How To Fix Old Wooden Windows

If y'all ain an old house, there's a pretty good chance your windows, which probably don't work/are painted shut, have trivial pulleys at the meridian of the window frames. Have you e'er seen them working on windows that are either restored or somehow survived all this fourth dimension without a single lazy painter cutting the ropes and painting the sashes close? They're really cool when they're working. It truly is a shame that then many of them are non-operation. When Christy convinced me three years ago that we should paint the firm, we also decided that we would effort to restore some of our cool old windows. In this mail service, I'm going to hash out how I took autonomously our sometime windows and began the restoration process.

If you ain a home, you'll probably break a window at some point. Charlie broke our kickoff.

This is actually one of my favorite topics and there is some back story: 2 years agone, before we started scraping and painting, and before I considered myself a DIYer, our canis familiaris Charlie, who looks and so sugariness in the photo above, shattered ane of our front windows while we were at work. I call back she was barking at a true cat and tried to become through the window to become at the feline pest. By the time I got dwelling, it was too belatedly to call a pro (who would yous call to fix a window?), so I decided I'd try to figure it out and went to Lowe'due south.

The lady at Lowe's cut me some drinking glass and, quite incorrectly, told me to hold the glass in the window sash with some caulk. So, that's what I did. I figured out how to put in the glass and caulked information technology into place and felt very manly. (Please don't utilize caulk on your windows. Use glazing compound. I'll become to that in a carve up mail on properly replacing glass)

I got more practise. In the next few months, our dogs broke through the other 2 windows in the front end of our house likewise. Furniture changes were fabricated so that they no longer accept access to that bank of windows. We haven't had this problem since. You can see in the photo above that, by the time I replaced the final window, I was and then perturbed that I didn't fifty-fifty clean upwards all of the broken drinking glass between the window sash and the storm shutter. Information technology'south been there for the last two years, until today when I removed the storm shutter and finally cleaned it up.

Remove the moulding that holds in the bottom sash using a small pry bar.

Later that feel with emergency glass replacement, I started to feel like I could actually figure some of this home maintenance stuff out on my own. I come across these windows as the outset of my life as an old house crazy nutjob. The rest of this post will detail how I disassembled these onetime windows and got them set to work properly again.

The bottom sash is removed. Cheque out the layers of white paint above where the lesser sash used to exist.

The kickoff step was to remove the tempest shutters so that I'd have admission to both sides of the windows. This is of import because both sides are painted close. You lot've got to interruption that seal on both sides or you won't exist able to open the windows, no affair have many days per week yous go to CrossFit.

In social club to remove the upper sash, you've got to remove the thin strip of wood that'due south belongings information technology in place. Await at the pigment buildup. Information technology takes a lot of piece of work to get things moving again.

Once you've got access to both window sashes, inside and out, use a razor blade or abrupt knife to cut betwixt the sashes and the window box. You've got to break that seal. The next affair is to remove the trim that holds the bottom sash in identify. Utilize a small pry bar and a rubber mallet to pry off the trim. Be careful not to break it. In that location'southward a pretty good adventure you won't exist able to find replacement trim that matches perfectly.

I apply a pry bar and a safe mallet to remove the thin strip between the sashes.

Getting the bottom sash out was like shooting fish in a barrel. Getting the height sash out is much more obscenity-inducing. The trouble is that little piece of wood that separates the ii sashes. It fits very snuggly into a groove and should NOT be nailed into place. As you lot see in the photo above, some clown nailed mine in place then I've broken two of the terminal three I've tried to remove. Information technology's also tricky considering of the mode the upper sash uses this slice of woods like a runway. You can run into in one of the photos above that the upper sash actually protrudes only by the edge of this piece of forest, keeping you from pulling it straight out of the groove. You've got to twist it while you pull, which is really catchy when it'south also attached to the side by side boards with many layers of paint, and some stupid nails.

Once the upper sash is moving again, you lot can meet both sets of pulleys.

One time yous've removed the little piece of wood from the groove, the upper sash is free to come out of the window box, assuming yous've besides cutting the pigment all the way around AND at that place aren't too many layers of pigment below it in its tracks to allow for motion. I actually had to fleck away some of the paint straight below this sash to permit it to slide down. You can come across the layers of paint blocking the tracks in the photo below. You'll demand to scrape all of that off it yous desire the windows to role properly.

All that paint makes it really hard to open or close windows, fifty-fifty if they aren't painted shut.

In order to get at the weights and restore the pulleys, you've got to remove the large boards which brand up the outside of the window box. I've learned to cut the paint between these boards and the wall. Otherwise, you lot can remove big chunks of plaster along with the board.

Piece through the pigment around the edges of the confront board so that you don't rip apart your plaster when you remove the board.

Use a pry bar to lift up the console and you'll have access to the weight pocket hidden between the windows. The photo below shows the pocket betwixt two windows: four pulleys, two for the bottom sashes, two for the top sashes.

Here's what's hiding behind that face board. The weights are much heavier than you might think.

Once everything was taken apart, I did my best to scrape all of the old paint off of the tracks and the rest of the window box. Article of clothing a mask and some gloves.

Remove every bit much of the former pigment as possible from the sash channels.

I scraped nearly all of the pigment out of the sash channels and then that they can slide more smoothly.

This next photo shows how the window sashes are actually continued to the weights that are hidden in the walls. The rope ties to the weight, wraps around the pulley, hides in a groove on the side of the window sash, and is secured in a piffling pocket. When replacing the ropes, I just tie a knot. Some jerks drove nails through my ropes then they were really difficult to remove.

The ropes fit into grooves in the side of the window sashes. It's very smartly designed.

In one of my next posts, I'm going to go into detail about replacing drinking glass panes and reglazing the windows. In the photo beneath, you can come across the glazing chemical compound pulling away from the drinking glass. The purpose of glazing compound is to weatherproof your windows, so it is inaffective if it isn't sealed onto the glass. It needs replacing every 50 years or so if information technology's done properly.

I'll postal service the second part of this projection in the near future, detailing how I put the windows back together. I'thousand also planning a post on replacing glass and glazing the sashes, as that can be useful no thing what kind of windows you've got.

If you've got questions about this post or suggestions for the site, contact us at oldhousecrazy@gmail.com or leave a comment below. Thank you for reading. -Robby

Source: https://oldhousecrazy.com/2012/07/17/restoring-old-pulley-windows-to-their-former-glory-diy-part-1-tear-down/

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