Window repair
Window Repair
Sash that will not stay up, windows painted shut, locks that no longer pull tight. One component failed. Everything else is almost certainly fine — and you can check that yourself.
- Typical visit
- One to three hours
- Coverage
- All 114 counties
- Estimate
- Free, fixed in writing
- We sell
- Repairs only
Don't take our word for it
Six things we say, and how to verify each one
This is the Show-Me State. Every claim below can be tested by you, in your own house, before you let anybody quote you anything.
| What we say | How to check it yourself |
|---|---|
| Only one part of your window has failed | Open the sash. If it moves at all, the frame and the glazing are doing their jobs. Lock it — if it closes, the lock works. Whatever is left is your fault, and it is usually one thing. |
| Your frame is sound even though the window feels dead | Press the frame at the sides and the head. Firm timber, no give, no dark staining. That is the expensive part of a window and it is the part almost nobody ever needs to replace. |
| The rattle and the draught are the same fault | Close the window on a strip of paper and pull. If it slides out freely, the lock is not compressing the seal. That single gap is both the noise and the cold air. |
| Painted-shut windows can be freed without damage | Look along the joint between the sash and the stop. If you can see a paint line rather than filler or caulk, that line can be scored and released. Thousands of St Louis and Kansas City sash are exactly like this. |
| A new window will not fix your condensation | Wipe the glass. If the moisture comes off, it was never inside the window. Replacing the unit changes nothing about the air in the room. |
| Repair costs a fraction of replacement | Get both quotes. We do not sell replacements, so there is nothing stopping you putting our number next to theirs. |
Five minutes, no tools
Four tests that tell you what is wrong
No tools, nothing to buy, and between them they identify the overwhelming majority of window faults we attend.
Test 01
Let go of the sash halfway up
Hold it at the middle of its travel and release. If it drops, the counterweight system has failed — a parted cord on older sash, a dead balance on newer. If it holds, that is not your problem.
Test 02
The paper test, at four corners
Close the window on a strip of paper and pull at each corner and the middle. Where it slides out freely you have a gap. If it pulls out everywhere, the lock is the fault rather than the seal.
Test 03
Wipe the haze
If it comes off, it is condensation or dirt. If it is trapped between two panes it is a failed seal, and only the glass unit needs replacing. These look identical from across the room.
Test 04
Press the sill and the bottom rail
Firm thumb pressure along the timber. Anything soft, spongy or dark is water damage, and it is the one fault on this list that is actively getting worse.
On the day
What we demonstrate before we leave
A repair you cannot verify is a repair you have to take on faith. We would rather show you.
The sash moving through its full travel with one hand, both sashes on a double-hung.
The sash holding at three different heights without creeping down.
The lock throwing fully, with the weatherstrip visibly compressing as it does.
The paper test repeated at the same points you tested before we arrived.
Water poured into the sill running out through the weep holes rather than sitting.
In writing
What you get on paper
Four things on every estimate and every invoice, without being asked.
A named component
The estimate says which part failed — a cord, a balance, a keeper, a roller, a closer. Not 'window needs work'. If a quote will not name the part, it has not diagnosed anything.
A fixed price, before we start
Agreed in writing, and it does not move once we are working. If we think we might find rot or hidden damage, you get a price for both outcomes up front.
What we did not do, and why
Anything we looked at and left alone is listed, with the reason. That is how you know we checked it rather than missed it.
Paperwork an insurer can use
Itemised, dated and photographed where relevant, formatted to submit without anybody rewriting it.
Missouri conditions
What Missouri does to a window
Hail, hard temperature swings and a great deal of early-century brick housing.
Hail, most years
Missouri sits in a serious hail corridor. The damage people notice is cracked glass and dented screens; the damage they miss is seal failure in panes that survived the storm visibly intact and fog up months later.
Wood sash in masonry openings
St Louis in particular is built of brick, and a brick opening does not move the way a timber one does. When something shifts, the sash takes all of it, which is why so many sash here bind on one side while the frame looks perfect.
A hundred degrees of annual range
Humid July afternoons to hard January nights. Timber swells and shrinks every year, so a window that binds in one season rattles in the other — and adjusting for the day of the visit is always wrong.
Two kinds of ground
Expansive clay through the north and west, limestone and karst through the Ozarks. Both move buildings, differently, and both show up at the openings before anywhere else.
Questions
Window repair questions
Do you sell replacement windows?
No, deliberately. It is the whole reason our recommendation about repairing yours carries weight. Get a replacement quote as well — we have no reason to talk you out of it.
The sash will not stay up.
A cord has parted or a balance has lost tension. Routine repairs, and neither needs a new window.
My windows are painted shut.
Very common in Missouri's older housing. Scored carefully, they open and go on working normally.
We had hail last spring and the glass looked fine.
Worth having checked anyway. Panes that survive a hailstorm intact can still have lost their seal, and that shows up as fogging months later.
My house has brick walls and the window still moved.
Masonry openings do not flex, so when a building shifts the sash absorbs it. It is usually adjustable within the opening you have.
Is weatherstripping worth it?
It is the highest-return item on this page in both directions — heating in January and air conditioning in July.
Coverage
Window repair across Missouri
A mobile service covering the whole state, both metros and the rural counties between them. Pick your town below, or call and we will come to you.
Window Repair Across Missouri
Related
Other repairs we handle
Windows and doors are the whole business, so whatever has failed, it is on this list.
Next step
Tell us what the window is doing
Free estimates across Missouri, with a fixed written price before anything is touched.