Metal siding and cladding in Ontario

Standing seam started on roofs, but it has become one of the defining wall materials of contemporary Canadian architecture — and for good reason. The same panel that keeps water off a roof makes a wall that will outlast almost anything else you could clad with.

We form panels on site, which means a wall detail can be made from the same coil, on the same day, as the roof above it. Matching is exact rather than approximate.

Where it works best

Accent elements

The most common request we get, and the one with the highest impact for the least money.

Gable ends clad in metal above a masonry or board-and-batten base. Entry canopies and porch roofs. Dormer cheeks and wraps. Bay window roofs. Chimney chases.

These are small areas that do a lot of visual work. On a house with an otherwise conventional exterior, a metal gable reads as deliberate architecture rather than an add-on — provided the profile and colour tie to something else on the building.

Full elevations

Increasingly specified on custom builds through King, Aurora and the moraine, and on contemporary chalets around Collingwood and the Blue Mountains.

Usually one or two elevations in metal against timber, stone or stucco elsewhere. All-metal exteriors work on the right building but can read industrial if the massing is not designed for it.

Commercial facades

Where ACM — aluminium composite material — comes in. Flat, rigid panels in a cassette system, used for storefronts, institutional buildings and office frontages. Different product, different fixing, same trade.

Vertical, horizontal, or diagonal

Vertical is the traditional orientation and what most people picture. Seams run up the wall, water runs straight down them, and the eye reads height. Simplest to detail and the safest default.

Horizontal is the distinctly modern look — long seam lines running across the elevation, emphasising width. It has become the signature of a certain kind of contemporary build.

It also needs more care. Water no longer runs along the seam; it crosses it. Horizontal installation requires the panel to be oriented so the seam sheds rather than collects, and it wants a properly detailed rainscreen cavity behind. Done casually, horizontal metal is where wall water problems start.

Diagonal exists, occasionally spectacular, and is a specialist exercise in setting out. Expect it to cost accordingly.

What changes when metal goes on a wall

It is a rainscreen, not a waterproof layer

This is the thing to understand. Metal cladding is a screen. Water that gets behind it — and some always will, driven by wind — must be able to drain and dry.

That means a ventilated cavity behind the panel, a proper weather-resistive barrier on the sheathing, and detailing at the base that lets water out. If someone proposes fixing metal panels directly to sheathing with no cavity, that is a wall assembly that will eventually cause you a problem.

Fasteners are still concealed

Same principle as the roof. Clips behind a folded seam, nothing driven through the face. A wall covered in visible screw heads reads agricultural no matter how good the colour is.

Thermal movement still applies

A tall panel expands and contracts exactly as a roof panel does. Fixed at one point, free to move elsewhere. On a two-storey elevation this is not a footnote.

Impact and access matter more

Walls get hit. Ladders, wheelbarrows, car doors, snow thrown off a driveway, hockey pucks. On walls within reach we would specify 24 gauge without much debate — the marginal cost is small and the damage is at eye level rather than three storeys up.

Panels can be narrower

Wall panels often look better narrower than roof panels. A 12” or 14” panel on a wall reads finer and more deliberate than a 16” one. Because we roll-form on site, width is a choice rather than whatever the supplier stocks.

Soffit and fascia

Less glamorous, and the most common metal exterior work there is.

Aluminium or steel soffit and fascia is a genuine maintenance elimination — no repainting wood fascia every few years, no rot at the ends. Vented soffit matters beyond aesthetics: it is the intake half of your roof ventilation, and blocked or absent intake is behind a large share of the condensation and ice damming problems we get called about.

If you are re-roofing and the soffit is tired, doing both at once is meaningfully cheaper than doing them separately — the access is already there.

Colour and finish on walls

Everything in our colour guide applies, with two adjustments.

Walls are seen closer. Every imperfection is at conversation distance rather than viewed at an angle from forty feet. Flatness matters more, which argues for heavier gauge and narrower panels.

Vertical surfaces take less direct UV but more reflected light. A wall gets less overhead sun than a roof but far more bounced light off snow and hard landscaping. PVDF remains the right call on anything dark or prominent.

A note on matching: if the wall and roof are the same colour, they will still read slightly differently, because they sit at different angles to the light. That is normal and usually looks better than a forced exact match. If it matters to you, we can show you both orientations in the same sample.

What we do

Standing seam used vertically or horizontally as siding and accent walls. Aluminium and steel soffit and fascia. Steel and aluminium siding in matching finishes. ACM panel systems for commercial facades. Custom brake work for every transition, trim and reveal.

All formed on site, which is what makes exact matching between a roof and the wall beneath it possible.

Planning a build or an exterior refresh? Send drawings or photos and we will tell you what suits the building — including when metal is the wrong answer for an elevation. Call 705-816-5282 or get in touch.