Q&A / 

Repairing a Broken Double Pane Window Glass Rich Sinclair who lives in Hainesport, New Jersey emailed me asking the following question: "Can you replace only one broken pane of a double pane window?" The answer is simply: No Double pane, or insulated glass, is made by taking two pieces of glass and separating them with […]

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Window Washing Near Me - DIY Because it's EASY See that window above? See that fog on the left half of the sash? Unless you're paralyzed, you can get professional results in seconds. I cleaned that right half of the window glass using exactly what pros use to clean skyscraper glass. What magic window washing […]

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Window Replacement Cost is Sky High A good friend of mine who lives in the suburbs of Chicago reached out to me a few weeks ago. He asked me what I knew about the cost to replace windows. He didn’t want to make a grave financial error navigating the treacherous waters of replacement windows. With […]

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Window Restoration A fellow amateur radio operator sent me a photo of a wood window that’s in his girlfriend’s bathroom. The window is suffering from some rot and the sash frame is starting to separate. While I don’t have the epic enhanced observation powers exhibited by the Shawn Spencer character in the popular and funny […]

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Replace Aluminum Windows With Vinyl Windows Podcast - Click to Listen to Podcast 43: Tim Carter talks with Gary in a small town south of Atlanta, Georgia. Gary lives in a concrete-block house and needs to replace his crappy aluminum windows with vinyl windows. Gary is 70+ years old, handy, and just needs a nudge […]

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Deck-Building No-No QUESTION #1: Tim, I need your help. I contracted with a large home center to have a deck built. I came home from work and saw that the carpenters had toenailed an outer joist to the side of my home. Many of the nails are close to the edge and I can already […]

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"That remarkable simple and effective building detail is being sacrificed at the altar of Build-it-Faster." Window Flashing Tape Leaking I’ve been wanting to write this column for years. The topic has been a burr under my saddle, but I needed to base the column on proof, not speculation. That proof arrived last week in a […]

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A-Frame House Problems - They Can be Aplenty QUESTION #1: I’d like your honest opinion, Tim. A-frame houses have always appealed to me and I think I want to build one. I’ve done scads of research on these unusual homes and I’m convinced it’s the right decision. I want you to be the devil’s advocate […]

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Stop Water Vapor Now QUESTION #1: Hey Tim, I’m flummoxed. I’ve seen videos and read online articles about needing a vapor barrier in the walls of my home and possibly under concrete slabs. My builder says these things are a waste of money. I need your vote of confidence and written words to give me […]

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Skylight Melting Siding Can and Does Happen It's possible for a skylight melting siding story to be in your local paper or here online. I know it's possible because I've felt the searing heat on my own face from sunlight that's concentrated and reflected by the slightly concave glass on my own skylight. I was […]

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