Old windows are the reason a foothill house is cold in January and hard to cool in July. Single pane glass, weatherstripping that gave up years ago, and frames that have moved with the house until nothing seals. It costs you every month you leave it. We replace windows and doors across Placerville, Cameron Park, Shingle Springs and the rest of El Dorado County, from one failed unit to every opening in the house.
Most of what we do is replacement work on houses that are thirty or forty years old, which is a good share of what is standing around here. Entry doors, patio doors and sliders are part of the same trip, and they matter more than people expect, because a front door that has dropped on its hinges leaks air the same way a bad window does. We will tell you which openings are actually worth doing first if the whole house is not in the budget this year.
Windows are made to your openings, so there is a wait between the measure and the install, usually a few weeks depending on what you choose. Once they arrive most houses are finished in a day or two, and every opening we take apart is closed up the same day, so nothing sits behind plastic overnight. Doors run the same way. You will have the measure date and the install date in front of you before anything is ordered. If you are doing the house in stages, we will start with the openings that are costing you the most, which is usually the west facing glass and whatever is nearest to where you actually sit in the evening. The rest can wait for next year without anything looking half finished.
Retrofit or Full Frame
A retrofit fits the new window inside the existing frame and is the faster, cleaner option when that frame is still sound. Full frame replacement takes the old unit back to the studs and is the right call when there is rot, or when the size of the opening is changing. We look at the actual wall before we tell you which one you need. The tell is usually at the bottom corners of the frame, where water has been sitting for years, and it takes about a minute to check with a screwdriver. A company that quotes retrofit on every opening without looking is quoting the easy job, not the right one.
The Part That Keeps Water Out
A window is only as good as the flashing and the trim around it. We detail the sill, tie the flashing into the housewrap and finish the trim so the wall sheds water the way it is supposed to. Doors get the same treatment, with the hardware set so it closes right the first time and keeps closing right. It is unglamorous work that nobody photographs, and it is the entire difference between a window that is still dry in fifteen years and one that quietly rots the wall underneath it. When a window fails early, it is almost never the window itself.
What Happens at Every Opening
A window job is easy to quote badly. The units themselves are the simple part, and the difference between an install that lasts and one that leaks is everything that happens in the eighteen inches around the opening. That work is invisible the day it is finished and painfully obvious five winters later. This is what we do at every opening, on every job, whether it is one window or the whole house.
- Measuring every opening on site, never off a plan
- Ordering the units and staying on the lead time
- Removing the old window or door and hauling it away
- Retrofit or full frame install, whichever the wall needs
- Flashing tied into the housewrap so the wall stays dry
- Interior and exterior trim finished properly
- Insulating, sealing and setting the hardware square
- Every opening closed the same day it is opened
On a whole house we sequence the openings so you are never left with a wall open overnight and never without a front door. Most of the disruption people expect from a window job comes from crews that open more than they can close before dark. We would rather do four openings properly in a day than eight badly.