A Vancouver home near the Columbia River. Among my personal favorite types of architecture. Notice the fairly substantial eves.
A portal between the 2nd story master bathroom and the hot-tub deck off the master bedroom. A classy touch.
Due to forces not completely explained, some type of damage has occurred as is…
…seen here at the bottom of the window. There’s more damage than this photo shows, but suffice to say it was significant enough to require replacement of this very expensive wood-clad…
…picture window. Our client related to us that there had previously been some structural issues with this section of the house. And so we surmise that there were forces brought to bear upon…
…the window assembly that resulted in the deformations to the aluminum cladded bottom portions of the original window assembly. Behold, the replacement window is delivered.
Corey employing great finesse in the removal of the original extruded aluminum clad brickmoulding.
Tim scopes out a relatively small amount of water-damage to the bottom portions of the rough-opening that resulted…
…in a minimal amount of change-order work to effect the necessary repairs. Some of the tongue-in-groove vertical cedar siding that…
…was removed had to be replaced. The exterior aluminum brickmould-trim was replaced with a Flex-Trim version of the same profile.
Lake Oswego. Founded in 1847 and named by Albert Alonzo Durham after Oswego, New York, was incorporated in 1910.
It was the hub of Oregon’s brief iron industry in the late 19th century and is today an affluent suburb of Portland.
We do a lot of work in Lake Oswego, as with many other surrounding Portland & Vancouver communities.
Such as this solarium reglaze & glass replacement.
We are experts at handling glass. We are what is known as glazers.
A Glazier is a construction professional who selects, cuts, installs, replaces, and removes residential, commercial, and artistic glass.
Glaziers also install aluminum storefront frames and entrances, glass handrails and balustrades, shower enclosures, curtain wall framing and glass and mirror walls.
We also know a considerable amount about the differing types of glass.
Not to mention the differing window & door products in which glass is used.
A Mt. Tabor area neighborhood and a client for whom we’ve now done a number of projects.
Although we offered to repair his leaky skylight, he was convinced it needed replacement.
Fortunately, finding a replacement that would work with the original custom flashing that was made for use with the standing seam steel roofing did not prove to be difficult.
And that was because the original skylight was also a Velux brand skylight.
You might be amazed how many skylight, window and door companies seemingly do not want their names on their products. What does that tell you?
Velux is easily the best known residential brand of skylight, due in large part to the companies successful marketing and also their quality control department.
But there are many brands that you can run into when repairing skylights is what you do for a living.
Supreme Skylights, Wasco Skylights, Solar Innovations, Sunptics, Domel Inc., Birdview Skylights, Artistic Skylight Domes Ltd., just to name a few.
We do lots of failed glass replacement on Skylights of just about every stripe. We have been known to track down and fix leaks, improperly applied flashing, failed glazing, rotten sash or jamb components, water damaged ceiling and/or structural truse components and drywall repair.
We were, for example, called upon to repair the drywall on this opening that was the result of a leak that was fixed when we replaced the skylight.
It’s somewhat difficult to see it from the street, but the value of this Lake Oswego home is significantly derived…
…from the view on the back side. This photo does not do the view any justice, but the view does help explain…
…the existence of this modest solarium structure & a number of other window structures on the backside
…of this home. Built in the 1980s, this solarium is constructed of your basic aluminum window…
…components and is glazed by means of aluminum snap-bead. It’s amazing that it hasn’t leaked before.
Several insulated glass units had failed (fogged-up) and our client chose to have us up-grade all the insulated glass to the latest 366 Low-E glass to help manage the heat…
…generation and the material fading properties of ultraviolet rays. We did this job in late December in the midst of some cold rain and even more daunting,…
…brisk wind gusts, which as you may be able to imagine, presents more than a little challenge for our crew to wrestle such large insulated glass units up onto a roof…
…without injury to self or damage to the glass. Projects like this in weather like this, tend to remind us of the years and years of cumulative experience and expertise…
…that we’ve garnered. Our crew is quite practiced at dealing with just about any weather contingencies. Even if it involves opening up a roof in the rain.
Solarium: Similar to a Sunroom, a room built largely of glass to afford exposure to the sun.
Solariums have glass roofs unlike sunrooms. Solariums are designed for warmth,…
…whereas sunrooms are designed for scenic view. — Wikipedia
And sometimes you achieve the benefits of both! Not a bad view for a master bedroom, is it…
Failed, foggy glass, water-intrusion and unmanageable heat generation created the motivation for this upgrade.
Low-E Glass means low emissivity, as it relates to the radiant energy (ultraviolet rays) of our sun.
It simultaneously filters out varying degrees of the heat generating & material damaging characteristics of this radiant energy…
…while also helping to keep the warm or cool air created by furnaces and air conditioners to the interior of the building, where & when you want it.
We’ve yet to meet a Solarium or a Sunroom that we couldn’t repair and substantially improve upon.
At the risk of sounding like we’re tooting our own horn, you will likely find that employing our services is a decision that will reflect well upon your judgment for years to come.
A STEEL framed solarium that is somewhat unique.
You may be saying to yourself that this is not a solarium INSTALLATION, and yet it is listed under the installation catagory of our portfolio.
The reason for this is two fold. We didn’t originally install this solarium structure, but as we often do, we disassembled and then reassembled a considerable amount of the various components. And we almost always are called upon to not only reinstall the most critical aspects of these structures, but also to redesign it. We’re speaking of those components that keep the weather out.
It seems obvious to us that if you have the problem-solving skills to disassemble, repair and then reassemble the myriad varying types of solariums and sunroom structures that exist, that installing new products would be a slam-dunk.
For years we’ve been correcting the design, installation and flashing mistakes of others on these structures.
If this doesn’t give someone an upper hand in their expertise and skillset, we simply don’t know what would.
You may note that we have also listed these projects under the REPAIR portion of the RESIDENTIAL WINDOWS catagory of our portfolio.
And so it is that you may notice many of these same projects listed under window repair. This was a marketing decision to get the word out regarding the type of work we do. We are always hearing clients tell us how they wished they had known that someone did this type of work years before they found us.
Our technitian Nate showing off his deglazing skills here.
After applying a liberal amount of double-sided glazing tape over the top of these unusal STEEL framed solarium components, the new insulated 366-Low-E glass in hoisted into position with great skill, care & fineese.
The upgrade from single-pane to double-pane in this assembly that sits over the kitchen area will greatly diminish the propensity for the glass to condensate all that warm moisture generated from the culinary arts.
This particular skylight installation in Lake Oswego had both fortuitous and difficult elements.
The fortuitous elements where the vaulted ceiling and the horizontal structural beams that made accessing the opening somewhat ideal from the interior.
The difficult elements pertained to the relatively steep slope of the roof and the fact that there were three layers of roofing.
As you can see in this photo, as well as the second of these photos, the first layer of roofing was cedar shake. If you click on the photo, you may be able to see it in a little more detail.
This can make the flashing portion of the installation a bit challenging. But challenges are what sharpen our skills and makes a completed job like this quite satisfying.