Full Frame Window Replacement

When the Frame Has to Come Out

A full frame replacement takes the old window out completely: sash, glass, frame, nailing fin, and the stucco return that laps onto the fin. What is left is a rough opening in the wall framing. From there the opening gets repaired if it needs it, flashed properly, a new window set on the fin, and then the stucco rebuilt and textured to match.

It is roughly double the cost of a retrofit and it takes days rather than a day. Nobody should buy it because it sounds more thorough. You buy it because the opening you have will not carry a retrofit.

The Conditions That Force It

Water has already been in there. Staining or bubbling paint on the interior casing under the sill, soft drywall at the corners, or a musty smell at the sill in winter. A retrofit over that seals the evidence in and does nothing about the cause, which is failed flashing behind the fin.

The sill is soft. Press a screwdriver into the wood sill at the corners. If it goes in, the framing is compromised and a new window fastened to it has nothing to hold.

The opening has racked. Slab settlement, common enough on these lots, drops one corner. If the opening is out of square by more than about a quarter of an inch you can force a retrofit unit in with shims, but the sash will bind and the seal will be under permanent load.

The stucco return is failed. Cracked, drummy or pulled away from the frame. A retrofit flange needs a flat sound surface to seal against and there is not one.

The original install was wrong. Occasionally we open a wall and find the fin was never taped, or the paper was lapped the wrong way so it channels water in rather than out. That was going to fail eventually with any window in it.

What the Job Involves

The old unit and the stucco return come out, usually cut back a few inches around the perimeter to give room to work. The opening gets inspected and any rotten framing is cut out and replaced with new material.

Then the flashing, which is the actual point of the whole exercise. Sill pan first, then jamb flashing lapped over it, then the window set in sealant and fastened through the fin, then head flashing lapped over the fin and tucked under the building paper above. Water that gets past the window is supposed to be led back out, not trapped. Every lap runs the way gravity does.

After that comes lath, a brown coat, a colour coat and a texture match. On an older house with a hand applied finish, matching texture is genuine craft and it is why full frame jobs get scheduled with a stucco day of their own rather than being rushed.

Older Riverside Housing

The Wood Streets and the older homes along Victoria Avenue are the places we most often end up doing full frame work. Wood windows that have been painted a dozen times, sills that have taken eighty years of west sun, and in a fair number of cases an aluminium retrofit installed in the eighties that hid a problem instead of fixing it.

Those houses also raise the question of whether replacement is even right. An original wood double hung in good condition, with sound joinery, is often better restored and weatherstripped than thrown away. We will say so if that is what we see. It is not work we do, and pointing you at it costs us a sale, but selling somebody a vinyl window in a nineteen twenties opening they liked is not a result.

Cost, Permits and Time

Full frame runs meaningfully higher per opening than retrofit, and the stucco work is a real part of that rather than a markup. The permit is the same permit, the inspection is more involved because the flashing is inspected before it is covered, and that is a good thing.

Plan on two to four days for a house depending on how many openings are involved, with the stucco cure time on top before the colour coat goes on.

Mixed Houses Are Normal

The common outcome is not all of one or all of the other. It is nine retrofits and two full frame openings, usually the two on the west side where the sun and the water have both had a go. We quote them as separate line items with the reason written next to each, so you can see exactly what you are buying.

Call (951) 839-3855 to have the openings looked at.