Thinking about Windows

Written by Barry Warsaw in house on Wed 21 January 2009.

We had our weekly production meeting this morning, Steve, Tom, Jane and I. Tom brought the tentative window order by and we went through them. Would you believe how hard it was to remember what was in the original house, at least until I pulled up the pictures from the web! To save money, we're matching the new windows with the vinyl replacements that already exist. Those are all 3x2 on top and no mullions on the bottom. We can match all of those except for the casement windows we'll be using in the new bedrooms to conform to egress code. The small 25" wide windows will be awnings, and everything else will be double hung windows. The dormers will probably be fixed and we'll be getting half screens all around. The only tempered windows will be the small ones in the basement, which are just above grade.

We noticed that the bay window is fully framed in now, but the guys forgot to insulate the well underneath it, so Tom is going to get them to pull up that flooring and insulate there. Supposedly the plumber was coming by today, but I never did hear the verdict on that.

We talked at length about the stucco seams that are needed at all material joins, and runs over 144 square feet. Since the Louis side marries the old brick construction with the frame construction of the new part, there will be a vertical seam right there. We really need to match that well so that its as unnoticeable as possible, as it's going to be 1/2" wide the height of the house. There will be some horizontal seams as well, and we may place them low on the house, and draw them all the way around, with a color offset for aesthetics.

I read something on the 'net about stucco and the need for kickout flashing, which is installed at the transition between roof and vertical wall. It's purpose is to "kick out" any water away from the wall, so it can't seem behind the stucco and cause problems. I'll have to remember to ask about that when we get to that phase of the project.

I took a few pictures of today's progress. You can see that they've put the deck on for the new part of the house.