Wood Windows

Up in the west hills below OHSU. A southeast facing wall with little protection from the elements, which if you’ve been reading through many of the projects in our portfolio here, is probably beginning to sound like a skipping record for those who remember what a turntable was.

And this particular house might serve to illustrate as a potential cautionary tale regarding the repairing of wood windows. As it would happen, we were contracted to replace some failed insulated glass in these same windows about 6 years prior to these shots being taken.

Believe it or not, the wood components seemed fine at the time. But just six years later, this is what we found on approximately 25% of the windows on this side of the house. And this is one of the recurring problems when being asked to repair wood windows that are subject…

…to getting wet almost every time it rains. Especially pine windows manufactured prior to 2000. Discerning the extent to which the wood has become affected by, or infected with the fungus causing spores that lead to rot is less than an exact science. Unless maybe you’re a scientist.

And so you might understand that our client was more than a little disheartened to hear our diagnosis that warned him that the balance of the windows on this wall were probably not too far behind. Fortunately for us, this particular client was a realist regarding the limitations of physics and decided to work…

…with us to replace all the windows on this exterior wall. As this shot reveals, the rotten window in this particular location had begun to leak into the pony wall beneath it, which lead to the damage also extending into the wooden flooring materials.

Although we’ve been known to replace a piece of hardwood flooring or two, we will generally repair or replace the structural components and then leave the new flooring to those who do it for a living if it’s a substantial amount, as we did on this project.

We also do a fine job replacing/repairing drywall on something like a pony wall or to deal with having to cover over a header-support beam, which we do with a fair amount of regularity, including taping, mudding and texturing. And we’re pretty darn good at it. But we…

…would probably sub out a drywall company if an entire room or more needed to be done.
The original windows here were Hurd Brand windows, but we gave our client several options and he settled upon our providing and installing Jeld-Wen wood-clad…

…windows this time, which I think is a fine product, not unlike a number of their competitors. We sell and install most all of them. Marvin, Eagle, Loweon, Pella, Andersen, Hurd, Kolbe, Luxbaum, Quantum, Sierra Pacific & Weathershield to name a few other brands.