Wood Windows

Built in 1858, the Northrup, Blossum & Fitch Building @ S.W. Yamhill & Naito Parkway is the lone survivor of the infamous 1873 fire that pretty much destroyed the rest of the block.

On the day we arrived with the property management company to inspect the windows, there was scaffold erected, which made examination of the damaged windows a breeze.

It’s no surprise that 156 year old windows might have some problems at this stage of the game. Actually, it was quite apparent that these were NOT the original windows.

Given that they had wood-stops around the glass on the exterior, and insulated glass in them, it’s a fair assumption that they are less than 30 years old. But as you can tell from the first photo,…

…these wood windows have virtually no protection from the elements. Add to that, the loss of the protection Lead-Paint used to provide, and the difficulty inspecting these 2nd and 3rd story windows from the exterior, it’s no wonder they would be in this condition.

So we were contracted to replace a number of the wood sash.

Here are some of the new sash stored at our warehouse. As you can see, we had them pre-painted per our client’s instructions.

Unfortunately for us, the scaffold was gone by the time we went to install the new windows.

Fortunately for us, technician Phil McNair and his comrade manning the camera are still able to make short work of the process.

Problem solving. It is our stock in trade. If there is one thing we’ve come to expect in this business, it’s the unexpected problems that our trade requires that we learn to solve.