Richmond gets about 1,200 mm of rain a year. The wettest months are November through February. The humidity stays in the 75–85% range almost year-round. The Fraser River delta soil holds groundwater. The city is, literally, below sea level in places.

Your garage door's weather stripping is the only thing keeping all of that out of your garage.

When the weather stripping fails — and it always does, eventually — the cost isn't the strip. The cost is what happens to the floor, the door panels, and occasionally the contents of the garage, over the 18 months before the homeowner notices.

The four pieces of weather stripping

A residential garage door has four separate weather sealing systems:

  1. Bottom seal. The rubber or vinyl extrusion attached to the bottom of the lowest panel. Sits on the floor when closed.
  2. Side weather stripping. The vinyl or rubber flap attached to the door frame on each side, that the door panels seal against when closed.
  3. Top weather stripping. Same as the sides, but along the top of the door frame.
  4. Inter-panel seals. Rubber or vinyl strips between each section panel, sealing the gaps when the door is closed.

In Richmond's climate, the bottom seal and the side stripping fail first and fail worst. The top stripping rarely fails (rain doesn't drive sideways often enough to matter). The inter-panel seals are usually fine on factory-built doors and rarely need attention.

Bottom seal failure

The bottom seal sits on the concrete or asphalt of your garage floor. It compresses every time the door closes. Over years:

What you'll notice when it fails:

A bottom seal lasts 6–12 years in Richmond. Replace at year 8 as a default. Cost: $145–$245 installed.

Side stripping failure

The side weather stripping is the vinyl flap nailed or stapled to the wood door frame, that the door's outside surface contacts when closed. Same UV-and-time failure mode as the bottom seal, plus:

Indicator: stand inside the garage with the door closed at noon on a sunny day. Look at the gaps along the sides of the door, where it meets the frame. Daylight visible = stripping failure.

Side strip life: 8–14 years. Cost to replace both sides: $245–$385 installed.

The wood-frame trap

Here's the failure mode that matters more than the strip itself.

Most Richmond garage door frames are built from cedar or pressure-treated SPF. When the weather stripping fails, water gets behind the strip and into the wood. The wood gets wet, then dries, then gets wet again. Over 3–6 years, the wood rots.

By the time the homeowner notices the rot, the frame has lost structural integrity. Replacing the weather stripping isn't enough — the wood underneath has to be replaced too. This is no longer a $245 weather-strip job. It's a $785–$1,485 frame-and-strip job, possibly more if the rot has propagated into the structural framing behind the trim.

I see this in older Richmond homes constantly. East Cambie has a lot of 1980s and 1990s housing stock with original garage frames that have been ignored for 25+ years. By the time I see them, the frame replacement is mandatory.

The rodent problem

This is the part of weather stripping nobody talks about until they have to.

Richmond has rats. The Norway rat in particular is at home in the Fraser delta. They're year-round residents in every Richmond neighbourhood. They like garages because garages have:

A 12 mm (half-inch) gap in your bottom seal is wide enough for a young rat. A 25 mm (one inch) gap is wide enough for a full-grown adult. Once one rat finds the gap, the pheromone trail brings others.

I've been called out three times in two years to find rat damage in opener wiring. The rats chew the rubber insulation on the wires running from the opener to the photo eyes and the wall button. In one case, the chewed wires shorted, the opener's logic board fried, $385 in replacement parts.

Rat-proofing isn't sexy. Sealing the bottom of the door is the cheapest, easiest, most effective rat exclusion in the residential trade.

The pooling-water problem

Some Richmond garages have negative slope at the door threshold — the concrete pad slopes slightly toward the door rather than away. Rare in newer builds (post-2000 builders generally get this right). Common in 1970s and 1980s builds.

In a negative-slope garage, even a working bottom seal can let water in during heavy rain because water pools against the seal under pressure and finds any crack or gap.

Fix options:

  1. Threshold seal. An L-shaped rubber strip that bonds to the concrete floor on the outside of the door. Creates a dam. Cost: $185–$345 installed. Effective for moderate negative slope.
  2. Concrete grinding. Have a concrete contractor regrade the threshold slope. Cost: $485–$1,285. Permanent fix.
  3. Floor drain inside garage. If the slope can't be easily corrected. $785–$1,685.

The threshold seal is the cheapest first attempt. About 70% of my Richmond pooling-water customers solve their problem with that alone.

What to check on your inspection

Add these to the two-second test from post 1:

  1. Bottom seal flexibility. Push it with your finger. Should be flexible and spring back. Hard, brittle, cracked rubber = replace.
  2. Bottom seal damage. Chunks missing? Visible chew marks? Replace.
  3. Side stripping wear. Visible daylight along sides when door is closed? Replace.
  4. Frame wood condition. Push the wood with your thumb behind/around the stripping. Soft = rot. Replace stripping AND frame.
  5. Threshold slope. During heavy rain, watch the door area for 10 minutes. Water pooling = threshold seal needed.

Cost reality check (2026, Lower Mainland CAD) - Bottom seal replacement (rubber): $145–$245 - Bottom seal premium upgrade (silicone, longer life): $185–$325 - Side stripping pair (vinyl, standard): $245–$385 - Side stripping pair (vinyl, with new wood frame): $485–$885 - Top stripping: $95–$165 - Threshold seal installation: $185–$345 - Full weather strip package (bottom + sides + top): $485–$725 - Full weather strip + frame replacement: $885–$1,685

A specific East Cambie call

A couple on Lassam Road in East Cambie called me last March about water coming into their garage during the atmospheric river that hit Richmond that week. They had standing water across the whole garage floor — maybe 2 cm deep.

I went out the next day after the rain stopped. The bottom seal was original to the 1989 build. Cracked all along its length. The side stripping was visibly pulled away from the frame on the right side. The frame wood behind the right-side stripping was soft to the thumb — rotted through.

The diagnostic took 15 minutes. The fix was extensive: - Replace bottom seal: $185 - Replace both side strippings: $385 - Replace rotted wood on right side of frame (about 1.5 m of cedar trim plus structural backing): $485 - Install threshold seal (the floor had a slight negative slope): $245 - Total: $1,300

That same evening, a different company quoted them $4,250 to "replace the door system because the frame is structurally compromised." The frame was not structurally compromised. Just the right-side trim was rotted, which any decent carpenter could replace in 90 minutes for the price of cedar and silicone.

The customers paid me. The water hasn't come back in. The door is the same door they had. The frame is the same frame minus the rotted right-side trim plus a new piece of cedar that should outlast them.

The lesson: weather stripping seems like a minor maintenance item. Ignored long enough, it becomes a structural problem at 6 to 10 times the cost.

A $185 bottom seal in 2018 would have prevented all of this.

That's the post.

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