One year labor guarantee
Doors and Windows
A window that leaks is almost never the glass. Get the sill, the flashing and the rough opening right and the window stops being the story.
Chapter 01
A leaking window is almost never the glass
When water shows up on the drywall below a window, the instinct is to blame the window itself, a bad seal on the glass, a warped sash, weatherstripping gone hard with age. Most of the time none of that is the actual cause. The real culprit is the sill pan underneath the frame, a lap in the flashing that was installed backward so water runs behind it instead of over it, or a rough opening that was never squared before the window went in.
Water that shows up on the drywall below a window almost always entered above it, ran down inside the wall cavity behind the sheathing, and only became visible once it reached a stud bay with drywall on the inside. Caulking the outside trim of a window with that kind of leak does nothing, because the water was never getting in through the trim in the first place. C.B.E. Construction traces a leak back to where it actually starts before touching a caulk gun.
Brick gable end of a home in White Heath with a central chimney and arched transom windows installed by C.B.E. Construction
Full frame or insert
There are two honest ways to replace a window, and which one is right depends on the condition of what is already in the wall. An insert window goes into the existing frame, keeps the trim and casing intact, and installs fast, the tradeoff is a small loss of glass area since the new unit sits inside the old frame rather than replacing it.
Full frame replacement takes the opening back to the studs, removes the old frame entirely, and is the only honest answer when that frame is rotten, out of square, or was never flashed correctly to begin with. Putting a new insert into a bad frame just seals the same problem back up behind a new window. C.B.E. checks the frame before quoting either option in White Heath homes, plenty of which are old enough that the frame, not the glass, is the real issue.
Chapter 03
Measuring and ordering
In an older home, no two window openings are exactly the same size, even on the same wall, because the house has settled unevenly over decades. Every opening on a job gets measured individually rather than assumed from one measurement taken at the front of the house, and a window ordered off the wrong assumption either does not fit or gets forced into an opening it was never sized for.
A special shape, an arched transom window like the ones over the brick gable end shown here, cannot be trimmed to fit on site the way a standard rectangle sometimes can. It gets measured precisely and ordered to that exact curve and size from the manufacturer, which means it also carries its own lead time that a standard window does not. C.B.E. plans that lead time into the schedule up front so installation day is not spent waiting on a part.
Installation day, and the one year labor guarantee
On installation day the interior trim and window stops come off, the old unit comes out, and the new one goes in, flashed and sealed before that opening sits exposed to weather for any longer than it has to. Openings are done one at a time, not all at once, specifically so the house is never standing open to the outside for more than the time it takes to set a single window or door.
All doors and windows installed by C.B.E. Construction carry a one year labor guarantee. That covers the labor itself, how the unit was set, flashed, and trimmed out, not the glass or the hardware, which carry their own warranty from the manufacturer. A homeowner in White Heath calling months later about a door that has started to stick, or a window that will not latch the way it should, is exactly what the guarantee is for. Call (217) 762-5432 and Blair Brown will know which job it was.
C.B.E. Construction has installed doors and windows around White Heath since 1998. Call (217) 762-5432 for a free estimate.
Transom windows are not only for above a door
Light above a fireplace, not just above a doorway
The transom windows in this vaulted great room sit above the stone fireplace, not over a door, and they get ordered and set the same careful way as the arched transoms pictured above: measured to the exact opening, ordered to that shape, and flashed correctly on the way in so a tall wall of glass does not become the next leak in the house.
This room is part of a new construction build, which is where C.B.E. plans window placement from the first drawing rather than retrofitting it later. See the full build, or read about C.B.E.’s new construction and additions work.