between October and March.
What most homeowners don't realize is that weatherstripping has a service life. It isn't permanent. The foam, rubber, and pile seals around an exterior door compress over years of openings and closings, harden in the cold, crack with UV exposure, and lose their ability to spring back against the door frame. A seal that was doing its job five years ago may be doing almost nothing today — and you won't notice it going because the change is gradual. Often the first signs are a cold draft at the door, frost on the inside of the frame, or an entry that feels colder than the rest of the house. Drafty front and side entries are handled on our residential entry door repair page when alignment and seals need to be fixed together.
A properly sealed exterior door closes against a continuous cushion of flexible material on all four sides — top, both sides, and bottom. When the door closes, it presses against that material and compresses it slightly, filling the gap between the door and the stop to keep out drafts and most water. It works because the material springs back when the door opens, so it makes contact with the door again each time it closes. The common failure points are: compression set (the seal flattens permanently and stops springing back), UV degradation (exposure to sunlight hardens and cracks the material), cold hardening (foam and rubber become stiff in extreme cold and lose their ability to conform), and physical damage from being caught in the door or abraded by a slab that drags.
Ottawa's climate accelerates all of these failure modes. The combination of extreme cold, direct sun on south-facing doors, and the physical stress of a door that sticks and is forced in winter is particularly hard on seals. How long weatherstripping lasts depends on the material, how much sun and weather the door gets, how well it was installed and how often the door is used. Seals on a sunny, exposed front door usually wear out sooner than those on a sheltered side door. We can check your seals and tell you whether they are still doing their job.
Perimeter weatherstripping runs along the door stop — the raised strip of wood or composite that the door face closes against on the top and both sides of the frame. It comes in several types depending on the door and frame, including compression foam, V-strip (tension seal), tubular rubber or vinyl, and pile for sliding surfaces. The right type depends on the gap between the door face and the stop, how the door closes, and the expected temperature range — not all weatherstripping materials perform equally at -25°C. We assess the existing installation, measure the gaps, and install the correct product for your specific door, frame, and exposure. The difference between a properly matched seal and a generic foam strip from a hardware store is significant in performance and in how long it lasts.
The bottom of an exterior door is often the weakest seal and the one most often overlooked. A door sweep is the strip of material — rubber, vinyl, or bristle — that closes the gap between the door bottom and the threshold. Most standard sweeps are surface-mounted to the interior face of the door and drag across the threshold as the door opens and closes. Over time the flexible insert wears down, the sweep rises off the threshold, and a gap appears at the bottom that cold air moves through freely. The threshold itself also matters: a threshold that has settled, worn, or been damaged no longer provides a level surface for the sweep to seal against. We replace door sweeps with models appropriate for the gap size and door weight, and we adjust or replace thresholds where the mating surface has degraded. In some cases, an automatic door bottom — which rises while the door is moving and drops to seal when it closes — is the right solution for doors that have an uneven threshold or large gap.
Feeling a cold draft along the floor or around the door? Call 613-265-3667 for same-day weatherstripping and door seal service across Ottawa & the Valley — or request a free quote online.
Beyond the weatherstripping on the door itself, there is frequently a secondary air leak path that most homeowners never think about: the gap between the exterior door frame and the surrounding wall structure. As a house settles and the frame moves with moisture and temperature changes, gaps open up between the frame's exterior casing and the adjacent wall surface. Old caulk shrinks, cracks, and pulls away from the substrate. Those gaps allow cold air to migrate into the wall cavity and work its way into the house around the frame rather than through it — a path that weatherstripping alone can't stop. We inspect and re-caulk the exterior frame perimeter with an elastomeric product rated for Ottawa's temperature range, ensuring adhesion to both the frame and the wall surface. This step alone frequently makes a noticeable difference in the entry hall temperature. Where the gaps trace back to a shifted or rotted frame, our door frame repair service addresses the cause.
Patio and sliding doors present a different sealing challenge from standard hinged doors. A sliding door's perimeter seal is in constant motion — the pile or wiper seals along the panel's edges contact the frame on every operation, and they wear with every slide. The interlock seal between two panels in a sliding configuration also takes repeated compression and release. These seals need to be flexible and durable. When they fail, a patio door can send a noticeable cold draft across the floor in winter and add to heat loss. We replace sliding and patio door pile seals, wiper strips, and interlock seals as part of a complete patio door service, or as a standalone weatherization job when the rest of the door is in good order.
Metal jamb reinforcement along the strike side before the new weatherseal goes in — same class of work as a Ottawa weatherseal repair.
If a draft continues after new weatherstripping is installed, the door usually isn’t closing tightly against the new seal. Fresh weatherstripping can only do its job if the door's face makes proper contact across its entire perimeter. If the door has dropped on its hinges, sagged in the frame, or the frame itself has shifted, there will be areas where the door contacts the seal and areas where it doesn't — and cold air will get through at those spots. If the door isn’t closing properly, we don’t just replace the seal. We assess the door's alignment, adjust the hinges, and if necessary true up the frame so the door closes flush and the new weatherstripping is actually in contact along its full length. This step is what makes the repair last. If the door needs more than adjustment, such as new hinges or frame work, that falls under our door alignment and repair service.
Air leakage around doors and windows is a well-known source of heat loss in Canadian homes, and an exterior door is a moving seal that wears over time. A door that leaks all winter adds to your heating bill, and it also affects comfort: a cold entry, frost on the inside of the threshold, or a door that feels cold from across the room. Properly sealed doors make the home more comfortable and cheaper to heat.
It’s best to check and service door seals each fall, before the cold arrives. We offer seasonal door weatherization visits where we inspect every exterior door, assess the weatherstripping and sweeps, re-caulk the exterior perimeter where needed, and adjust door alignment to ensure the seals are actually making contact. Replacing a worn seal in October takes no longer than in January, but it saves weeks of lost heat. If you'd like both locks and seals checked at once, ask about our combined security and weatherization assessment, which pairs with our lock repair service.
Drafts under an overhead garage door are often a worn bottom seal — we handle those during garage door repair. Weatherstripping here is for entry and hinged doors.
Drafts often have multiple causes, and weatherstripping connects to alignment, frame, and hardware work. These pages cover the adjacent issues:
Sealing a drafty door is usually an inexpensive repair. These guides explain more:
Real door repairs, installations, and security work completed by our Ottawa and Ottawa Valley team.
Tell us what’s wrong and we’ll give you a free, flat-rate quote.
Real seal jobs from Ottawa — worn thresholds reset, and a strike-side weatherseal with jamb reinforcement.
The old threshold had settled and the seal had flattened, letting cold air stream across the floor. We reset the threshold level and fitted new weatherstripping so the door closes tight and the draft is gone.
Torn strike-side seal and split jamb on an Ottawa entry — reinforced, new strike set, and continuous weatherstripping so the door closes and locks cleanly. Full project →
Sticking, drafty, or won't latch? The sooner we look, the simpler — and cheaper — the fix.
Related Ottawa door repair work.
Door frame repair in Ottawa — we fix cracked, split, rotted and kicked-in frames for homes and businesses.
Door threshold and sill repair in Ottawa — drafty, leaking, worn and rotted thresholds, sill pans and sweeps fixed.
Patio door repair in Ottawa for sticking panels, worn rollers, damaged tracks, handles, locks and weather seals.
What Ottawa homeowners ask us most about door seals, drafts, and weatherstripping repair.
Call about weatherstripping and door seal service across Ottawa & the Valley, or send a photo for a free, flat-rate quote.
