Renovation Detail: The Casement Window

sallyaubrey I love casements but the wooden ones in my north Australian home require so much upkeep! Sometimes I hate them when I think of how much they will soon cost me to fix up, but they do look great when well maintained.

nbarbour I love the idea of casement windows but I live in mosquito land year round so I need screens, which must be on the inside.

celt They are everything you say and more....highly suceptible to being peeled back by a strong gust of wind and breaking the cam hinge and twisting the hanging hinges. This has happened to 3 of my 5 casements. Be wary if you are in a windy location!

lorirobinson I love the look of casement windows...but in actuality, they have several issues that make me want to toss mine into the bin! Firstly, you cannot place a window box beneath them and still open them unless you have tiny little plants, because they open out into the box. Secondly. unless the wind is in the right direction, they are grabbed at by it, and often block much of the breeze, and they squeak with every new gust! I am longing for a nice double sash! Isn't it funny how we always seem to want what we don't have!

kowsowitz Casements are great for all the reasons you said. In addition, we were told at a Neighborhood Watch lecture by our Community Relations officer that they are safer because they are hard to open from the out side.

kevinopp and any individuals looking for either a window unit a/c or a portable one that vents to the outside should know that they are generally out of luck if you only have casement windows. i did "invent" a solution for our portable air conditioner that people told me was ingenious and should be marketed, but unfortunately is just another downside to casements.

also, my last home was all Anderson casements. by the time we left we had 5 windows where the crank had broken with the window shut. fixing it would have meant removing massive amounts of wood trim that we would not have been able to rematch. so we were just left with 5 windows that we could not open. not fun!!

margaretowen Casement windows have many wonderful features, but the necessity of screens in my area of the country is the one drawback. Pella makes a casement window with a pull down screen, but the Pella product is very expensive. Are there other screen possibilities and manufacturers?

catsandroses we have both Andersen casement and double hung... double hung on the front side, casement on the back. I agree with all said about the casements but...over time, the big casements are now difficult to crank open and they can never be left open when it rains.. the double hung windows don't seem to get the rain inside the same way.

meekvan I long for the day when I can get rid of my casement windows and replace them with double hung windows! I have never been a fan of the crank handles that always break and how they always manage to come off the track and someone has to go outside to put it back on the track. These were not cheap windows either. I just replaced casements w/beautiful Anderson double hungs in a very large front box window and love them! They have one full pane on the bottom w/o mullions and six panes on top w/mullions. The window is fully screened so the tops can drop down to let air in from the top, too. Love, love, love them!

holgerkeller I know that in Germany casement windows have been the standard for decades if not more. And guess what - they usually open to the inside, so you could actually have mosquito screens on the outside (not an issue in Germany). Doesn't anyone offer those here?

janet4784 We wouldn't trade our metal-clad wood casements for all the tea in China. They're FSC-certified sustainably harvested cedar (Loewen brand), and were worth every single penny. Vinyl windows don't even come close. Save your pennies elsewhere and get top-notch windows!

mrsben I love my casement windows all twenty-four of them which are now 30 years old and are still in excellent working condition. Maybe they just made them better back then, than what they are making them now? I live in Canada and they are subjected to all kinds of weather plus I do have the option of inside mounted screens which just slide into the window frame. Unlike Janet's (above) mine are non metal-clad and just primed and painted wood yet I haven't experienced any leaks or wood rot. I personally wouldn't trade them for any other kind.

lisapurdy I love casement windows but find them hard to keep open on the first floor when security is an issue. Wish there was a solution.

cre8a Thanks so much for everyone for their helpful contributions, you have given me a lot to think about.

bontbok i absolutely despise my casement windows and would never recommend them to anyone. i have both pella and anderson casements, they were very expensive and neither of them perform. if you crank them too far open, the weight makes them impossible to shut without climbing on the roof to push them shut. a number of the cranks have broken and it's almost impossible to use a screen. i am replacing them one by one and will never, ever buy them again. in addition, i find the cranks to be an ugly protrusion.

jeffburch We have Marvin casement windows - very pleased with the product and screens are inside - between the room and the window - so there is no problem with bugs.

elaineturner I have casement windows and would not have any other. They are easy to clean and I like the open feeling you have when looking out. We replaced the original Wooden casements with all- clad vinyl casements. I love having the open airy look with a good view of the trees and sky outside.

ikwewe I really love my casement windows. The house was built with them in 1964, along with some double hung windows. I recently replaced a large heavy and uneven double hung window with two casements, much easier to operate and consistent with the rest of the windows. I have some Pella and some Andersons. Anderson has more options on window sizes. There are disadvantages, such as the wood that is on the inside of the frames gets wet when the windows are open in the rain, no window boxes can be added, and we have to be careful when it is windy. Also, no nice windowsill for plants! The screens are on the inside, but can be easily removed for cleaning and when not needed.

CoorItalia lisapurdy: if you want the three goals of casement windows, ventilation AND security you might want to consider tilt and turn windows. American manufacturers appear to only concentrate on out-swing casements whereas Europeans prefer in-swing casements for a number of reasons - you can clean them easily, you can open and shut them easily (no cranks), you can open them fully and look out, they are not susceptible to wind battering and you can have tilt and turn operability. The latter is easy - you turn the handle 90 degrees and the casement opens normally, you turn it an additional 90 degrees and the casement window becomes a hopper window - letting air in and out but without compromising security.

elaineturner I have a Bay Casement window that was installed maybe twenty years ago, a Pella brand that was not inexpensive at the time. Through the years there has been wood rot and leaks which was just noticed last year. I love casement windows which was why we added this style to our new addition to our home.
When it rains, water hits the glass and trickle downward and some how settles
on the wood part of the window underneath. It is a metal clad window
outside, but has wood inside and underneath the bottom of the window.
Part of the crank attached to wood inside has started to crack, but they still
still operate. The window is not underneath a deep eave, could this be part of the problem also. I would love to replace with another casement or make major repairs to this one. There is a copper roof over this part of the window. Who should I call and is there a guarantee on this product?

Bonnie

leslieileen I have them and hate them for many of the reasons above. They're nasty to clean unless they're on the ground floor and you can easily get to them on the outside. You can't keep them open in high winds and/or rain and I'm really tired of the crank handles falling off. I've tried tightening them to no avail. I'm glad to hear that they're hard to open on the outside because I have one that's right on the deck. Believe me, when the wood undersides rot out (a few of them are on the way) these will be replaced with European style (if available) or double hung tilt in with vinyl cladding.

Diane Mardis I love my casement windows, made by local company Gilkey window, they are absolutely the best, open easy look great. I open them very wide too.

nasafemme My casement windows look gorgeous but are impossible to clean from the inside. It is highly treacherous to try to clean them from the outside as they are very tall and I can barely reach the bottom of them standing outside. I can't get past the first rung of a ladder without feeling dizzy, so now we have to have professionals clean our windows. What was I thinking!?

fivecats Casements are my favorite, hands down, but they gotta have screens!

kgschifino I absolutely love casement windows. How they look, their easy operation, ease of cleaning, etc. It is very disappointing to read the comments on here about those perfectly willing to replace their existing casements with vinyl clad double hungs! I suppose this is alright if the double hung goes with the architectural style of the house. Unfortunately this is often not the case and the architectual integrity of the house is compromised with the change in window style. My biggest issue with vinyl double hungs is how difficult they are to open over the years and how cumbersome they are to clean, especially the tilt-in type for cleaning! The vinyl doesn't wear well either. Consider replacing casements with casements. There are a lot more options available these days than just a few years ago. Marvin, for instance, makes a fiberglass casement that is very attractive and has the thin profile of the older steel casements of 70 years ago that you can't get with a vinyl casement or wood casement window. Of course, if you have Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey type money, you can also purchase Hope's casement and Crittal casement windows. These two companies have been around for decades and make excellent, but really expensive casement windows.

lisapurdy Thanks to CoorItalia for their response to my post on the security issues with ground floor casement windows. Where can I purchase in-swinging casements as you suggest? I live in Denver, CO

leslieileen I did a search and found a company named Bieber located in California that manufactures this style. I'll be researching this in the spring but here's a link: http://bieberusa.com/
Good luck!

CoorItalia Lisa, We can supply inswings in wood (a wide variety) or steel and bronze (we just finished a project in steel in Aspen). But if you want tilt and turn windows I'm sure a google search will lead you to aluminum manifacturers. I am not sure if there are vinyl tile and turn manufacturers

John Hughes I just looked and there are several manufacturers for tilt-turn windows (seems to the the European standard). Pella has a line of both inswing and tilt as well as outswinging casement windows. They were always great to have in Germany to open during the winter for ventilation or during a rainstorm. The featherbeds were hung out of the windows at least once a week for a good airing out.

lisapurdy Thanks for advise on in-swing casements. I have some of those upstairs that were made by Kolby. I now see coorItalia does as well. They work well. In my case downstairs, there's a counter in front of the window so I did out-swing casements because I can't reach a double hung to open, and I dont' want to sweep all off the counter before opening a window. I guess nothing is perfect in this arena. I worry about rain on the out-swing window and the solutions suggested thus far don't seem to address security, unless you have the tilting window. I'm used to putting a lock on doublehungs that don't allow it to open further than what a human can climb into. In meantime, I'll just be sure to close and lock when I sleep or am away.

mccormrm our three story townhouse has casements throughout. any ideas on childproofing for our toddler?