I have a walk-out to a flat roof on the second story of my house that has had a few leaks in the past. I'm having a roofer come and patch around the walk-out door (where the leak originates from). He has suggested that I raise the door about four inches (it's only about two inches now... this'll give me six) but I'm not certain how to go about it. My thought is to cut two inches off the top and two inches off the bottom of the door and add a piece of lumber at the sill. But this is too simplistic, isn't it? Oh... there's a storm door as well but I think I can just leave that alone since it closes on the outside (that is, not flush with the sill) The outside wall is just shingles so there shouldn't be any great impediments to doing something a little more involved... but I don't want this to be a huge undertaking either. Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks...

I am thinking about replacing my twelve 70-year old single pane wood windows with double-pane wood windows. The problem is, one of my walls has had a little bit of water inside, wich has damaged the plaster a little. Two reasons: A badly placed/tilted window a/c unit the previous owner had (and that has been removed) in an upstair room would lead to water in the window frame and into the wall both in that room and in the kitchen wall in the level below. Also, this week's heavy rains, and a overflooding gutter right above the window, would lead to water between the window and the annoyingly placed aluminum frame of a inexistent old storm window. In short, I have water in my wall, partly because the windows in the room upstair create a perfect trap for water to get stuck there and filtrate into the wall Question: Can I just go ahead and replace the windows (getting rid of the annoying aluminum frame), and later deal with the "water in the wall problem? Or do I really need to fix the wall/replaster the wall at the same time as I replace the windows? I would prefer to replace the windows now and wait to fix the wall later, since I want to renovate my kitchen next year and deal with the kitchen's damaged wall plaster then, not now. Thanks! - Carlos