Rotting Window Frames

A carpenter can cut out rotted sections and replace with new lumber, blend and paint.

Reply to
Van Chocstraw
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That stuff is just epoxy thinned and marked up a couple 100%. Get ordinary epoxy and after mixing it, thin with alcohol. You can add up to 10% alcohol without affecting the results.

Lowes and Home depot sell brick molding and window sash. It's not that hard to cut out the bad parts and replace them on most windows. Unless the rot has gone way in.

Reply to
jamesgangnc

Peter-

I have done extensive epoxy repair on my 1930's home in SoCal. A fair number of the the sills (redwood) & sash frames (missing glazing compound) were neglected for quite awhile before I got to them.

The redwood sills were badly weathered & eroded but no rot (clear old growth heart wood). Only one sash (both lower corners were "gone") was rotted. None of the window framing was rotted.

The suggestions about using epoxy products are good ones. I used (1987) Bondo on two window sills (redwood) with VERY POOR results. A call to Bono's tech support line got the following response "while we recommend the use of Bondo for wood repair, we don't recommend its use on redwood".

I switched to

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wood repair products; LiquidWood & WoodEpox. The stuff ain't cheap but it really works & really lasts! Repairs that I did in 1987 just need to be sanded & repainted. East facing sills especially.

I was burned so badly by my Bondo experience and the epoxy I used preformed so well. I never gave any Bondo products another shot at exterior wood repair on any of my work. Luckily it only screwed up two window sills.

In the latest "go 'round' (2006) I rebuilt the lower corners of a rotted window sash. I embedded SS all thread

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in the sound wood, jigged up the sash and rebuilt the corners. Like icing a cake. When cured, I shaped & sanded it. Perfect result.

BUT if I had had a number of sashes to do, I might have set up & done a a wood repair or just bought or built new sashes. For a single sash it "may" have made sense to do the epoxy repair.

that's all about the repair side....but why do you have the rot? Paint failure? Water intrusion? Bad window material?

My sashes are nearly 80 years old...yellow pine? maybe? The only rot I've experienced is due to my lack of proper maint but SoCal aint Toronto.

Per other posts.....window / sill repair via epoxies is a LOT of work.

I learned my lesson.....keep windows & sills properly painted. At the first sign of paint film failure, sand them & give them a another coat. Paint needs to be sound to protect the wood.

cheers Bob

Reply to
DD_BobK

Polyester plastic (which Bondo IS, DOES absorb water. So does Nylon and some of the Acetates. They will expand when wet, and severe freeze-thaw cylcles will cause it to disintegrate if wet. Epoxy, generally, does NOT absorb water.

Reply to
clare

Unpainted it IS a lousy filler - and it does not work well filling holes that get wet from behind. It gets wet, and when it freezes, it "pops" That's why seams need to be well sealed before applying bondo if you want the job to last - solder or "alumiplex" filler make it waterproof - as does epoxy.

Cheap fiberglass boats made with polyester resin have a definite lifespan limitation. Built with epoxy, much longer life span.

Reply to
clare

Out of interest, what manufacturer??

Reply to
clare

Well, epoxy absorbs far less water, but it does absorb water. The other factor is that epoxy usually gets various fillers blended with it, that may absorb water more easily than the epoxy. The amount of water absorbed by epoxy can be a factor on the botoom of a boat, but probably not on a window sash. There is a special epoxy paint used as a barrier coat to seal fiberglas boat hulls. It has a filler that lays flat like fish scales to help make the barrier, and requires several coats to be effective and completely block moisture. unmodified Epoxy alone will pass moisture.

Even plexiglas has a specification for how much moisture it will absorb. The number is not ZERO.

Reply to
salty

Almost all older windows can be repaired, maintained, and made energy efficient without replacing them.

Learn how to do it yourself:

Historic HomeWorks Forum, windows section:

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RetroVideo. Live Video Conferences & Replays, some on window topics:
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Save America's Windows
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Workshops & Training:
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In Canada Olgunquin College in Perth is training preservation tradespeople in their Heritage Carpentry program to do this kind of work. Get in touch with them (613 267-2859 ?) and find out where their students are now working to find an outfit that can do the work.

John by hammer and hand great works do stand

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Reply to
johnleeke

They are made by "Feldmann", built somewhere near London, Ontario. Very good windows, except for some poor wood in them, however the company folded during the last recession in the late '80s or early '90s.

Reply to
EXT

I'd like to thank all who replied. I'm not sure why the windows rotted, but suspect that they just didn't keep up the painting. Eventually the wood weathered and split, letting moistur in. I'm not in the house yet. We take possession next month and December in the Greater Toronto Area is not prime time to be up on the side of a house working on your windows, but I'll be up there in the spring.

Epoxy seems like the way to go. I'll spend some time at Home Depot and see what they have there.

Peter H

Reply to
Peter H

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