Windows & Doors in Navan: Country Homes East of Ottawa

Navan is the kind of village where the fairgrounds and the curling club are still the centre of the social calendar, twenty-five kilometres east of downtown Ottawa and a few concession roads south of Orléans. Unisson Groupe now brings its factory-direct windows and doors here — measured in your home, built at our plant in Saint-Laurent, delivered and installed by our own crews.

Why Unisson now serves Navan — and what buying from the manufacturer changes

Navan sits between two of our regular routes: Ottawa Road 174 along the river to the north and Highway 417 to the south. Our crews have been passing it for months on the way to Rockland, Cumberland and the Hawkesbury corridor, and the village's country homes are precisely the kind of project our factory is built for — big openings, custom sizes, owners who plan to stay. So we added Navan, Sarsfield and the surrounding concessions to the eastern Ontario territory we serve directly.

Buying from the manufacturer rather than a dealer changes who is responsible. Our estimator measures, our factory builds, our truck delivers, our crew installs, and our office answers the phone when you have a question in year nine. There is no moment where a problem becomes 'the installer's fault' or 'the supplier's fault' — it is ours, and we fix it under one written warranty.

It also changes the price structure. A window that leaves our Saint-Laurent factory carries no distributor margin and no showroom overhead. For a Navan family replacing fifteen or twenty openings at once, that difference is real money, and it is why we can offer triple glazing as a standard recommendation rather than a luxury upgrade.

Navan homes: village streets, country lots and open fields

The village itself was founded in the 1860s and named after a town in Ireland, and a handful of older brick and frame houses still line the streets near the fairgrounds. Most of Navan's housing, though, came later: bungalows and split-levels from the 1970s and 1980s on generous lots, then two-storey country homes from the 1990s and 2000s on the roads toward Sarsfield and Vars, often on an acre or more with a detached shop or barn. It is a largely English-speaking community of commuters and farm families, with plenty of francophone neighbours from the Prescott-Russell side.

What fails here is predictable. The 1970s and 1980s houses often still carry their original wood or aluminum windows, or a first round of replacements from the 1990s whose sealed units have now fogged. In the newer country homes, builder-grade vinyl windows are reaching the age where cranks strip, balances fail on hung units and the large sliding patio door on the back deck whistles in a north wind. Steel entry doors on these homes, exposed on a covered porch or not, tend to warp and lose their seal after fifteen or twenty winters.

Navan's climate is the Ottawa Valley at its most honest: cold snaps near −30 °C, heavy snow, damp shoulder seasons, and wind that crosses open fields with nothing to slow it down. A country lot on a concession road faces wind loads a suburban street never sees, and wind-driven snow finds every gap in a worn weatherstrip. Freeze-thaw cycles then work the caulking loose, and the cycle repeats.

• 1970s–80s bungalows and split-levels: original or first-generation replacement windows, fogged sealed units, tired weatherstripping
• 1990s–2000s country two-storeys: builder-grade vinyl, failing crank and balance hardware, drafty patio sliders
• Open-field exposure: wind loads, drifting snow, condensation on north-facing glass

The right windows and doors for a Navan country home

Our starting recommendation in Navan is triple-glazed UPVC windows: multi-chamber frames, fusion-welded corners, low-e glass with argon fill and warm-edge spacers. Triple glazing is not a luxury on an open lot; it is what keeps the inside pane warm enough that you do not wake up to frost on the glass in February. Casement and awning windows, which close by compression against the frame, are the best defence against wind-driven air — we recommend them over sliders wherever the opening allows.

Every unit we build is ENERGY STAR certified to Canada's single national specification, in place since 2020: a U-factor of 1.22 W/m²·K or lower, or an Energy Rating (ER) of 34 or higher. Hybrid frames — UPVC inside, aluminum cladding outside — are worth considering on the larger picture windows of newer homes, where extra rigidity and a durable colour on the exposed face pay off.

For doors, we build insulated entry doors with multi-point locking and adjustable thresholds, so the seal stays tight as the house moves with the seasons. On the deck side, a new patio door with a thermally broken frame and low-e glass is often the single most noticeable comfort upgrade in a Navan home, because it replaces the largest and draftiest opening in the house.

Ontario rules: building code, rebates and permits in rural Ottawa

Navan falls under the City of Ottawa and the Ontario Building Code, which is a different document from Quebec's Code de construction even if the two share most of their physics. Both rely on the North American fenestration standard (NAFS / CSA A440) for windows and doors, so the products we manufacture already carry the performance ratings Ontario expects; our role is to make sure the documentation reads the way an Ontario inspector or rebate program expects it to, including the SB-12 energy-efficiency supplement where relevant.

Ontario's Home Renovation Savings Program is the rebate to ask about right now. At the time of writing it pays a fixed amount per eligible ENERGY STAR window or door opening, subject to conditions on the number of upgrades and on product certification — it adds up on a typical whole-house project, and more so on a large country home. Amounts, eligibility and deadlines change, so check the current program terms before you count on a figure; we will provide the certification and invoice details you need to apply.

Permits: replacing windows and doors in existing openings in rural Ottawa generally does not call for a building permit, while enlarging an opening, adding one or changing a structural wall generally does. Because these rules are set and interpreted by the City, we suggest confirming with Ottawa's building services for anything beyond a like-for-like swap, and we flag those cases during the estimate.

From a Navan kitchen table to our Saint-Laurent factory and back

Book a free in-home estimate and a Unisson estimator comes to Navan, measures every opening, inspects sills and framing, and goes through frame types, glass, grilles and colours with you at the kitchen table. You get a written quote with no obligation. Say yes, and your measurements go straight to the production floor in Saint-Laurent, about two hours away by the 417 and Highway 40.

Manufacturing typically takes several weeks depending on season and product mix. Your windows and doors then ride out on a Unisson truck, and a Unisson crew does the removal, installation, insulation, interior trim and clean-up — usually one to three days for a full house. We group our eastern Ontario jobs geographically, so a Navan installation is completed in one visit rather than spread out over return trips.

You receive a written warranty on both the product and the installation, and financing is available if you would rather spread the cost. Because we manufacture what we install, any future service call goes to the same company that built the window.

• Measure: free visit to your Navan home, written quote
• Build: custom manufacturing at our Saint-Laurent factory
• Deliver: our own truck, scheduled with your installation
• Install: our own crew, one visit, one warranty, financing available

Frequently Asked Questions