Window repair

Window repair is mostly carpentry. The unit itself usually outlives the wood around it, and what fails first is the sill that has been shedding water for thirty years, the casing that went soft at the bottom corner, or the seal that lets January into a bedroom. Wright’s Repairs rebuilds that wood and closes those gaps as a visit, without selling you replacement windows.

What this page covers and what it does not

Wright’s sells replacement windows on the design and build side and repairs the openings on this one. Keeping those separate matters, because the reflex answer to any window complaint in this industry is a quote for new units, and in a lot of houses that is the wrong recommendation by an order of magnitude.

The wood around the opening

Sills, stools, aprons, casing, brickmould and jamb extensions. All of it is carpentry, all of it is repairable in place, and all of it is what people are actually looking at when they say a window looks bad. On an older house it is also frequently the only part that has failed.

When new units are the honest answer

Frames that have racked out of square, sashes that have come apart at the joints, or a whole elevation of single pane units bleeding heat. At that point repair is an annual expense rather than a fix, and window replacement is the better use of the money. We will say which one you are looking at rather than defaulting to either.

Sills, casing and the corner that always goes first

Every wooden window in Southeast Michigan fails in the same place: the bottom corner of the exterior casing, where the vertical leg meets the sill. Water runs down the face, sits in that joint, freezes, opens the joint slightly, and does it again seventy times a winter. Ten years of that and you can push a screwdriver into it.

Window trim and casing repair cuts back to sound material and replaces the affected length rather than filling it. Filler over rot is a cosmetic fix with a two year life, and it traps moisture behind itself, which makes the next repair bigger. Where the sill itself has gone, that gets replaced with the correct slope so the next thirty years drain properly.

Older houses complicate the material question. Original profiles on a prewar house are rarely stocked anywhere, so a matching piece gets milled rather than approximated, which is the right call on any of the historic homes we work on and the reason those repairs take longer.

Drafts, and finding where the air actually comes in

People blame the glass and it is almost never the glass. Air comes in around the sash where the weatherstripping has gone hard, through the gap between the frame and the framing where the original insulation settled decades ago, and up through the sill where a joint has opened. All three are fixable without touching the window unit.

Weatherstripping installation replaces what has hardened at the sash. The wider sweep, including the gap behind the casing and every other penetration in the wall, sits with draft sealing and weatherization, which is the work that actually shows up on a heating bill rather than just feeling better.

There is a cheap diagnostic you can run yourself on a windy day. Hold a lit candle or a stick of incense slowly around the perimeter of the window and watch where the smoke moves. That takes two minutes per window and tells us more than a description does. It belongs on any list headed toward fall winterization.

Glass, seals and the pane that went cloudy

A double pane unit that has fogged between the panes has lost its seal, and no amount of cleaning will touch it because the condensation is inside. The good news is that on most windows the glass unit can be replaced without replacing the frame or the sash, which is a fraction of the cost of a new window.

Window glass repair covers that and the more obvious case of a cracked or broken pane. Measurements have to be exact and units are made to order, so this is usually a visit to measure and a second to install. When something has come through a window unexpectedly, we board up the opening the same day and photograph it for your insurer before anything permanent happens.

Windows that will not open, close or lock

A double hung that will not stay up has broken balances, which is a part rather than a window. A casement that will not close has a crank or hinge that has worn. A sash painted shut by somebody in nineteen eighty four needs cutting free and the stops resetting. All of those are hardware jobs and all of them are cheap next to the alternative.

Locks matter more than people treat them. A window that does not latch is not sealed, so it is a draft as well as a security question, and a latch that has to be forced is usually telling you the sash has dropped rather than that the latch is broken. Where keys and entry hardware are the wider concern, locksmith service covers that and smart lock installation handles the doors.

Egress is the one place this stops being a comfort issue. A bedroom window that will not open is a code problem as well as a safety one, and in a finished lower level it is the whole point of the opening. That work sits with basement egress windows.

Window wells, and the one that fills every spring

A below grade window well is a bucket unless something stops it filling. Leaves pack the bottom, the drain blocks, and the next heavy spring rain puts several inches of standing water against a window that was never designed to be submerged. That is one of the most common routes water takes into a finished basement in this region.

Window well cover installation puts a clear polycarbonate cover over the well, which keeps rain, leaves and animals out while still passing daylight. On an egress well the cover has to be openable from inside without tools, which rules out most of what is sold at a big box store.

Covers treat the symptom. The cause is usually roof water, so we look at downspout extension and drainage in the same visit, and the whole picture belongs on a water damage prevention pass. Replacing the unit in a lower level is a different job and sits with basement window replacement.

Storms, screens and the second layer outside

Plenty of older houses around here still have their original storm windows, and they are worth more than people assume. A good storm over a single pane sash gets close to the performance of a modern double pane unit for a fraction of the money, and on a period house it keeps the original windows in place, which is the entire argument for repairing rather than replacing.

Screens and storms both need the small stuff to work: the clips, the tracks, the weep holes at the bottom that have to stay open or the storm traps water against the sash it was meant to protect. The door version of this is storm door installation, and the rest of the wall is on the exterior repair hub.

What we check on a window walk around:

• The bottom corners of the exterior casing, probed rather than looked at
• Sill slope, and whether water runs off or stands on it
• Weep holes in storms and frames, which block with paint and debris
• Caulk joints at the casing, checked on the south and west walls first
• Whether every sash opens, closes and latches without being forced

Putting the inside back together

Window work usually leaves something to make good indoors. A jamb extension that had to come off, a stool that got damaged, or plaster that let go when the interior casing was removed. Drywall patch repair closes that, and matching interior profiles is carpentry that sits on the trim and finish carpentry hub.

Finish work follows. Trim and door painting covers the new wood, inside and out, and a full room change moves to the interior painting hub. On the exterior, new casing needs priming on all six faces before it goes up, including the end grain, which is the step that decides whether we are back in eight years.

Condensation, and what it is telling you

Water on the inside of a window in January is one of the most misread symptoms in a house. Where it sits matters. Condensation on the room side of the glass is humidity, not a window fault, and it means the air in the house has more moisture in it than the coldest surface can hold. The window is simply the place it shows up first.

Condensation between the panes is a failed seal and belongs with the glass. Water on the outside face on a cool morning is nothing at all, and on a modern unit it is a sign the glazing is working. Frost on the frame rather than the glass points at a thermal bridge, usually an aluminum frame or a gap in the insulation around the opening.

When the diagnosis is house humidity, the fix is ventilation somewhere else rather than anything done to the window. Bathroom and kitchen extraction, a dryer venting properly to the outside, and a crawl space that is not pushing moisture upward are the three usual sources. A crawl space vapor barrier has solved more window condensation complaints for us than any glass ever has.

Window work we hand to somebody else

Full unit replacement across a house, enlarging an opening, or cutting a new one are design and build projects with permits behind them, and they belong with the exterior team. Leaded and stained glass goes to a specialist. Anything involving structural headers is engineering first. The published list of work we do not take sets that out before anybody pays for a visit.

There is one more stop worth naming. Paint disturbed on any house built before nineteen seventy eight falls under the federal lead rule, and window casing is the most likely place in a house to encounter it, because it is the surface that has been repainted the most times. We scope that at the estimate stage with a firm certified for the work rather than discovering it on the day.

How a window repair visit actually runs

Send a photograph of the whole window from outside, a close one of the bottom corners, and one from inside. Tell us the approximate age of the house and whether the windows are original. That is usually enough for a written scope and a flat price without anybody driving out to look.

Exterior carpentry needs weather, so these move rather than get rushed, and paint in particular has a temperature floor we will not work below. Interior work on the same opening runs any time of year. Where we find more rot behind the casing than the photographs suggested, you hear it on site with a price. The rest of that approach is on our page about how we work.

Windows are the clearest case in this whole division for grouping work. A crew with ladders already set can do six openings for far less than six separate visits, and most houses that have one bad sill have four. Bundled versions sit on the home repair packages page, and this shows up constantly on inspection repairs.

Where we work across Southeast Michigan

Crews cover Washtenaw, Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston and Monroe counties. Window stock varies enormously across that map. Prewar houses in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti often still have original wooden double hungs with weight and pulley balances, which are entirely repairable and frequently better made than what would replace them.

Post war housing through Livonia, Westland and Taylor tends to have aluminum or early vinyl replacements already fitted, where the wood outside them is what needs attention. Subdivision housing around Canton and Saline is usually vinyl with wrapped exteriors, so the repair list there is hardware, seals and failed glass units.

Exposure changes the schedule more than the town does. South and west elevations everywhere fail first, and lakefront properties out toward Whitmore Lake take more wind driven rain than anything inland, so those windows want checking a good deal more often.

Get the windows sealed before the freeze

Of everything on this page, the two items worth doing before winter are sealing the drafts and closing any open joint in the exterior casing. Both are cheap, both stop getting worse the moment they are done, and both are impossible once the temperature drops below what caulk and paint will tolerate.

Rot is the other one that only moves in one direction. A casing corner you can push a screwdriver into this October is a bigger repair next October and a sill next spring. View our Portfolio to see the larger work these crews do, or contact us now for a free quote while the weather still allows exterior work.