The Replacements: Days Two, Three and Four

So much has happened in the last three business days!

Our contractor has installed 12 of the 16 windows that we ordered from Andersen.

All of the windows replaced since my last window post were double hung windows. Most of them are still double hung windows. The exceptions are those narrow windows in the second step back of the north wall. Those windows are now picture windows (that is, they do not open). Andersen does not make 14" wide double hung windows. In fact, a local company, Walbrook Mill and Lumber, was the only manufacturer we could find who would make a double hung window that narrow. Unfortunately, their quote didn't fit our budget. So we went with Andersen, and hope that these little pictures won't negatively affect our excellent cross ventilation too much.

Installation has been a rocky road these last three days. Thursday it snowed, but our contractor still managed to install three, second-floor windows before the weather completely shut down his operation.

Those three windows were fast going, under two hours of work each, and at that pace, barring further acts of gods, this chapter in our story would have been finished at the time of my writing this post.

But paces change and gods act and, as mentioned before, we have yet to install all that we have to install.

Water is mostly to blame, and neglect, a recurring theme. It's like water and neglect got hitched and went on a decades-long crime spree through this house.

Sometimes they brought in extra muscle, like that psycho weed tree growing out of a second floor window, busting through the sill and taking out whole courses of brick.

That first picture shows the view of a tree growing out of an exterior window sill, as viewed from inside the house. In the next picture, the tree, sub-sill, and first course of brick, have been romoved. Let's zoom in.

Do you see the tree root poking its head up, right in the corner of where brick once was? That root, at that spot is a half inch in diameter. Terrifying.

I ran downstairs and grabbed the herbicide to douse the root while the cut was fresh, and our contractor rebuilt a temporary sill to protect the house and install the window. In the spring, when the weather warms to mortar setting temperatures, we will revisit this spot.

Oh, and that white stuff on the revealed window frame is mold. Another of water and neglect's co-conspirators.

And so window frames were mended, as their problems were discovered, and window installation continued at a slower pace.

Tomorrow, I'll write all about the kitchen and gnome room windows. They got hit the worst and will require the most repair.