Sash Window Repair

When you are in a place where you are dealing with a 19th century window sash, you might feel like throwing up your hands in dismay. These elderly windows are notoriously difficult to repair and re-hang, but the truth of the matter is that it is definitely possible as long as you have a lot of time and a lot of patience.

The first thing that you are going to need to do is to make sure that the sash comes out. This means that you will need to pry off or unscrew the stops and then you are going to need to pull out the lower sash. Take off all the cords and then knot the cords to make sure that they don't get pulled into the weight pockets. Then you should remove the parting beads, and repeat the process with the upper sash. After that, just remove the sash hardware and put it somewhere out of the way for the time being.

After that, all you need to do is to free the glass by softening the old, hard putty and then clean out the joints. You can clean out the joints by using a rotary tool like a Dremel. Use this tool to make sure that you have ground away any soft or rotten wood wherever your sash replacement window joints feel loose or as though they are too open. Remember that as soon as you have cleaned out the joints, you are going to need to rebuild them, using epoxy. Make sure that you brush on the epoxy first and let it set for at least twenty minutes and then mix the two parts of the epoxy into the shape that you want, jamming it onto the joint and then spreading the mix over the sides.

The next thing that you need to do is to prime the sash. This needs to wait about twenty four hours until the epoxy is cured and has reached its full hardness. Then all you need to do is to hand sand the sash with something like 100 grit paper, after which, you should make sure that all the dust gets wiped up with tack cloth. Then you can simply seal the wood with a coat of oil based primer. Unless you put the primer on, you'll find that the wood will suck the oil out of the putty and make it brittle; this may actually cause the joint to shatter and require professional window repair help.

Then you'll bed the glass in about 1/16th of an inch from the bottom of the rabbet, and insert the points. Remember that when you are working with larger panes that you should never let the space between the points stretch beyond 12 inches. After this, you are going to push another rope of compound around the edge of the pane, creating a smooth bevel using a putty knife.

Now that that has been taken care of, you are free to re-hang the sash! This is the time to replace the weather stripping if you like. The hardware should be clean before you reattach it, and if necessary, lubricate the pulley axles.

Remember that repairing your sash window is not necessarily difficult, but that calling in a professional can make all the difference! Check out the sash windows in your home and see what might need to be done for them, and we can take it from there.