Window Repair and New Windows Across Northern Virginia

Why a window will not open, close or stay up

The commonest call we take on windows is simply that one has stopped working. What that turns out to mean:

Painted or swollen shut

Repeated coats of paint across the sash-to-stop joint, or wood that has taken on moisture. We have been called to houses with four windows stuck shut at once, which points at the paint rather than at four separate failures.

The sash will not stay up

The balance has lost its tension or the cord has parted. This is a hardware repair inside the jamb, not a reason to replace a window that is otherwise sound.

It will not close or latch fully

The sash has dropped, the frame has racked, or the latch and keeper no longer line up. A window that does not shut cannot seal, so this is corrected before any weatherstripping is fitted to it.

It closes but the air comes through anyway

Failed seals. On one job the weatherstripping on six bedroom windows had failed and was repaired and secured back to the window panels — see door weatherstripping and draft sealing for how that work is done.

The frame itself is cracked

We have found cracks in a front window frame as a reported fault in its own right. Cracked frames are inspected for what caused them — settlement, water or impact — before anyone decides what to do about them.

Window sash, hardware and operating repair

Before a window is condemned, the parts that actually move get examined:

• Balances and cords on double-hung sashes, which is what holds a sash where you put it.
• Cranks and operators on casement and awning units, where the gearbox usually fails long before the glass or frame does.
• Latches, keepers and stops, which decide whether the sash is pulled tight against its seal or merely resting against it.
• The sash itself — whether it is square, whether it has dropped, and whether paint is bridging the joint it has to move through.
• The frame and jamb, checked for racking and for soft wood at the bottom corners, which is where trouble starts.

Sliding windows behave like small patio doors and fail the same way, at the track and the rollers. If that describes yours, the same thinking in sliding and patio door repair applies.

Broken, cracked and fogged window glass

Glass divides cleanly into three cases. Broken or cracked panes are replaced, and we handle single panes as standalone items — basement window glass has been a line on its own on our repair lists. Fogging or moisture between the panes means the sealed insulated unit has failed, and that is replaced rather than cleared; nothing brings the clarity back.

The third case is the one worth thinking about: glass that keeps failing, or a pane that has cracked with no impact. That usually means the frame is moving or the unit is being loaded by a frame that has gone out of square, and replacing the glass on its own simply resets the clock.

Rotted window sills, frames and exterior trim

The bottom of a window is where water sits, and it is where almost all serious window carpentry starts. We have been called to second-floor windows with deteriorating frames, and to rotted exterior trim at bay window trim, bay window header and bay window panel all in one elevation.

The rule we work to is that damaged and rotted material comes off until sound wood is reached, and then the framing behind it is inspected and the homeowner advised before anything is covered up. On the bay window job that meant removing the deck boards around it first, stripping the damaged trim, inspecting the framing, installing foam insulation around the windows and into the soffit gaps, fitting a plastic vapor barrier in the soffit area, and replacing the trim in half-inch PVC board.

PVC and composite trim rather than plain pine is deliberate. Trim at a window sill is the part of a house that gets wet most often, and the point of the repair is that it does not come back. See rotted wood and trim repair for the carpentry side, and interior and exterior painting for finishing.

Water coming in around a window is rarely the glass

This is the diagnosis that separates a real inspection from a guess. A homeowner reported a roof leak showing up inside the house. The top roof and its flashing were sound, with no cracks. The problem was lower down, where the roof met the siding and the windows: the trim around the window was rotted and damaged, the flashing was not high enough, and there was no top flashing above the window at all, so in heavy rain water could back up behind the siding and into the wall.

The recommendation there was not to patch the ceiling. It was to remove the siding in the work area, open the drywall at the leaking area, water-test the assembly, install a proper top flashing above the window, seal around the unit and reinstate the siding. On another property, damage showing at window trim, casing and drywall was traced to there being no flashing under the siding above a deck ledger board — the water was entering nowhere near the window it was damaging.

• Flashing is inspected before glass or sashes. Head flashing, side flashing height, and the roof-to-siding junction.
• The assembly is opened where the evidence requires it, because a leak diagnosed through paint is a leak diagnosed by guesswork.
• Wet framing is treated, with mold control applied and joists and studs sealed with stain-killer primer before new board goes back.
• Drywall is made good last, finished with tape, block, skim and sand, primed and painted to match.

Where the water is coming through the cladding, see siding repair; where it has already damaged the ceiling, drywall and ceiling repair.

Window screens, storm panels and shutters

The accessories around a window are repaired as their own small jobs, and we do not insist on bundling them into something larger:

• Screens are re-screened or replaced, including porch screens, which are usually the first to go.
• Basement and outbuilding windows are re-glazed or replaced as single units where the rest of the elevation is fine.
• Shutters get refixed properly. On one house the shutters had been fastened with plastic screws which had failed; those were replaced with metal screws and the loose shutters reinstalled. We also install owner-provided shutters across a whole elevation.
• Exterior window trim and dormer trim are prepared, primed and painted as part of the same visit rather than left for a second trip.

Window repair or window replacement: how to decide

We would rather repair a window, and most operating faults are worth repairing. Replacement becomes the right answer in four situations:

1. The frame is rotted through rather than at the surface. If the sound material is behind the fixings, there is nothing left to repair against.
2. The unit has been leaking into the wall. Framing around windows is inspected for water damage once the units are out, and what is found there usually settles the question.
3. The glass and the operation have both failed on an old unit. Two failures on one window is the point where a new unit is the better use of the money.
4. The window is the wrong window for the room. We have removed a family room window and fitted a smaller one in its place, and taken out a picture window entirely to make a patio door opening.

When units are replaced, the framing around each opening is inspected for water damage before the new window goes in — not after.

Cutting a new window opening or a basement egress window

Adding a window is structural work, and it is the part of this trade where corners get cut by others. Two examples from our contracts show what is actually involved.

A double window added to a garage wall needed a structural header and posts to carry the load over the new opening — not simply a hole cut between studs. A basement egress window had to be cut through brick and cinder block, which meant structural lintels over the opening and the exterior grade reworked with a window well: excavating outside, installing pressure-treated timber, grading the area to a minimum five per cent drop away from the house, and laying plastic sheeting and gravel in front of the window area before the opening was cut and the unit set.

Work of this kind is performed according to the Virginia building code and to approved plans and structural details where engineering is involved, with permits and inspections included in the contract price. Floor and furniture protection goes in first, and the drywall inside is cut, made good and painted as part of the job.

What window repair and replacement costs

We do not quote windows by phone or publish prices. A sash that needs a balance, a pane that needs glass and a window whose head flashing was never installed are three different jobs behind the same phone call, and the third one is not really a window job at all.

An estimator comes out, inspects the unit, the sill and the wall around it, and gives you a written price before anything begins. Sam and Sons Services has worked in Northern Virginia since 1999 and provides handyman carpentry in Washington DC as well. Virginia DPOR license 2705070610; the number is (703) 256-8080.