A townhouse board asked me why their garage doors were peeling two years after a repaint — the paint was coming off in strips along every panel seam
A townhouse condo board asked me to walk their complex this fall so they could budget next spring’s exterior work. Most of the 40-odd steel garage doors had been repainted two summers earlier. On almost every one, the paint was lifting in long strips along the panel seams and flaking off the bottom section, with the original factory colour showing underneath. The board assumed they’d bought cheap paint. They hadn’t. This post covers why painted steel garage doors fail on townhouse complexes and what a repaint spec has to include. It’s for condo boards and property managers, not homeowners.
1. Factory finish is slick, and paint won’t grip it without work
Most steel garage doors come with a baked-on factory coating. It’s tough, smooth and designed not to need paint for years. That’s exactly why new paint struggles to stick to it. Rolling acrylic straight onto a chalky, unscuffed factory finish gives you something that looks great on day one and has almost no grip.
On the doors I looked at, the new paint came off in sheets with tape. The factory finish underneath was glossy and intact. The paint had never bonded to it at all.
What to look at: Press a strip of painter’s tape firmly on a door that was repainted, then pull it off fast. If paint comes off on the tape, the problem is adhesion, not age.
2. The seams move every time the door opens
A sectional garage door is four or five panels hinged together. Every time it opens, the panels fold around the track and the seams flex. On a busy complex that’s several cycles a day, 365 days a year. Paint bridged across those joints cracks first, and once water gets into the crack, it lifts the paint from the edges outward.
The fix is in how it’s painted: the door is cycled open and closed during the work so the joints are painted in both positions, and paint isn’t left as a thick skin across the gap.
What to look at: Close a door and look along each horizontal joint. Cracking or peeling that starts right at the seams and spreads outward points to paint bridging the joints.
3. The bottom panel takes the salt
The bottom section sits a few centimetres off a driveway that’s salted and plowed all winter. Slush and salt spray hit it every day from December to March, and the weather seal along the bottom traps moisture against the steel. That’s where rust shows up first, usually as small bubbles under the paint along the lower edge.
Painting over those bubbles doesn’t stop them. The rust has to be sanded back to clean metal and spot-primed with a rust-inhibiting primer, or it comes back through within one winter.
What to look at: Kneel down and look at the bottom 30 centimetres of a few doors. Bubbles, orange staining or bare spots mean metal repair before paint.
4. Dark colours and direct sun make it worse
A garage door facing south or west in a dark colour can get very hot on a summer afternoon. Steel expands, the paint softens, and the heat speeds up every adhesion problem above. Some door manufacturers also warn that dark colours can warp thin panels. I covered the same heat issue on entry doors in townhouse front door painting.
If the board wants a darker look, it’s worth checking the door maker’s guidance and picking a coating made for metal that holds up in heat.
What to look at: Compare doors on the sunny side of the complex with the shaded side. If the sunny side is failing much faster, heat is part of the problem and the colour choice matters.
5. Write the spec, and paint in the right weather
A garage door repaint spec should say: wash and degrease, scuff-sand the factory finish, treat rust to bare metal, prime with a bonding or direct-to-metal primer, and finish with an exterior acrylic made for metal. It should also say the doors are cycled during painting and that weatherstrips, rollers and tracks are not painted.
Timing matters too. These doors need surface temperatures warm enough for the product to cure, which in Ottawa means late spring through early fall. I explain the temperature limits in fall exterior painting temperatures. That’s why this fall is the time to scope the work, so it’s approved and booked before the season opens.
What to look at: Ask whoever quotes the doors to list the prep steps and the primer by name. A quote that only says “paint garage doors, 2 coats” is how you end up here again.
What to do if you’re seeing any of this
If your townhouse garage doors are peeling, cracking at the seams or rusting along the bottom, I’ll walk the complex and tell you which doors need full prep, which need rust repair, and which are fine for now. You get a scope and a number the board can budget for spring. I work with condominium corporations and property managers across Ottawa — Kanata, Nepean, Barrhaven, Orleans, Stittsville and Manotick — on exterior painting for townhouse and multifamily complexes. Call 613.325.3011 or email yasir@heims.ca.
— Yasir, HEIMS Construction
HEIMS Construction is an Ottawa-based commercial painting and drywall contractor serving condominium corporations, property managers and institutional clients across the Ottawa area. Fully licensed and insured, with $5M commercial general liability coverage.