Capping is how you stop painting your house every five years. Bent on site to fit the exact profile, so the detail looks like trim rather than like cladding.
Exterior wood trim in this climate needs scraping, priming and painting every few years, and the day you fall behind is the day water gets in. Aluminum capping wraps that trim in coated aluminum, bent on a brake to match the existing profile. The look stays, the maintenance stops.
Where it goes
Window frames, brick mould and sills
Door frames and garage door surrounds
Porch posts, beams and column wraps
Gable trim, rake boards and corner boards
Any exterior wood you are tired of painting
Bending it properly
Capping is a craft job and it shows immediately when it is not. A profile bent to actually fit the trim looks like finished carpentry. One bent roughly and caulked to cover the gaps looks like foil, and it traps water behind it. The difference is entirely in the measuring and the number of bends somebody was willing to make.
Check underneath first
Same rule as fascia: capping over rotten wood is decoration on a problem. We check the trim before wrapping it, replace what has gone, and cap what is sound. You will hear about anything we find, with the price, before we carry on.
How we work
Built for an Ontario winter
Everything we hang on the outside of a house has to survive roughly a hundred freeze-thaw cycles a year. That changes the details.
We look behind it first. On any tear-off we open a section and tell you what the wall is actually doing before quoting the whole job.
Room to move. Vinyl expands and contracts a long way between February and August. Fastened tight, it buckles and splits. We hang it.
Water gets out. House wrap lapped so it drains, flashing that sheds outward, kickouts where a roof meets a wall.
One trade, one edge. Siding, soffit, fascia and eavestrough all meet at the same line. Doing them together is how that line ends up straight.
Every photo is a Cave-Men job in southwestern Ontario. Tap any one to see it full size.
Questions
Aluminum Capping & Trim FAQ
Does capping stop me having to paint?
That is the point of it. Coated aluminum over the trim means no more scraping and repainting exterior wood every few years.
Can you match the colour to my existing trim?
Usually closely. Aluminum coil comes in a wide colour range and we match it to your soffit, eavestrough and siding so the whole edge of the house reads as one system.
What if the wood underneath is rotten?
We replace it before capping. Wrapping aluminum over rot hides it and lets it keep going, which is a problem you pay for twice.
