What a crew finds when the old window comes out

The trim covers a gap, and every teardown riverside window replacement in spiraling has logged shows the same thing: the gap behind it is where the problems live. A window replacement in a Riverside, CA house is quick on the day the old window comes out, because that is when the work stops being a guess and the opening can be read.

Out of square

An opening that has racked, with one diagonal longer than the other by more than a quarter inch, is common in houses on older foundations. A wood window that sat in it hid the error because wood can be planed. A vinyl window or fiberglass window cannot, so the opening is shimmed or reframed until the diagonals match. A double hung sash will bind if the frame is forced square.

Rot at the sill

The sill is where water ends up. Screwdriver pressure shows it: sound wood resists, rotted wood sinks in. Sometimes the damage is only a few inches at one corner and can be cut out and replaced with a treated piece. When the whole sill has gone, the crew finds the rot has crept into the studs beneath, and the repair runs well beyond the window.

Missing flashing

Many older walls have no flashing tape at all, only stucco butted against the frame and a line of caulk. The caulk fails in a few years, and the wall behind it has been taking water since. Felt paper darkened in a line below the window tells the story before anything is pulled loose.

Paper and wire lath

Behind the stucco is wire lath on paper. When the stucco is cut back for a nailing fin, the paper is often brittle and the lath rusted at the bottom edge. Both are repaired before the new unit goes in, because the new flashing needs sound material to lap over.

The old unit itself

An aluminum window from the sixties is thin metal with a single pane, and many have weatherstripping that has hardened into a stick. Newer double pane units that failed show seal failure as fog, and that means the glass was lost but the frame may be sound. The crew checks before deciding whether the frame comes out with it.

What it changes

Any of these findings changes the order of work and the length of the day, which is the reason a crew near Mount Rubidoux or anywhere in the older neighbourhoods allows time for the unexpected.