Window Repair Project

Last fall while investigating the cause for Taya's drafty room at the front of the house, I noticed that the rim joist below her window was completely rotten! It was so compromised that I could pull it apart with my bare hands. I consulted several experts, including the house's builders only to find out that none of the damage was covered by any warranties. One basement remodelling contractor actually estimated, without quoting, that it would cost around $2500-$3500 to fix the wall because he wasn't sure the extend of the damage without pulling the sliding off.

With that knowledge, I enlisted the help of my friend and coworker, Chris, who luckily has a helpful construction background. We waited until this weekend to tackle the job, hoping that the weather would cooperate better than in January. It was around 40 degrees all day with scattered showers. Not too bad, but not the sunny 60 degree day I was hoping for in April.

Below are the images chronicling how the project was done. Needless to say it went much better than I thought it would.

Before. There is a lack of flashing above the window, especially the sliding J-channel, difficult to see here.

Water damage in the trim around the window, most noticeable at the lower corners.

After removal of the siding we found a lot of water damage and foam sheeting, not sad to replace that all. Surprisingly, there wasn't damge along the window and further investigation revealed only limited damage to the mudplate. No damage to the insulation or verticle wall studs. The hole was where I had pulled the rim joist apart with my hands from the basement.

We removed the trim boards and damaged wood.

The following few images are after replacing everything with new lumber and putting it back together. Surprisingly, this was still before lunch!

With the sheeting back in place and the day looking to be going well, we took lunch and tackled reflashing above the window after lunch. I didn't take images of the window flashing issue, I wish I would have. The following images were taken after adding new trim boards below and on the sides of the window. We removed some siding at the top of the window so we could place some re-sealing ice guard new flashing above the window. We slipped the vinyl flashing in behind the round accent and on top of the ice guard. The top piece of flashing was cut to funnel water outside of the vertical J-channel, likely the original mistake that caused this entire project. We installed another piece of flashing directly above the window for good measure and added the top trim piece to finish off the window. The resulting images are shown. Hopefully this will solve the problem for good!

We then replaced the sliding from the bottom of the house to the window and caulked the nailholes and any joints along the siding.

The finished project.

The corners of the window and all the flashing look much better. Water will carry out and around the window without any concern now!

The project cost less than $200 and took Chris and I a total of 7 and a half hours including donuts and coffee, a trip to Lowes, and Chipotle for lunch! Amazing. Thanks Chris!