The 5 story Hamilton Arms Condominiums on S.W. 16th Ave., built in 1928, was converted in 2005 to condominiums, at which time it might be assumed the windows were changed to Vinyl Sliding windows.

Installing windows into a masonry building such as this eschews tying them into a moisture-barrier, so you need to know what you’re doing in sealing them against the elements.

Finding potential points of entry for how the water was ending up at the top of the window in the condo below, was not of course, a very difficult task, as you can see by this photo.

Phil McNair digs out some of the old caulking that was beginning to peel away…

…to reveal what was behind the caulking. Mostly, just a void leading into the wall below.

The truly proper way to fix this water leak would have been to remove the window & re-install it. But that would have necessitated a man-lift, thus considerably more money, and no doubt all the windows should be redone. At least on this end of the building.

But the property management company that hired us, like most all property management companies, have financial constraints that tend to dictate “patching things up” rather than embarking on an expensive redo.

So measures were taken that should protect this one opening for the foreseeable near future.

Not only does the aluminum drip-cap cover the seam that ran the entire width of the window, as can be seen in the 2nd photo (above), but it should also help deflect moisture from accessing through the top of anymore caulking that begins to peel away at the bottom. Unconventional, but functional.

You may note that care was taken to avoid plugging (covering) the weep-hole system designed into the sills of these Vinyl Windows.

Cathedral School in Northwest Portland. Existing commercial-grade aluminum window assembly currently sports an awning-function window.

For reasons left unexplained, we were asked whether or not they could somehow acquire an in-swinging window that hinges at the bottom…what is known as a “hopper-window.” After considering replacement options, we suggested a modification option.

This was due to the costs that would be associated with replacing the arched-top window assembly that currently matches others along the same exterior wall. After securing the opening, the aluminum-sash is taken back to our shop whereupon David Castro cuts the aluminum frame components in preparation for creating a smaller sash.

This is necessary to facilitate the smaller opening on the interior side of the frame, AKA a jamb. The window-sash is stepped, as is the jamb-assembly into which it operates. So originally, the interior side of the jamb was smaller than the exterior. When we are finished, this will be reversed.

After we receive the new, smaller insulated glass unit that we installed and glazed into the modified sash, the sash is taken back out to the job-site, whereupon further modifications are made by Sean Miller to fine-tune its fit.

The aluminum jamb assembly is also fine-tuned with a belt-sander on the interior portion. Plus, new flat-bar aluminum is added on the exterior to further accommodate the “stepped-nature” of both the sash and the jamb.

Weep-holes are created into this new aluminum material that correlates with the original weep-hole system.

Pull-handles are added, because the original latch-handle is taken off of the sash and installed onto the jamb.

This is due to the different sash function. This photo, and the previous one show most clearly, the STEPPED nature of the sash we’ve spoken of.

We also added a screen to keep out the unwanted insects.

Once upon a time, this was a public school in S.E. Portland, or so the story goes. But for years now, it has been being used to house & restrain troubled female youths who haven’t yet graduated to full-scale adult-type incarceration.

It would probably come as a surprise to nobody to hear that these females tend to resent these imposed restraints upon their youthful proclivities.

Nor would many people be shocked to hear that some of these girls engage in acting out their frustration and opposition to the authorities who have brought such encumbrances to bear upon their personhood.

And so it is that we have been called upon for a number of years now to replace the broken glass that serve as the exclamation-marks to the girl’s protests.

But now, as you can see, we are no longer merely dealing with broken glass, but also broken window sash as well.

Unfortunately, the original Vinyl Windows are no longer made. So replacing just the one or two broken sash is not an option. And no, generally speaking…there is no screwing or gluing the various vinyl components back together. If they were wood, then that would be a different story.

Here are a couple more broken sash which the grounds manager had collected after boarding up the openings.

And as it would happen, these broken single-hung windows were factory-mulled together with other single-hung windows. So one broken sash translated into a mulled assembly like this needing to be replaced. That’s three single-hung windows mulled together to become one window assembly.

And so it was that this particular project involved replacing a quantity of two complete mulled assemblies such as this new one shown above.

Here’s a photo from the interior after the bottom sash have been installed. Expensive temper tantrums.

Rivers Edge Hotel on Hamilton Court in Southwest Portland.

Formerly called the Avalon, it’s located (not surprisingly) down on the Willamette river.

A glass awning hanging over the main entry doors. A glass awning with a possible design flaw. As the first several photos indicate, this awning is sloped back towards the building structure.

Of course the ends of the glass are hanging over a gutter. However, the overlapping mull-covers…

…do not extend to the full length of the glass panes, leaving a gap between the panes. And of course, the gap represent a means by which rain-water drains off the awning structure BEFORE reaching the gutter.

This is what it looked like from below. And apparently, there were hotel guests commenting upon the…

…cold water unexpectedly bombarding them when they thought they were under cover.

And so it was that we were employed to devise some means to span these gaps.

This shot shows the aluminum sheet-metal piece we inserted beneath the mull-covers, and out over the gaps in the glass.

And finally a shot after we applied a sealant and removed the masking tape. We used a black sealant to match the black-boot beneath the mull-post covers.

Multi-Use Condos @ N.W. 24th & Thurman with Pella Wood-Clad Windows on the upper levels, both front…

…and back.

The ground-floor windows are actually storefront aluminum as one might expect for use on space used for businesses.

But the living-space side of the equation employed the use of Pella wood-clad windows.

For the uninitiated, wood-clad means wood-sash and jambs on the interior side, as shown above.

And extruded-aluminum cladding that covers the wood on the exterior side. The point being to achieve a low-maintenance product. The real rarity on this project was having clients who are savvy enough to grasp how limited that “low-maintenance” claim can be.

We were employed by these property owners to “cap-glaze” the seam there between where the glass is glazed to the bottom-rail of the sash. Few are they who pay to have this done before they are dealing with some form of water damage.

In this particular case, the condo owners joined together to have us service almost all the condos on this relatively small complex in an effort to save some money by means of a quantity discount…which can be achieved to some extent, depending upon the scope of the project.

Generally speaking, “cap-glazing” is not considered a long-term glazing method. But if you have someone check your windows every couple years or so to stay up on it when the wet-glaze caulking products begin to pull away from the seams…

…it can be considered a viable maintenance practice that could mean the difference between whether or not you have to replace thousands of dollars’ worth of the most expensive windows money can buy. Obviously, some of these property owners did their homework.

Wieden & Kennedy on N.W. 13th Ave.

We were contacted over the issue of ventilation. As in the need for more of it.

Some of the offices were outfitted with operable sash windows,…awing function windows to be exact, and some were not.

The mission should we decide to accept it was to remove a quantity of (6) picture sash, plow the existing sash, install friction-hinges,…

…weatherstripping & latches like some of the other casement sash had.

It was obviously a mission we accepted. We were able to remove the sash and machine them right there on site…

…and then re-install them all on the same day. Jared manning the vertical lift…

…and Nate coordinating things from the interior side, passing things back and forth as needed.

We also came back in 2010 and did six more of them on the opposite side of the building.

The Conquistador on S.E. Belmont Street in Portland.

There is water showing up at the top of the lower windows. So holes are cut in the drywall in the ceiling to trace back the water trail.

And upstairs, more holes are cut below those windows to confirm the suspicion that the 2nd story windows are the point of entry by which the…

…water infiltration is accessing the tops of the ground-floor windows. And indeed, confirmed it was.

No siding to remove here. The solution is actually fairly simple on this one. Provide & install “Sill-Pans” below the top-floor windows to reroute the water back out to the exterior if the sealant fails.

So the first Vinyl Window is removed from the masonry rough-opening.

Conan goes about cleaning the excess sealants from both the windows and the rough-openings…

…while Tim Afonin goes about field-fabricating several aluminum sill-pans.

Another mystery solved and another problem resolved.

Wikipedia defines “Commercial property” as (among other things) multifamily housing or residential property containing more than a certain number of units.

This old apartment building that has been turned into condos has the old steel sash casement windows with putty-glazed single-pane glass. Above is a shot of the original “push-bar” operators by which the steel sash were opened and held in position.

This is a photo of the original casement latches.
The problem was that our client’s condo had all the original hardware replaced at some point in history prior to his purchasing of the condo.

This is a shot of the “after-market” crank-mechanism that our client’s condo had currently, and that were either broken or not working well. Since the latches had been removed for some reason, the crank-mechanisms were being used to hold the sash closed, but without the latches, the top of the sash did not close tightly.

And since these sash had absolutely no weather-stripping, that made for extremely leaky windows. This is one of the replacement latches we outfitted his windows with, that substantially resolved that problem.

This procedure required that we modify the steel jamb and the “catch” portion of the latching system that is affixed to the sash. But customization and modification is among our strong suits.

And these are the casement sash “push-bars” we came up with to replace the after-market crank-mechanisms, thus returning the hardware system back towards something much closer to the original hardware.

I failed to get a shot of it, but when the sash is closed, the handle tucks in close to the window jamb, and sits parallel with the window assembly.

A commercial masonry building in Southeast Milwaukie.

A very common main entry with second story window configuration found in buildings of this ilk and use. A wood accent set between two aluminum storefront type assemblies.

Water showing up at the suspended ceiling and the drywall surround above the door.

An obvious potential culprit…a lack of metal flashing above the wooden header-trim above the door and sidelight assembly.

But more evidence above the suspended ceiling suggests that water is migrating down from the upper window assembly. Nothing a “sill-pan” wouldn’t likely resolve.

So we set up our pump-jacks…

…and Steve Hilt goes about lowering the harness ropes as required.

The glass is deglazed from the aluminum-frames and the window assembly is pulled from the rough-opening.

A sill pan is provided and installed, the aluminum window reinstalled and the glass is reglazed into the assembly.

Jared goes about applying the finishing touches with his caulking gun.

The place is Nob Hill Bar & Grill. A Northwest Portland mainstay.

The year is 2009. Deep into the heart of the worst recession since the great depression of 1929-1939

Mainstay or not…many eatery/drinking establishments discovered they were no longer able to assume upon their long standing customer base,…

…and found themselves vying for whatever patronage there was left in the waning market. So apparently, it was time for a little facelift, or so we might assume.

Replacing the old, cold, sterile aluminum sliding windows with the beauty and warmth of Jeld-Wen’s wood sliding windows was just the ticket.

Jesse & Jared put on the finishing touches.

In the minds of so many, wood is a never changing classic, like Levi jeans, we might suppose.

Perhaps elevating what was beginning to look a little dark and dingy to a classy, rustic charm…

Indeed, our business saw a substantial increase in other business… employing us to enhance their curb appeal.

Between the wood windows and the $6.50 Street Car Special, we can’t imagine how folks could stay away.