Door-to-Door Siding and Exterior Scams in Ontario: The Free Inspection, the Hidden-Damage Photo, the Today-Only Price, Your 10-Day Cooling-Off Right, and How to Check for Real Damage Yourself

Exterior Finishes

The Knock at the Door: How the Hidden-Damage Siding Pitch Works, What the Law Gives You, and How to Find Out in an Hour Whether Your Wall Is Actually Wet

Somebody is working your street. He is polite, he has a clipboard, and he noticed something about your siding from the road. He will look for free. Twenty minutes later he is showing you a photograph on his phone of black, wet-looking wood somewhere on your house and a price that is only good today. Sometimes the wall is wet. Usually it is not, and either way the price is wrong. This page is about telling the difference without paying anyone, and about the ten days Ontario law gives you to change your mind if you already signed.

Ontario consumer protection rules and Central Ontario repair rates, checked October 2026, before HST. No company is named on this page because the pattern is the point, not the name on the truck.

The pattern, step by step

The hook. “We are doing a job down the street and I noticed your soffit is lifting,” or the siding is faded, or the eaves are pulling away. Something that is true of every house over fifteen years old. He offers a free inspection, which is free because it is the sales call.

The photograph. He goes up a ladder or pulls a panel at the back corner and comes back with a picture: dark sheathing, a bit of green, maybe his own finger in the frame pointing at it. “This is behind all your walls.” It may be a 6 in. patch at a downspout that has been splashing the wall for a decade. It may be a wet spot that is real and small. It may not be your house.

The urgency. The price, which is a whole-house number, holds until tonight because the crew is in the area, or the material is on sale, or the manager approved it just this once. Then the contract comes out, at your kitchen table, and sometimes a financing form comes with it.

None of this is illegal in Ontario. Door-to-door sales of furnaces, water heaters, air conditioners and water treatment are banned at the door; siding and eaves are not on that list, so the knock itself is allowed. What the law does is give you a way out and a set of rules the contract has to follow, and the pitch depends on you not knowing them.

What the law gives you

  1. Ten days to cancel, for any reason. A contract for goods or services signed at your home, when you did not invite the seller there for that purpose, is a direct agreement under Ontario’s consumer protection law. You can cancel it in writing within 10 days of getting your copy, with no reason and no penalty, and any deposit comes back within 15 days. Email counts; keep a copy.
  2. A year, if the contract is missing what it must contain. The contract has to have the seller’s legal name and address, an itemized description of the work, the price, the dates, and your cancellation rights. If it does not, the cancellation window stretches to one year.
  3. A written contract over $50. Any home renovation over $50 must be in writing. A handshake and a deposit is not a contract you have to honour.
  4. The 10% estimate rule. A final bill cannot exceed the estimate by more than 10% unless you agreed to the change in writing. The “we found more damage” invoice at the end is governed by this.
  5. Your money back on a cancelled contract. Cancel properly and the seller has 15 days to refund. If he does not, the complaint goes to the province, and the paper trail you kept is the case.

Cancel by email and by a letter you can prove was sent, to the address on the contract, saying you are cancelling under the cooling-off period. You do not owe an explanation. If work has already started inside the ten days, which is itself a sign, you may owe a reasonable amount for what was done, and nothing for what was not.

How to check for real damage yourself

Real water damage behind siding leaves evidence on both sides of the wall, and most of it costs nothing to look at. Inside, a pin moisture meter from the hardware store, about $40, on the drywall at the bottom of the wall under every window and at the outside corners: dry drywall reads under about 12%, and anything reading high in a pattern below the windows is worth a proper look. Stains, soft baseboard, bubbling paint on the inside of an exterior wall, a musty smell in a closet on an outside wall: those are symptoms. No symptoms inside, on a wall the salesman says is rotten through, is a reason to doubt the photograph.

Outside, do what he did: at the worst-looking spot, usually a downspout corner, under a window, or where a deck meets the wall, unlock one vinyl panel with a zip tool (about $10) and look at the sheathing. Dark, dry, hard wood is old, not rotten. Soft wood you can push a screwdriver into is rot, and it is rot in that spot. Photograph it with your own phone, with the house number or something you recognize in the frame, and put the panel back. Then ask him for his photo with the same frame of reference. If he cannot show you where on your house it was taken, you have your answer.

If there are symptoms, get an opinion from someone with no siding to sell: a home inspector with a moisture meter, or a building envelope consultant, paid by the hour. The exterior wall protection hub explains how water gets behind siding, what a real moisture inspection involves and what it costs, and window leaks and water damage covers the commonest source, which is the window, not the siding.

What the damage in the photo actually costs

The pitch turns a patch into a house. Here is the arithmetic for a 1,100 sq ft bungalow with 1,400 sq ft of net wall in vinyl, which is the house that gets the knock most. The whole-house “today only” number is $24,000, and the photo is a wet 12 x 8 ft section of sheathing at the back corner under a downspout that has been dumping at the wall for years.

The patch: 96 sq ft of sheathing at $6.50 is $624, plus the vinyl on that wall off and back on, a few hours, and a downspout extension to put the water 6 ft from the house, $85 at most. Call it $900 before HST. The whole house done properly, if you actually wanted it: 1,400 sq ft of mid vinyl at $9.50 is $13,300, tearoff at $2.00 is $2,800, bin $550, house wrap at $0.85 is $1,190, 14 openings flashed at $85 is $1,190, the same $624 of sheathing. $19,654 before HST, $22,209 with. So the “today only” $24,000 is above a complete, properly flashed re-side with all the lines in, before HST, for a house that needed a $900 repair. The exterior cladding cost calculator does this for your house in ten minutes, which is less time than the salesman spent on the ladder.

The tells, and what to say

A price that expires. A free inspection you did not ask for. A photograph with no context. A contract at your table instead of a written quote you can read tomorrow. A deposit by e-transfer today. Financing offered before the price is explained. A business name on the shirt that is different from the one on the contract. Any one of these is a reason to say “leave me a written quote with the measured area and I will call you”, and a legitimate contractor will do exactly that, because that is how legitimate contractors get work. The ones who argue with that sentence are the page.

If the house really does need work, the siding contractor hiring page is the process, the twelve-line quote grid is how three real quotes get compared, and none of it happens the same day somebody knocks.

Questions people ask

Can I cancel a siding contract I signed at my door in Ontario?

Yes. A contract signed at your home that you did not invite the seller to make is a direct agreement, and you have 10 days from receiving your copy to cancel in writing for any reason. The deposit must be refunded within 15 days. If the contract is missing required information, the window is one year.

Is door-to-door siding sales legal in Ontario?

Yes. The door-to-door ban covers furnaces, water heaters, air conditioners, water treatment and a few related products, not siding or eavestroughs. The protection for siding is the cooling-off period, the written-contract rule and the 10% estimate rule.

How do I know if there is really moisture damage behind my siding?

A $40 pin meter on the inside drywall at the bottom of exterior walls, a look for stains and soft baseboard, and one vinyl panel unlocked at the worst corner outside. Dark, hard wood is old; soft wood is rot, in that spot. Real damage usually shows on both sides of the wall.

What does it cost to fix rotten sheathing under siding?

$6.50 a square foot for the sheathing, so a 96 sq ft patch is $624 before the siding on that wall is reset. Framing repair at a window is $400 to $900 per opening. A whole-house re-side because of one patch is not a repair, it is a sale.

What if work has already started when I cancel?

You can still cancel inside the 10 days. You may owe a reasonable amount for work actually done and materials actually used, and nothing for the rest. Starting work inside the cooling-off period is itself a reason to be careful.

Get the real number before the next knock

The exterior cladding cost calculator prices your house properly, with the tearoff, the wrap, the flashing and a rot allowance, so a kitchen-table number has something to stand against. If you already signed and the ten days are still running, the $99 review will tell you by tomorrow whether the contract is worth keeping.

Price my house honestlyReview my quotes, $99

Sources and further reading