Natural lighting can enhance your home, your health and your mood. Beautiful, well made windows let in light and keep out the heat, cold, rain and dust. The simplest thing you can do to improve the lighting in your home is to give the windows a deep cleaning twice a year.
While you are polishing the glass and wiping the sills, keep an eye out for water damage. Excess moisture collects on the panes due to condensation. Water leaks in through cracks. Your wood window sills can quickly degrade under poor conditions.
Once water gets in behind trim or beneath paint and caulk, it can start to rot. If left, over time, this dampness will spread deeper into the windowsill and even into the wall framing. A small leak now can lead to more extensive and expensive repairs later. Even small cracks can result in structural damage and invite mold growth.
In order to let in light while protecting your home, window panes, frames, sills and watches have to be intact. Older homes are at risk for two reasons 1) Buildings settle over time and years of fluctuating temperatures will cause wood to shrink and expand. Sometimes this shifting causes a window to misalign with its frame, creating gaps.
2) Old windows just leak! Window technology has advanced so much in the past decades that it’s impractical to continue patching and caulking ancient material.
Even newer homes can have problems. Some other failures are due to improper installation. Window flashing has to be installed correctly. Housewrap is not an adequate substitute for specially designed waterproof flashing.
Broken caulking at the window seams or cracked glazing putty between panes will not act as a proper barrier to water. Even an inadequate paint seal along the edges of the glass could lead to water infiltration.
Wood does not decay simply because it is wet. Rotting is the result of the growth of fungi in the wood tissue. Special moisture and temperature conditions allow fungi to attack and destroy the cellular structure of wood.
While windows are designed to protect your home from the effects of weather, improper window or siding installation, poor roof condition, or gutter issues allow water to seep into the structure. For example, along the top of windows, flashing protects the window and directs rain around the frame . If the flashing is damaged or missing, water can breach the window casing.
Your window pane can get hit by a baseball. Obviously, this broken glass will let in water. In some cases, the signs of water damage can be more subtle around the frame on the sill. For example, you can check for soft wood probing the frame with a screwdriver. Next, open the window to check the inside of the frame and sash. If any wood gives under light pressure, it is showing signs of damage. Also look for:
The Serenity team specializes in repairing and restoring Atlanta homes from water damage. They respond to flood emergencies 24/7 to keep you and your property safe. Serenity Restoration works with all the major insurers or with homeowners that will pay on their own. The most important thing you can do for your home after water is to get a qualified team on it today.
If this is an emergency, please call 678-648-1294 for 24/7 service.
