Retrofit Window Replacement

What a Retrofit Actually Is

A retrofit window is a complete new window built with a flange that laps over the face of the frame that is already in your wall. The old sash and the old glass come out. The old frame stays. The new unit slides into that opening, gets shimmed square, gets sealed, and the flange covers the joint on the outside.

Nothing is cut. The stucco is not touched. The interior casing and the drywall return stay exactly where they are.

That is the whole appeal, and on the right house it is a large appeal.

When It Is the Right Call

Most of the housing stock across the newer parts of Riverside is slab-on-grade with stucco over a wood frame, built from the seventies onward, with aluminium or early vinyl windows set on a nailing fin. On those houses the original frame is usually still perfectly sound. It is not carrying water, it has not moved, and there is no reason on earth to demolish it.

What we check before calling it a retrofit:

• The frame measures square within about a quarter of an inch corner to corner and top to bottom.
• A screwdriver pressed firmly into the sill does not sink in.
• The stucco return around the opening is not cracked, drummy or separated.
• The interior casing under the sill shows no staining, bubbling paint or soft drywall.
• The existing frame is not so badly corroded at the corners that a flange has nothing solid to seal against.

If all five are true, a retrofit gives you the same energy performance as a full frame job for roughly half the money, with none of the mess.

What You Give Up

Visible glass. The new frame sits inside the old one, so you lose about an inch to an inch and a half of daylight opening all the way around. On a standard bedroom or living room window it is not something anyone notices after the first week. On a small bathroom window that was already narrow it is worth looking at a sample in your own opening before you order eleven of them.

You also keep whatever the old frame is. If it is aluminium, you keep an aluminium frame conducting heat around the perimeter of a good new window. That matters less than people think, because the glass is most of the wall area, but it is honest to say it out loud.

The Install Is Where It Is Won

A retrofit is a simple job done badly quite often. The failure is almost always the same one: the unit gets pushed in, screwed off, and caulked, without ever being shimmed to square or set on a proper bed of sealant at the sill.

We set the sill first, shim the jambs, check the operation before anything is fastened permanently, and seal the flange with a sealant rated for stucco rather than whatever is in the truck. A vinyl frame moves a noticeable amount between a hundred degree afternoon and a January night, so a window screwed off tight against an out of square opening will bind by the second summer.

Glass and Title 24

The unit still has to meet California Title 24 for our climate zone, and the numbers that matter are printed on the NFRC sticker: U-factor for how much heat moves through, SHGC for how much solar heat gets in.

Riverside is hot, dry and inland, and the west elevation of your house takes real punishment from about two in the afternoon. We usually spec a lower SHGC on the west and south glass than on the north, which is not what a package deal gives you and costs very little to do properly.

Timing and Permits

Most single family houses are one working day for a full set of retrofit windows, two if there is a large slider. We pull the permit, and the inspection is straightforward because there is no framing or flashing hidden behind stucco to argue about.

Call (951) 839-3855 and we will measure every opening before quoting a single one.