Hail-damaged windows can be repaired without full window replacement! Until recently victims of hail damage had only one option to restore their windows to pre-storm condition. That included the very costly and invasive project of window replacement.
Full Replacement Pit-falls
Consider for a moment the impact a project of that scope can have on your home and your family.
- An aluminum-clad window is secured in the wall by a nailing flange on the exterior side of the house wall. If your home is brick, stone, or stucco, it is impossible to remove the window frame without damaging the surrounding material. Picture the resulting appearance of your home after that brick, stone, or stucco has been patched back in around the new window.
- In many cases, a contractor may elect to not cut away the exterior material to remove the window. But wait, I just said that was the only way to do it right? Yes, but that’s not how it’s always done. Some contractors will remove the nailing flange and screw the new frame into the opening through the sides. Yes, it holds the frame in place. Now let’s talk about sealing, flashing, and water leaks. There is no way to wrap around the new frame and seal it to the wall using this technique. Good luck with that!
- What happens on the interior with a full window replacement? Drywall damage, painting, colors not matching, blinds not fitting, dust, mess…for days and days, and days. Your ultimate satisfaction comes down to the quality of contractors working in your home, their attention to detail, and respect for you and your home. Still keep in mind, the hail damage wasn’t inside your house, but now you have a major mess on your hands!
- I’ll save poor contractor service, quality, communication, integrity, and follow-up for another post.
A Better Idea
Fenster has a better way to repair hail-damaged windows. Removing the entire window is no longer necessary. In most cases, hail damage only occurs on the face of the sash panel. The sash is the glass and frame surrounding the glass that you open and close. On most aluminum clad windows, there is very little surface of the frame exposed and is often protected by the surrounding exterior finishes requiring only the sash panel by replaced. Not the whole window!
Our Quiksash for hail-damaged windows is an after-market sash replacement system engineered to retrofit directly into the existing window frame without modification and without affecting the fit, form, or function of the window. Fenster guarantees the same like, kind, and quality on every Quiksash model to closely resemble the original sash and not significantly change the appearance of the window in any way. When Quiksash is used on a home 10 years or older, the quality and efficiency of glass technology will exceed the original window actually upgrading the window from its original performance.
This is the first of a multi-part series on our Quiksash for hail-damaged windows products and their advantages over full replacement. Stay tuned for more. In the meantime, please visit our website, https://fenstersusa.com for more information about Quiksash and our other window repair products.
Ready to get started? Great! Check out our featured product line and gather all the details you need about ordering a replacement window for your home here. Then contact us today!
I had Coradco double hung windows in my house for 22 years, and recently had to replace the Jambliners in one of those windows. The process of purchasing the replacement Jambliner kit (doublehung balance kit) from Fensterusa was somewhat stressful for me because, while I am very handy, this was my first window repair and I did not want to create a problem for myself in the order process. I am happy to report that the kit worked as advertised and the install was successful. The following are some helpful hints to anyone else who attempts this for the first time:
1. The on-line diagram of the cross-section of the jambliner does not show the measurement for the width of the square plough. I do not know if Coradco had other sash’s besides the ones in my house. If your window’s plough width is approx. 1/2″, these Jambliners will work.
2. The tilt pins have an “R” and “L” on them (Right and Left). The instructions, at least to me, seemed vague on how to use this information. The correct assumption is that you are looking at the window from the inside of the house.
3. These jambliners contain an improvement over the original Coradco jambs. They have locking pins, which is where the sash tilt pins rest when the sashes are installed. After I installed the jambliners in the window frame, I pulled the locking pins down almost to the bottom of the their allowed travel. The locking mechanism kept them at this low point. When I inserted each sash (with the title pins installed), and tilted the sashes back into the jambs, the locking mechanism released and the sashes slid up (and down) as designed.
Harris, It’s great to hear our product worked out for you and thank you for your business! I apologize for the stressfulness. Sometimes the technical jargon just can’t be avoided. One thing I’ll add to your comments for the sake of other readers; the size of the plough is another industry “standard”. If you have windows with a square plough, they are all the same, at least to our 17 years experience. We haven’t found one to not work. Thanks again!
Hi Ryan
I’m looking to replace 3 windows in my house that I had to rent out.
They are Caradco wood windows with aluminum on the outside the wood is rotten from the top being left open year round. The opening is approximately 64”x 37 1/2”
Can you help?
Tim, More than likely! Caradco is our biggest seller! We have 5 Caradco models we can do. You’d have to tell us which one you have. You can review those and order from our website, https://fenstersusa.com. Thanks!
How do i order a norco replacement sash ? Are all norco double hung windows the same fit ? do i just need the width and height dimension ? Help ….lol
Rocco, we don’t make brand specific double hung sashes.
I have a 23-year old house with Pozzi premium clad windows, and I am not the original owner/builder. Hail damaged the aluminum cladding on the outside of 9 of my windows. These are mostly horizontal sliding windows, but a few are stationary casement. A nice woman at Jeld-Wen told me about Fenster, since JW discontinued making my sashes. How does this work? I’m reasonably handy, but have no experience with windows. I can probably handle sash replacement if someone can walk me through measuring my existing sashes properly. Do I have to find a contractor in Albuquerque that would order the parts from Fenster and install them? Do you have any contacts in New Mexico that you have worked with before? Also, I now realize that the exterior gasket between the glass and sash are probably leaking on all of my windows, so eventually I want to replace sashes on all of them.
Mike, Thanks for the interest! First off, the casements won’t be a problem. We carry the most popular Pozzi models. The sliders could be problem. We don’t currently offer a Pozzi slider model simply due to lack of volume. If you had a significant number, we could look at replication, BUT the difficulty in sliders are they typically used a lot of specialty parts that were only available from the original manufacturer.
The JELD-WEN relationship is interesting. We get a TON of referral business from them and we are greatly appreciative of that. However, they don’t want to formalize the relationship by offering us any of their components to resume manufacturing of their former models. That leaves us to limit our catalog to what components we can find on the open market. Maybe that’s by their design?
We don’t work with contractors per-say. The average contractor lacks the skill we require. We stick to online sales and we have a traveling service tech that performs installation. You start the process by visiting our website, https://fenstersusa.com and complete a quote request to the best of your ability, or you can contact customer service for support at; sales@fensterusa.com or 844-973-4462. Thank you!
Thanks for your reply Ryan. Just a few more points:
The person I spoke to at Jeld-Wen customer service said that they were providing tooling, or something (I can’t recall the word they used) to Fenster for my vintage windows. Is it possible that there is a transfer coming that would enable you to make the sliders, that hasn’t been finalized yet?
A service area map I saw on your site showed you coming only as far southwest as OK. Would your service tech come to Albuquerque?
I dug around quite a bit, and saw reference to an order form in several places, but was never able to locate it. Can you point me to it, or just email it to me?
Finally, I am going to need some help with measuring. I’ve read a lot on your page, but am still not confident that I know exactly where to measure to on the exterior of my aluminum clad windows.
Thank you!
Mike, no to the JELD-WEN comment. I’m the owner of the company. If I was negotiating with JELD-WEN for components, I would know about it. 🙂 We do travel. The service map is our “standard” delivery radius. We’ll go as far as a customer is willing to pay us to go! To travel that far just for a site inspection would be costly. It’s typically more cost effective for both parties to utilize the technology we have available to get you on track. Do this, get ahold of Kara in customer service as I mentioned previously. She can walk you through the website and/or direct you to next steps. Thanks!