Window trim and casing repair
Window trim repair is the work that keeps a window looking finished and keeps water out of the wall behind it. Outside, the brick mould and sill take the weather. Inside, the casing, stool and apron take the knocks. Both fail at the same places for the same reasons, and both can usually be repaired rather than replaced. It sits inside our window repair service, next to the glass and sash work.
Service family Window repair
Scheduling Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Service area Six counties across Southeast Michigan
Phone (734) 540-0347
What window trim does besides look right
Exterior trim is a water management detail pretending to be decoration. The brick mould sheds water off the frame, the sill throws it clear of the wall and the caulk joints keep it out of the gap between window and sheathing. When one of those fails, water tracks inward and the damage shows up on the inside casing or the wall below, long after the trim itself gave up.
Interior casing, exterior brick mould and sill work
Three different jobs share one page. Interior casing is finish carpentry in a heated room, where the standard is tight miters and clean reveals. Brick mould is exterior millwork taking direct weather. Sill and sill nose work is the hardest of the three, because the sill is sloped, exposed and usually the first part to rot. We price them separately even when they are on the same window.
Rot at the bottom corner
Almost every rotten window we look at has failed in the same place: the bottom corner on the weather side, where the vertical trim meets the sill and the end grain sits in standing water. Start there when you are inspecting your own house. Press with a screwdriver. Sound wood stops the tip. Soft wood takes it without resistance, and that corner is telling you the rest of the joint is wet.
What gets checked on a trim call
- Every bottom corner, probed rather than looked at
- Sill slope, and whether water runs off or sits
- Caulk joints at the frame, the siding and the sill nose
- The wall and casing directly below, for staining
- Whether the sash and frame still close tight against the stop
Epoxy repair, dutchman patches and full replacement
Three repairs, chosen by how much sound wood is left. A small soft area gets consolidated and filled with a two part epoxy that takes paint and moves with the wood. A localised failure gets a dutchman, which is a shaped piece of new wood let into the old and glued. A member that is soft along its length gets replaced. We will always tell you which of the three your trim needs.
Old growth wood and what replaces it
Trim on a house built before the war is often tight grained old growth pine that has outlasted everything fitted since. Modern finger jointed pine will not match it for durability outside. For exterior replacement we use cellular PVC or a primed composite on the weather face, and matching wood where the profile is visible and protected. On the inside, we match species and profile.
Plaster walls and the trim nailed to them
Interior casing in an older house is nailed to a jamb and bedded against plaster, and pulling it off cracks the plaster edge nearly every time. We score the paint line, work the trim off in one piece where it can be reused, and patch the plaster edge afterwards. Where the wall is drywall over the original plaster, drywall repair comes with it.
Sills, aprons and stools in an older house
Victorian and early century houses in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti carry deep stools, moulded aprons and casing profiles nobody stocks. Those get matched with a knife ground for the run rather than substituted with the closest thing at the lumber yard, which is the difference between a repair and a patch. Custom profile work runs through our millwork and trim service.
Paint, lead and windows in houses built before the late seventies
Federal rules require that work disturbing paint in a home built before nineteen seventy eight is carried out by a certified firm following specific work practices. Window trim is one of the most likely places to meet old paint. Where a house is that age we scope the work with those rules in mind and confirm the arrangement in writing before anything is sanded or cut.
Where trim repair stops and window replacement starts
Trim repair is worth doing on a window that still closes, seals and holds its glass. Where the sash has failed, the frame has moved out of square or the unit is single glazed and rotten through, money spent on trim is money wasted. That is a window replacement conversation, and we would rather have it before you pay us to repair trim twice.
Storm windows, screens and the hardware in the way
Older houses carry aluminum storm panels screwed through the brick mould, and those screws are usually the reason the trim underneath is wet. Storms come off, get labelled by opening, and go back on fresh fixings with the holes sealed. Screen frames, hangers and hooks get treated the same way. None of that is difficult and all of it gets skipped.
Caulk, and the joint that keeps failing
- Old caulk cut out fully rather than covered with a new bead
- Joints backed properly where the gap is deeper than it is wide
- A sealant rated for movement, not painters caulk outdoors
- The sill nose left uncaulked so trapped water can escape
- Bead sized to the joint, tooled rather than smeared
Interior casing that has opened at the miters
Gaps at the top corners of interior casing are seasonal movement rather than bad carpentry, in most cases. The wood shrinks across the grain through a dry heated winter and the joint opens. Glue, a pin and a filled seam closes it. Where the gap reappears every February, the fix is a joint detail that allows movement rather than a bigger bead of filler.
Stained trim and repairs that show
A painted repair disappears. A stained repair is only as good as the match, and the honest answer is that a patch in stained trim is usually visible under direct light. We will show you a sample on the actual piece before committing. Sometimes replacing a whole member and staining it to match beats patching in the middle of a run.
Drafts that are trim rather than glass
Cold air at a window is often coming through the gap between frame and framing behind the casing, not through the window itself. Pulling the interior casing, insulating that cavity properly and refitting the trim fixes it for good. It is the most satisfying part of draft sealing and weatherization work, and it pairs with weatherstripping installation at the sash.
How long the work takes
One rotten exterior corner repaired with epoxy is a couple of hours plus cure and paint. A full brick mould and sill replacement on one window is most of a day. A run of interior casing in a room is a day with a return for paint. Several windows at once is cheaper per window, which is how our exterior repair visits usually get scoped.
Book window trim repair with our crew
Go and press the bottom corners of your own windows with a screwdriver this week. If the tip sinks in anywhere, call us before winter rather than after it. We also handle baseboard and trim and finish carpentry in the same visit, and emergency cover through storm damage board up. View our Portfolio, then contact us now for a free quote.
