Worcester Double Hung Windows

Double Hung Vinyl Windows

Double hung vinyl windows are what most of the triple-deckers in this city end up with, and vinyl is the bulk of what our local window replacement service puts in. The reason is the corners: heat-welded rather than screwed together, so there's no joint to work loose and start leaking air on you a few years in.

What matters in the unit is a multi-chambered frame, a warm-edge spacer in the insulated glass, and block-and-tackle balances rather than coil springs, since the balance is the part that quits first and leaves a sash sitting on your fingers. Both sashes tilt in, so the outside glass gets washed from your kitchen.

Vinyl has limits worth naming. It won't take paint, the color choices are short, and it won't copy the profiles on an 1890s bay. Size, how many openings, the glass package and the condition of the sill underneath all shift the double hung window cost.

Double Pane Glass Repair

Double pane glass repair is the right call when the sash itself is still solid and only the glass has gone cloudy. That gray haze between the panes means the seal let go and the argon walked out with it, and no amount of cleaning touches it because the fog is on the inside. We measure the sightline, order the insulated unit, and set it once it lands.

The glazing bead comes off in one piece rather than getting pried and snapped, and the new glass sits on proper setting blocks so it isn't bearing straight on the frame. Skip those blocks and you get a stress crack by the second cold snap. Size of the unit, tempered or not, low-e coating and how soft the rails have gone all push the double paned window cost around. Rotten rails mean new double hung windows instead.

Double French Doors Exterior

Exterior double French doors get treated like a big window with hinges on it, and that's exactly why so many of them are dragging by the second humid stretch of summer. A pair carries real weight on the hinge jamb. We set the frame plumb over a sill pan with a back dam, shim solid behind every hinge, and check the reveal down the astragal before the flush bolts ever go into the header and threshold.

Get that gap wide at the top and tight at the bottom and the inactive leaf never seats right, so you get whistle and a cold stripe across the floor.

Size, swing direction, glass or solid panels, and how much rot we find in the old jamb are what move the price. Figure most of a day for a set, same as a run of double hung windows.

French Double Door

A French double door is a pair of swinging panels, and unlike the double hung windows we set upstairs, it has to hold its own weight for years without dropping out of line. So the framing comes first. If the opening has settled, the panels kiss at the top and gap at the bottom, or one leaf drags and the flush bolts quit dropping into the threshold.

We check the opening for square and level, set a sill pan, shim behind every hinge, then work the astragal reveal until the light line down the middle is even from head to floor. Divided lites or a full sheet of insulated glass changes the weight, and weight is what hinges eventually lose an argument with.

Most openings take the better part of a day. Widening one, or cutting out rot under the jambs, adds to both the time and the price.

Pre Hung French Doors

A pre hung french doors unit shows up as one piece: both leaves already swinging in their jambs, sill attached, hinges set, weatherstrip run. Sounds like the easy version, and it is, right until the opening turns out to be out of square. Set one racked and the two doors stop meeting at the top, the astragal drags, and you get a stripe of daylight you can see from across the kitchen.

So we shim the hinge jamb plumb, carry the sill on solid support across its full width so the threshold can't dip, and check the reveal at the head before the long screws go in behind the hinges.

Size, the glass you pick, whether the opening has to be widened for a new header, and rot in the framing under the old sill are what push the number around.

Double Hung Window Replacement

Replacing double hung windows is mostly a question of what's hiding behind the stops. We pull the trim and the old sash, then look hard at the sill and jamb before we size anything, because a nice new unit bolted into soft wood is still bolted into soft wood. Sound frame gets an insert. Punky frame gets full frame, new sill, new flashing, no shortcuts around it.

Then it's shims until it's plumb, low expansion foam only, and both sashes run and lock before any caulk goes on. Pack an opening with the high expansion stuff and the jamb bows, the sash binds, and the balances quit inside a year. A standard opening is done in two to three hours.

Sash size, insert versus full frame, and what the sill has got up to are what shift a double hung window cost.

Double Front Doors With Glass

Double front doors with glass are what people ask me about right after we've finished their double hung windows, usually because the entry is dark and they want daylight without giving up a wall. Glass in a door lives harder than any sash in the house. It gets slammed, it takes the afternoon sun straight on, and it takes a shoulder every time somebody comes in with groceries.

So the panels get tempered or laminated glass in an insulated unit with a warm edge spacer, not the thin decorative glazing that hazes at the edges in a few seasons.

Out of square is the usual trouble. A pair hung in a racked opening will drag, show daylight at the head, and the latch only catches if you lean on it. Glass area, clear or obscure, sidelights, and how far off plumb that opening sits are what shift the cost.

Casement Double Window

A casement double window is two side-hinged sashes in one frame, cranked open like a little pair of doors, and I fit a lot of them over kitchen sinks where you can't reach up to lift a sash. They seal tighter than double hung windows do, because cranking one shut pulls the sash flat against the compression weatherstrip instead of sliding past it. The part that fails is the operator.

A cheap gear strips after a few seasons of wind catching an open sash off Route 9, and then you're holding it closed with a broom handle.

What I won't do is hang new casement hardware on a soft sill, since all that weight rides the hinge side. Sash width, hinge type and glass package are what shift a double paned window cost on these.

Pre Hung Exterior Door

A pre hung exterior door arrives as one unit, slab already hanging in its own jamb with hinges set and the bore drilled, which beats trying to hang a bare slab in a hundred-year-old opening that hasn't been square since the Coolidge administration. On the triple deckers in the Canal District, the sill under the old threshold is usually soft.

We cut it out, sister in solid framing, set a sill pan, then shim the jamb plumb off the hinge side before a screw ever goes into the strike. Skip the pan and water tracks under the threshold into the subfloor, and you find out when the hallway feels spongy in a stocking foot.

Plenty of these go in the same week as double hung windows on the same wall, while the staging is already up. Price follows the size of the opening, whether there are sidelights, and how much rot shows up once the trim comes off.

Double Screen Doors

Double screen doors take a beating on the wide openings, the ones where two leaves swing out onto a triple-decker porch and neither wants to stay shut. Most of the trouble I find is in the hinge screws, short ones biting into brickmold instead of long ones reaching solid framing, so the leaves sag, the meeting stiles kiss at the top and gap two fingers at the bottom.

We shim the jamb plumb, run three inch screws into the studs, and set a closer on each leaf so a gust off the porch doesn't fire them into the siding. If the jamb behind them is shot, the honest fix is a pre hung exterior door set true first. Width, the condition of the threshold, and whether you want standard fiberglass mesh or the heavier pet weave are what shift the number.

Wood Double Front Doors

Wood double front doors are the reason half our window customers walk us around to the porch before we ever get to the double hung windows out back. Two leaves, one astragal in the middle, and a hundred years of settling in the triple-deckers off Chandler Street, so the opening is almost never square.

We plumb the hinge jamb first, shim behind every hinge, then set the passive leaf with flush bolts into the head and the threshold before the active leaf gets a latch. Do it out of that order and the two doors start kissing in the middle by the first humid stretch, and you are shouldering your own front door shut.

What moves the number is the width, the wood species, whether you want glass, and how much of the sill and jamb is soft. A pre hung exterior door in a sound frame is a far shorter day than a rebuild.

What the job involves

Most of the double hung windows I swap out here go in as inserts, which means the old sashes and stops come out and the new frame sets into the existing opening. First thing I do is press on the sill and jambs. If the wood is soft, no amount of shimming saves it, and we're into a full frame replacement with new exterior trim instead.

From there it's level, plumb and square, low expansion foam around the perimeter, and the interior stop put back tight. Over-pack that foam and you bow the jamb, and then the sash binds halfway up every time somebody in a triple-decker wants air.

Price rides on the size of the opening, which floor it's on, how much staging or ladder work it takes, and what shape the frames are in. Double hung vinyl windows in a sound first-floor opening are the simple end of it.

What it costs

What it costs comes down less to the window itself and more to what's sitting around it. Straightforward double hung windows in sound frames, stock sizes, vinyl, ground floor, land at the friendly end of the range. Rotted sills, plaster returns that need patching, odd openings that get cut on site, lead-safe setup on an older three decker, or a step up to laminated glass, and the double paned window cost climbs from there.

Staging a third floor can add a day on its own. A lean number usually has the exterior aluminum capping and the low-expansion foam left off the sheet, and those are exactly what stop the cold air you called about.

Call me at (508) 406-9528 with your opening count and rough sizes and I'll get you a real number.

Every measurement gets taken at the house, because sizes guessed off a photo come back wrong from the shop.

When double hung windows are the wrong fix

Sometimes double hung windows are the wrong answer, and I would rather say that at the estimate than after the truck is unloaded. Over a deep kitchen counter you cannot reach the top sash without climbing on something, so a casement double window that cranks out with one hand is the better call. Basement bedrooms need egress windows with a clear opening big enough for a firefighter in full gear, and a double hung rarely gives you that.

If the sill and jamb under the trim have gone soft, setting new vinyl windows into that pocket just covers up rot, so we cut back to solid wood first. Opening a wall out to the deck is a job for patio doors, not a window. And on tight old sash, weatherstripping plus good storm windows can beat a full window installation.

Why choose us for this

You already know what's wrong with your double hung windows. One won't stay up without a paint stir stick jammed in the track, another has a sash cord that gave up years ago, and the whole thing has become a chore you keep putting off. You want it handled once and then forgotten about.

So here is the part of a double hung window replacement I refuse to shortcut: setting a new unit against a soft sill and covering the evidence with wide interior trim. If the sill or the stops are rotted, we cut them out and rebuild before anything goes in. That takes extra time on that opening, and a lighter bid is usually one where nobody looked.

You find out the following winter, when the paint blisters under the stool and the cold comes through anyway.

Measuring and quoting your openings costs you nothing, and nothing gets ordered until you say go.

Frequently asked questions

Contact Worcester Window Replacement now

So contact us now about your Worcester window replacement and tell me which openings are the bad ones, because that's where every job here starts. When I come out I measure each opening at three points, top, middle and bottom, since these old triple deckers rack a little as they settle, and a set of double hung windows ordered to the widest number won't latch once it's in. Have a rough count ready too.

Six double hung vinyl windows across a second floor is a different conversation from one casement double window over a kitchen sink, and access, the condition of the sills and how much of the trim is coming off all change the job. Weekdays, nine to five, you can reach me on (508) 406-9528, and a message left after that gets a call back.