CozyNet Blog

Journal (2026-08-24) - More windows!

Publish Date: 2026-08-24

Despite being a day of rest, Sunday was a busy day for me, albeit an enjoyable one. Shortly after having my breakfast, I put on some shoes and went traipsing out into the barn to search for the old window casements I replaced. Since I couldn't find any aluminum tracks matching for a conventional wood window anywhere, I figured my only choice was to salvage the old ones.

After a little digging, I found the casements buried beneath some boxes I threw in there for a future burn day. I was leery of there being wasps or something else hiding in those boxes, but nothing came out to sting me this time. I brought the casements back to the house and laid them out on the kitchen floor to get to work.

Upon inspection, I noticed they weren't as bad as I remembered them being, but nevertheless they needed to be replaced since the bottoms were rotted. If there was enough space in the wall, I could have repaired them by sistering on some more material. I felt bad having to tear them apart to remove the aluminum tracks, but it had to be done. I'm thinking I could make use of these if I were to cut them down for a smaller window.

Anyhow, I managed to pull the tracks off and spent the rest of the day just cleaning one of them with three more to go...

I used acetone to wipe off most of the paint since these aren't supposed to be painted over, but it wasn't very effective at removing the calk and there was also a layer of paint that was totally resistant to the acetone I had to scratch off. I took some side by side pictures of a dirty one and the one I cleaned as best I could.

Some of that paint just simply won't come off, but I think it's good enough.

The calk and paint that was squeezed down into the track was causing the seal to fail (yes seal, not sill) because the way it's designed, it's supposed to gently squeeze around the front and back corners of the sliding window frame to keep out any drafts or prevent environmental escape. They were essentially glued into an open position. If properly maintained and taken care of, this window system is moderately less performant than your over priced modern windows you'd order out of a catalog, so long you pair it was a storm screen.

A smooth fit.

I also investigated the casements to see where the rot began and noticed a few things. The tracks were stapled onto the casement which meant water intrusion when it rains. I've seen the use of staples like this before, but ideally the track is stapled down only from the interior side and not the exterior. The exterior staple higher up seemed fine, but the lower exterior staple on both casements on either side had serious water intrusion that no doubt contributed to the rot. The casements were also missing their parting stop that the aluminum track covers over. Without that, you could easily damage the track by pushing the window into it. These casements were poorly made from the get go...

That lower exterior staple lead to a chain of events that rotted out the joint holding the bottom sill (yes, sill this time not seal).

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Most of the remaining original window casements (talking 100+ years old now) are doing fine with the exception of the bottom sills needing to be replaced on a few of them. As for the newer casements (somewhere from the 1960's to 80's), all of them are exhibiting the same failure, which will require a rebuild. Now, unlike the kitchen window frames, the rest of the wood frames should still be salvageable, but are all in serious need of restorative work.

Thanks for reading my blog!