There are of course many exclusive neighborhoods in Lake Oswego. This is a home in one of them.

This particular home is outfitted with Kolbe Wood Windows & Doors. For the most part, the wood windows on this home appear to have been very well maintained. And this particular project is a case in point.

Our client has apparently been keeping a pretty close eye upon the windows as evidenced by the fact that they have caught the problem in this back facing bank of windows before extensive and substantial damage has occurred.

For example, you may have to click on this photo and enlarge it in order to even see the early stages of water-penetration that caught their eye.

Upon further inspection on the exterior, it was quickly ascertained that the horizontal seams at the top of the horizontal mull-post covers had been compromised (breached), which is to say that the caulking-seam had failed.

In fact, all four of them had experienced some degree of water penetration. Again, due to the diligence of our clients observations, the damage was minimized. You may want to click on the photo to enlarge it for a better view of the exposed mulls.

It was deemed that all four covers should be replaced, and that some relatively minor repairs to the mull-post components should be made. Our service technician is shown here treating the unfinished structural components with a fungicide before buttoning everything back up.

All the pertinent exterior seams and joints on the entire assembly are carefully examined, cleaned and resealed with the best exterior grade caulking money can buy.

Preventative maintenance is most always money very well spent.

Especially when it comes to maintaining wood windows and doors. They are among the more important, complex, multifaceted and expensive items to be found on the exterior envelope of a house. Well worth the cost to maintain.

As a company who repairs windows & doors for a living, one of the first things we might see when looking at a house like this, is the lack of eves over the windows.

Actually, we’ve been repairing the wood-clad Pozzi windows on this house for years. This particular mulled assembly (above) is the victim of some of the more serious water-damage we’ve seen because of the southerly exposure it faces.

If you enlarge the above collage of photos, you may be able to better see some of the damage. First, the telltale signs of cancer showing up through the paint on the interior side. And then that which is seen once disassembly begins.

And on this particular project, the damage extended beyond the window assembly into the surrounding rough-opening wall components. David Castro is shown here finishing up the structural repairs to the house around the opening.

After covering the opening with plywood, David turns to repairing the window-jamb (frame) components.

Although this photo doesn’t show it, the jamb components had sustained substantial water-damage.

While David works on the jamb assembly, Tim Afonin is milling new stiles & rails for the window-sash.

Bruce Hinkenlooper takes one of the new awning sash for a test-drive.

The interior trim is installed.

Our clients here told us they were going to be looking for a condo.

In the parlance of window-speak, this window assembly is known as an XO configuration.

The “X” stands for “operable,” and the “O” stands for “picture” or “non-operable.”
And the window assembly is “read” or “sequenced” from left to right (the same as reading this sentence). And this is to be applied as viewed from the exterior. This is how window-folks are able determine which sash, and which kind of sash we are speaking of when communicating with one another.

Thus, in this case, the window-sash on the right, as viewed from the exterior is a non-operable (O) sash. As you can see, the wood sash is so water-damaged that the extruded aluminum-cladding is peeling off the bottom-rail of the sash.

The evidence is just as obvious when viewed from the interior. If you enlarge the photo, you may be able to see the damage a little better.

The wood in the bottom-rail and the stiles is simply disintegrating all the way through.

Unlike so many brands of wood windows that we repair, the Pella picture sash are unique in how they are installed into the jamb assembly.

The manufacturer really provides no means by which these sash can be easily removed for repair. If you enlarge the photo, you may be able to make out one of the many screws they use to hole the sash in place.

A generous assessment of why they do this might be for reasons of structural integrity. But it makes it challenging to work on these windows in the field. And expensive to repair. So the water-damaged components are painstakingly removed and the new material installed with the sash left in place.

After which the cladding is re-adhered to the sash (previous photo) with bracing material installed to hold the aluminum-cladding in place until the adhesive has opportunity to cure to some degree. And then all the seams are carefully masked for a professional application of caulking.

The finished product.

Lake Oswego. Kolbe Wood Windows with a factory-finished “Kynar” paint-job.

A number of high-end wood window manufacturers have played around with factory finishes such as this over the years.

And we suspect that if folks were to inspect their wood windows annually, looking for the various seams between the various components needing a dab of caulk, this finish & these windows would last for decades.

But manufacturers and/or builders are apparently reluctant to inform prospective clients that their products may require some maintenance if they live in regions subject to inclement weather.
These photos above are but a sampling of the water damage we were contracted to correct.

Consider what the window-package on this house cost. $75,000 to $ 100,000 or more? Would you be willing to risk scaring-off a client with warnings about the possible demise of the windows if they are not maintained? If you click on the photo, you might better make out the damage hiding beneath the paint.

One aught not think this is a Kolbe Window problem.

This is a “wood-window” problem, and we repair every brand known to modern man.

It’s huge business for us, but it’s really a tragedy because it’s an unnecessary use of natural resources that could be prevented if the word got out about the annual maintenance.

Even over the course of 20 or so years, the cumulative cost of the maintenance needed to protect the windows on a home like this would be but a fraction of what these repairs cost.

It may not require the skill level of a door and window mechanic to maintain the seams on your windows…many folks hire painters for this procedure. Although the truth be told, few are they who would know were the trouble-points are as well as someone who repairs them for a living.

One of many attractive homes in Lake Oswego.

A large front facing wood-clad Pozzi window with water penetration & resultant water damage.

Another of our impromptu on-site shops.

One of the two water damaged stiles. The stiles are the vertical sash components around the glass.

And the horizontal bottom-rail. These are almost always the first component to go.

Russell’s detailed notes for machining new components.
There are several questions that many folks would naturally ask about a project like this. Number #1 might be to ask how it is that an aluminum-clad window became water-damaged, in that it is often thought that they are pretty-much bullet-proof as it relates to the weather.

That notion…”that they are bullet-proof”…may be one of the biggest handicaps for these products, because folks are disinclined to think that annual inspections might be in order. The irony is that if they were inspected regularly, a little caulking of some of the exterior seams would probably be all it would take to translate into decades of trouble-free windows.

Another question might be to ask whether or not an on-site custom fabrication of these components could possibly be cost effective when compared to just purchasing a new window sash.
The answer is that if a new sash that matched all the other original windows, and/or would fit in the existing jamb assembly was available…the answer would be absolutely not!

But of course, most series of windows eventually get phased out…even among the window manufacturers that stay in business for decades and decades.
Replacing the entire window assembly, jamb and all would be considerably more expensive than what we charged for this project…but even if it wasn’t more expensive, you still have the issue of the windows not looking like all the other original windows.

And with regard to the aluminum cladding…we were able to reuse the original cladding materials.
If for some reason, the cladding wasn’t reusable, then we would not have been able to pull this off. But that’s rare.
By the way, we repair & rebuild a lot of windows like this, clad or not clad…ALL BRANDS. No manufacturer is exempt from this type of damage, depending upon the exposure to the elements and whether or not property owners employ preventative maintenance.

Barrington Heights in West Linn.

The little red arrows are pointing to evidence of water-damage in the window sash.

The notes and photos we take during our preliminary inspections aid us later when…

…we’re going over the project with our filed technicians, discussing logistics and other pertinent strategies…

…for determining what charges we’re going to propose for the project.

If you enlarge this photo by clicking on it, you will likely see why the wall structure below this window was also substantially water-damaged.

See the wrinkles in the paint around the 2 or 3 dark spots?

99% of the time, the wrinkles indicate sections of wood that have shrunk due to the rot eating the wood away.

David Castro showing off some of his handiwork.

Mr. Castro has distinguished himself as a door & window mechanic par excellence.

Northwest Heights, just north of Forest Heights. An area well known among those who know such things, as an area where doors, windows and exterior envelopes are sorely tested by the storms that blow in off of the southwestern pacific ocean.

Two back facing Weathershield wood-clad casement windows in our clients home, are among the many openings facing southwest along this ever increasingly populated hillside.

The insulated glass in both sash had lost their seals, causing the stereotypical moisture to form between the double panes…what many folks refer to as the glass “fogging-up.”

As with almost all modern wood windows today, the muntins are merely a simulation of a true-divided lite sash. Each sash only has one large insulated (double-pane) glass unit in it.

Often, we can still replace the glass, removing the muntins which are adhered directly to the glass & reinstalling them onto the new glass. But given that the original glazing had failed, translating into some water-damage to the sash, which is likely what also…

…translated into these glass-seals to fail, it was determined that we would just order new sash from Weathershield.

As you may or may not be able to tell from these photos, this particular window assembly is referred to by the industry as an OX assembly. One sash is non-operable, or what they call a picture casement window,…

…while the other sash is a crank-out casement. In the previous photo, Tim Afonin is shown transferring the hardware onto the new sash, which is the operable of the two sash.

After reinstalling both replacement sash, Tim masks off around the seams of the non-operable sash…between the sash itself and its surrounding jamb assembly and then fills the reveal (space) with silicone caulking to protect the opening.

More and more folks are asking us to do this on openings with such extreme exposure to such extreme weather. Thanks to fellow technician Steve Hilt for taking some good photos here.

This is another project involving wood windows where the window sills have rotted to the point of developing holes into which water consequently channeled into the wall cavities below.

This bank of three Pella wood double-hung windows, and the two mulled double-hungs in the adjoining wall are the windows with the rotten sills as shown in the next photo.

It’s quite understandable that this type of damage would go unnoticed for extended periods of time. Most folks have much more to do than to go around inspecting their windows every year or two.

But the impetus to do so, if known…is potentially thousands and thousands of dollars in savings. So anyway, back to the job at hand, we carefully removed the jamb assemblies from the rough-openings.

As you can see, we employed the use of a man-lift, which was obviously needed to access the openings from the exterior.

We were able to use it to retrieve the sash and the jamb assemblies, and carefully lower them to our somewhat impromptu shop area that we had set up below.

Since we really never know the full extent of what we are going to find when we start pulling window assemblies out of walls…we come equipped for just about anything. Many people might be surprised with how tooled up each of our vans are.

And so we repaired the various wood window components as needed, as in milling (on-site) new sills and jambs & exterior trim components as needed. This is one of the skills we possess. And while some will ask if it isn’t less expensive to replace them with new windows…and while the answer sometimes is yes, it’s helpful to remember that (for example) this particular line of Pella windows are no longer made, so replacement is not always a viable option when it’s important that the windows in a house match.

While the windows are repaired, we have others back up on the man-lift to address those ramifications related to the hole in the window sill. Now technically…a “sill-pan” would be considered by some to be part of a flashing system. And indeed, a sill-pan would have kept this subsequent damage in the wall below from occurring. And I can assure you that there is a growing chorus of construction related folks who would scoff at the notion of installing windows without sill-pans.

But even now, as of this writing, many years since we completed this project…sill-pans are still not used in the majority of window installations. Although high end construction would probably be an exception to that ascertain, I do suspect that it’s just a matter of time before general building-codes will require it in regions with weather patterns such as ours in the Willamette Valley.

Lake Oswego. Judging from what clients tell us, Pozzi windows have a relatively poor reputation. No doubt, this is due in part, to their saturation of the Oregon wood window market.

But we can assure you that the water damage related travails associated with Pozzi windows is in no way unique to Pozzi windows. All the early Pine windows have been sorely tested in the Willamette Valley.

Marvin, Pella, Kolbe & Kolbe, Hurd, Weather Shield, Andersen, Crestline, Sierra Pacific and Windsor, just to name a few. Most, if not all of them are now pressure-treating their pine wood, which has seemingly been a game changer.

And Pozzi, which was acquired by Jeld-Wen, was one of the first to do this.
But whether or not they are pressure-treated or not, or whether the wood windows are aluminum-clad or not, if they are exposed frequently to Willamette Valley weather directly, they should be inspected annually or semiannually at the least.

And as the wood joints and seems begin to open-up they should be caulked, and if the paint is starting to fade, they should be repainted.

This may sound like we are overstating the obvious, yet rarely is it done. But we can guarantee you that those who do the maintenance save thousands of dollars.

As some of the previous photos indicate, this home was beginning to show the signs of some of the damage we see almost every day. A number of the sash needed stiles and/or rails replaced.

Such as our technician Tony Gits is shown here replacing.

The mulled casement window assembly in the bonus room above the garage was beyond repair. It had to be replaced entirely. Jeld-Wen was the brand our client chose. That window was so rotten that water had been funneling through the rotten window sills.

And as you can probably figure out, this funneled water ended up in the wall cavity below. This of course resulted in the need to replace water damaged siding (see previous photo), structural wall components (studs) and some drywall work.

All those natural finished wood windows set against the beige stucco, the green grass and the woodlands behind, not to mention the world-class architecture…this house and its setting may be worthy of a painting, don’t you think?

And while we must confess to the obvious aesthetic appeal of naturally finished wood windows…they do not weather well in the Willamette Valley unless thoroughly protected from direct exposure to moisture.

And even then, they would need to be touched up every couple years or so wherever they were exposed to direct sunlight. And yes, those are “True-Divided-Lite” windows. No Simulated-Divided-Lites here.

Case in point: almost every single window on the south and east elevations of this house are showing water penetration. This was among the tamest evidences.

This was among the worst, and (we were told) this structure is just over a decade old.

So we were consulted and then contracted to re-glaze the bottom (and some sides) of every window (pane) shown in these photos, plus the ones beneath the other gable at the other end of the house shown in photo #1. And by re-glaze, we’re talking about taking the sticking off the bottom, and many along the sides and really re-glazing the glass on the exterior. Not simply CAP-GLAZING.
Yes, that’s a radius-glass window. You might want to enlarge this photo.

We’re thankful for the work, we really are. We’re a little mystified at the architects and builders who are apparently not privy to these limitations of related physics. Maybe they’re from the sunbelt where Willamette Valley type weather is a non-issue.

Our client, the property owner expressed his mystification over his expensive windows having these kinds of problems already.

There are those who probably think we should keep our mouths shut and just be grateful for the never ending source of revenue. Well, we’re grateful. But there are limitations to the satisfaction that can be realized when you’re profiting off the “easily avoidable” misfortune of your fellowman.

There’ll always be the need for door and window repairs, but this just seems excessively wasteful. These windows will never stop having these type of problems. We slowed down the 2nd law of thermodynamics, but mother nature will trounce these windows.