This thread could potentially help do-it-yourselfers avoid common mistakes. Please comment on some of the worst installation practices you've ever seen, and how these mistakes could have been avoided.

 

A few years back, I was working on a remodel/addition of a house where the owner wanted to reuse existing windows. During demo we found that the installer used adhesives, screws through the jambs, and expansion foam to put the windows in. Not only did the windows not open properly due to the expansion foam, but we had to cut the windows and frame out the house with a sawzall, and then carefully pull 2X4s off the windows. Also, since the new construction was 2X6 and the old 2X4, the finish carpenter had a hell of a time. It took a good portion of a few days. When you factor in labor, it probably would have been a wash just to install new windows.

 

Ha ha! That's a good one. We have quite a few farmers around here, and (nothing against farmers, mind you) some like to do things like that as well. Everything has to get used somewhere, no matter how much longer it takes to use it than to just go buy something new.

My least favorite is when they want their old worthless storm door put on their brand new entry door. You tell them that it just isn't going to work right, but they make you put it on anyway. And then they complain when it won't go shut behind them.

(just shaking my head...)

 

I just love the guys that think caulking is mans best freind. I got called into fix a sloppy install of new replacement windows. The windows were capped previously-they covered brickmold only since aluminum storms sat on outside stops. Well new windows installed the guy did'nt bother to cap bilnd stops, he just got out his trusty caoulking gun and prceeded to "paint" the caulk around teh perimter of teh window to blend in the weathered stops into the white coil. Took me hours to cut/scrap/cuss the caulking off the windows/stops so I caould jump the entire brickmould/outside stop and go back to the window with the cap work...what a mess.

Same job, he installed a new entry door and like mentioned homie wanted old crusty storm reinstalled. Well homie complained about daylight coming through the bottom where Z bars meet the sill, the dumb azz squirted CLEAR silicone in there. Homie was'nt so much upset about the non sealing factor, just did'nt like seeing light. Honestly was'nt a darn thing I could do with the old storm door and expained that, but did offer to remove storm door and clear silicone and use white (to match the door) silicone and that would stop daylight from coming through....;.they were happy as a clam.

Also a local siding/window company owner's daughter was building anew house and they sent out the #1 installer they had to install her windows (new construct) well, the moron did'nt caulk around the RO before setting the window before isntalling it. First rain storm that spring they had water coming in like crazy. Sent same moron back out, this time he took his sawzall and cut between J channel and window to cut off nailing flange and then proceeded to squirt silicone up the whazoo back in there. It stopped the water for the rest of the summer, have'nt heard anything other and dont really care to be honest. But my biggest concern with that is now the only thing literally keeping that window in place is the abundant silicone and batt insulation around the window-NO mechanical fastners and NO outside stops!!

And I was nervious when I first went off on my own if I could do as good a work as these "professionals"...wish /i woulda started sooner

 

This is a door story actually but is along the same line. The job was to replace two hollow-core interior doors that were being used as exterior doors. One was from the house to the garage and the other was from the garage to the back yard. The door from the house to the garage opened out (not the norm in our parts). I carefully removed the casing from the inside. As soon as I pried off the last piece, the door fell into the garage, missing a brand new Cadillac by about three inches. Evidently, the person who installed it originally had someone hold the pre-hung door in place from the garage side and nailed the trim on the other side. There were no shims, no nails on the casing on the hinge side of the door (except to the jamb) and no insulation. The other door was done the same way.

 

I love these stories- reading them makes me feel like a real craftsman!

I can relate to the caulking stories. Especially the guys who must buy it by the case and pump in tube sized beads of caulking in rotton areas that ought to be replaced.

And WHY ON EARTH do customers think that storm doors ought to be sealed up with caulking??? I run into so many people who complain about the exact thing IHI mentioned... seeing light out the bottom of the z-bar, or feeling air come around the z-bar when they leave their prime door open! And then there's the people who caulk the tar out of their storm windows and want you to save them when you take them off. They've invariably been caulked on with clear Lexel, which is about like trying to cut rocks with a knife. And all the screw heads are caulked over. That's when I get out the screwdriver and hammer, and knock the heads off of the screws.

All this was leading up to my story of the week, which I finished repairing today. Some goofball had installed some vinyl replacement windows... 3 individual doublehungs (with a 1x6 on edge as a mullion) and a common mulled 1/2 circle top over the middle doublehung...in the 2nd story gable end of a house, above a hip porch roof, and done quite a shoddy job of it. The roofers had also done a shoddy job of flashing the shingles where they meet the gable end. Evidentally, no one wanted to remove the aluminum siding to do a proper job of flashing.

The customer had asked us to perform the repair, as the original installer would not come back, and the roof was leaking into the house, ruining their plaster, every time it rained from the north. First thing to do was remove the aluminum siding. Behind it was a patchwork of 1/4 Amoco fanfold, with pieces often doubled up on top of one another for no apparent reason. So we ripped off the fanfold, which was stapled with roofing staples to the slate/asbestos siding behind that. So we tore off all the slate siding, and got down to the original 6" cedar lap siding. Which brings us to the window installation.

This must have been the first window this guy had ever put in, and he obviously had no idea how to trim the outside. He have no thought whatsoever to the flashings above the circletop, which has absolutely no rough opening around it. It was basically fiberglass insulation covered with aluminum trim coil. The "brickmould" was a big conglomeration of 2x4's and 1x4's all nailed together to make a big box which stuck out way past the sill. The 1x6 mullions were "wrapped" but you can't bend something like that on a break and get it to be square, so he had staples every couple inches to keep the metal down. His circle top trim consisted of a 3/4 plywood semi-circle 1" wide. It was also riddled with rusty staples which held a piece of coil that looked like something from a kindergarten art class. All those rusty staples had a real nice look to them.

When we resheeted around the window, I cut a perfect semi-circle around the window rough opening, then installed some backer, and a nice piece of 1/2" osb that I cut kerfs in every 1", so that it would bend around the rough opening nicely. The windows got new stops, around their perimeter (they had none) and then the entire thing got rewrapped so that the aluminum trim coil would serve as the flashing behind the tyvek. The perimeter was sealed to the wrap job with Tyvek flash wrap (and flex wrap above the circle top).

Finally, new j-channels were installed around everything, ensuring that they would shed water out the bottoms. The old siding went right back up where it once was- only all the siding had to be trimmed back to fit around the newly wrapped window. I made the window trim wider than it was before to ensure all the aluminum siding would still be long enough!

Part of the original problem was that water around the window j-channels were being directed behind the roof flashings like a funnel. Now that everything is flashed and installed properly, this problem should be solved! It took about 10 hours start to finish, and about $250 in materials.

It's hard to believe that there are people out there doing such crappy work who are continuing to get paid for it. It's stories like this that make me afraid of applying layer after layer of siding onto the exterior of houses, thinking that since the previous layer is flashed, you don't have to worry about flashings on this one. I always think it's best to either tear everything off, or at least repaper and reflash everything before covering it up again.

 

that is precisely the reason our city went over the top with all the licsencing/bonding/insurance required, etc....we had all these retired factory workers that thought they knew what they were doing, liked the extra pocket change they could make doing odd/side jobs and homeowners as always like the below bottom dollar job cost. Well, sooner or later problems started to occur and insurance companies really started to put the pressure on cities to crack down on these so called handymen, and of course in the big picture it fell back onto us contractors. I completely understand why they did it, but sometimes inspectors just get a little overboard poiting stuff out, funniest part is when you ask, "well how would you do it/like it done" and 9 out of 10 times the answers the same, "do what you have to do" since by the book text book practices are not always practical/feasible/doable.

I have a huge problem with penny pinching homies and that can be atested to in a few of my posts. You usually get what you pay for, I realize 90% of people are on a budget which makes it even more important they use people that may cost a little more, but will do the job right the first time so you dont get into problems like you just had to fix. It's probably at least a 10:1 ratio of contractors that have no clue as to the 1 that does....and the one that does will always cost more. Job costs are probably 30% material and 70% expereince. (that mgiht not be 100% accurate but same principal)

 

XSleeper,
you are the expert but I am betting that 80% of window problems that people complain of with todays windows are really installation problems?
There are so many complaints in websites like this one where people blame one window company or another over problems with their new windows, but which read to me like an installation issue.
Your thoughts?

 

I know this is to Xsleeper, but I'll chime in with my personal opinion. First of all there IS a difference between window manufactuers, actual window quality and warranty-more so how the manufacturer handles their warranty. So is it fair to compare a (and I'm using the windows I sell as the comparison) a Menards Wenco cheapy standard that eveybody in the world seems to think is the window to get because it's cheap, compared to my Heartland windows that are 2.5X's the price on average. NO WAY. Just like with cars, trying to compare a chevette to a cadillac is unreasonable and unrealistic, same with base line windows compared to higher quality brand windows. The higher priced ones use better material, better parts, and have better quality since they're priced higher they have the long term parts/warranty built into their design.

Now when it comes to installation, I've installed more cheapy's than I care to admit so I could sell a job and put food on the table. Great installers have a huge role in taking crap and making it work (most of us are stuck in this boat since most home owners could care less about quality and long term, they just care about the now and bottom dollar.) And the flip side is you can have the other half of the installers that dont know which end of a hammer to hold, give them the best window ever made and it will not perform as designed.

Hope that was the answer your looking for, and I'm sure X will more than willingly back me up on this.

Edit, had to add my new favorite phrase:

The only people that can afford to buy the cheapest products are rich ones, they can afford to do stuff over.

 

Thanks for the compliment, Oberon, but I'm far too humble to call myself an expert. Like most carpenters, I'm still learning. I guess compared to the joker who put those windows in that I was talking about, maybe I am. ha ha! But I don't make it a practice to knock other people's work either- not a good way to make friends.

But you're right, and I can also agree with IHI. Installation is a huge part of any window installation. You can have the best window, and if an idiot puts it in, you're going to have all sorts of problems. A cheaper window that is installed well will certainly perform well, but as IHI says, you get what you pay for. FEMA and the NFRC have tried to standardize the grading of windows so that people can compare one window with another, and that has helped some, but it also confuses a lot of people. And honestly, those of us who work with windows every day can tell the difference between a good window and a piece of junk... but homeowners often cannot. That's where the salesman comes in, and if he's a slick Willie, he'll sell them a cheap piece of junk at an inflated price and make them think they're getting a good deal, which is just immoral. Like IHI, I prefer to sell and install high quality windows that will mean no service calls, and install them so that hopefully there are no problems down the road that are due to installation.

Whether one brand is better than another, I think it's fair to say the answer is yes. But so much of that is just opinion. For instance, my opinion of Anderson windows is that they are junk. Why? For starters, they're wood. Soft, thin wood. The only thing that holds their casements square is the glass. Their vinyl clad gets notoriously chaulky, and the glazing stops generally get brittle or even warp in the sun. Someone else might disagree with me because Anderson's are their favorites. But my opinions are based on my experience. In wood windows, I like Pellas, but I know some people think Pella's cladding is too thin and has some waves. I can't argue with that. Marvin's have a beefier cladding, but I just don't put in enough wood windows to have much of an opinion of Marvins.

There's 100,000 vinyl window manufacturers out there. I think you could put all of them in 3 catagories... Best, Good, Poor. I won't even consider putting in the poor quality windows. A guy's got to have some sort of standards, doesn't he? So my company basically deals with 2 vinyl window companies, our good quality window, and our best quality window. If people want a cheap window we tell them to go to Menards, because we have to stand behind what we sell.

We stay away from aluminum windows in residential applications because being in a heating climate, aluminum frames are just too cold- even when they have thermal breaks.

But back to installation, there are a lot of things that can go wrong when an idiot installs a window.

Relying on caulk as a flashing / using the wrong kind of caulking or not using caulk at all!
Installing windows out of square, or spread in the centers
Installing windows in rotton frames or wrapping over very rotton wood
Installing the installation screws too tight / or not at all!
Installing windows without sufficient shimming / or twisting the frame with tapered shims
Packing insulation too tight / not using insulation at all!
Overinsulating around frames with expanding foam products
Not giving attention to window flashing on top, or at corners
Not incorporating nailing fins into the building paper drainage plane
Not knowing how to wrap exteriors in a professional manner, or in a way that keeps water out
Ruining perfectly good trim by having said idiot trim your windows.
Trying to make a mismeasured window work regardless of what it will look like
Measuring so poorly that the old trim won't cover the window edge
Failure to notice and stop water infiltration from unknown sources above windows

I'm sure the list could go on and on. What's your take on this, Oberon? And are windows your main occupation?

 

Last year we had to install a Heavy steel commercial door. He already had someone else install a regular steel entrance door in a different part of the building. This is a bar keep in mind so he had one of his "regulars" install the first door. He must have bought the wrong door because we noticed when we got there that the regular door was installed backwards so it swung out and the hinges were on the outside of the building."Wouldn't take much work to pop the pins and get in there would it?"lol. So as we were working on the commercial door his buddy comes in for a drink.I hear the owner mention to him the door he put in isn't closing right.The guy says he'll take care of it.He goes to his truck comes back with a sledge hammer and starts to "adjust" the door by smashing the brick mold with the sledge.We just watched him and talk about laughing lol.
He got finished beating on the door went back in to finish his morning drink and told the owner he was all set.That was one of the worst jobs I've witnessed.

 

good info guys! thanks.

Actually, I do work directly with window manufacturers and I know exactly where you are coming from. For the most part, I work with top-end manufacturers and really don't have a lot of contact with the "two-guys-in-a-garage" type of companies.
I worded my question poorly, but as I always tell people - a lousy install will make even the best window pretty much worthless. A good install of even a bad window works much better.