Builder grade windows. Bad install?

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

Hello, i purchased a 5 year old home and the first thing I noticed, once moved in, was the significant amount of outdoor noise in the home. Home is mostly brick with a few areas that have vinyl siding. I have had foam injected into the exterior walls and my master suite interior walls insulated with dense packed cellulose. My next step is to tackle the windows, however, due to the quantity I’m likely looking at $25k. I’m trying to determine if the existing windows are crap and poorly installed. If that’s the case I would assume I’ll see a positive change and the investment will be worthwhile. Existing windows are double pane Jeld wen, must be builder grade. I’m attaching a picture of one window. I noticed there is a metal lip or trim along the top of the opening that doesn’t appear to sit flush with the brick. Does this look like poor workmanship?

If I change out the windows, I would likely want to reduce the size of a handful, one in particular is a large window above my bathtub which is facing the neighbors. Since brickwork will be involved is it wise to work with a GC rather than window company?

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Comments (3)

millworkman
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
The metal is called a lintel, essentially is acting as a header since you have brick opening and "appears" to be installer correctly. You are correct Jeldwen is a builder grade window. A better window with the sound attenuation package or interior storm window, as well as a professional install with sound attenuation in mind should definitely help cut down on the noise transference.
PRO
HomeSealed Exteriors, LLC
6 years ago
+1.

1) That lintel was not part of the window installation, so don't use that as any indication of installation quality.

2) very hard to tell installation quality based on those two pics. Kind of looks like they used the window caulk and extended between the lintel and brick which is weird, but that might be mortar?

3) As MwM said, Jeldwen is generally used as a cost effective product option by builders. These appear to be single hung units which follow along that same line. Would new, high quality, high performance windows be an improvement in energy efficiency and sound attenuation? Almost certainly. Would the difference be enough to justify the price tag? Much harder to say. If these aren't that old and were installed at least reasonably well, that would be very hard to do (present value). If OTOH they are 15+ years old, drafty, have some seal failures, some operational issues etc, it may be about time to replace them anyway. Either way, as MwM also mentioned, you should consider glass units designed for sound mitigation if that is a primary goal, and an airtight unit will help in that regard as well.
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Brad Smith
6 years ago
For the too-large bathroom window, it may be more cost-effective to keep the size the same, but either "frost" the glass, or bottom half of the glass, or get one of those blinds that can open from the top or bottom.

We have the latter in our master bath, because we wanted a window to match the rest of the house. I was originally planning to just frost some or all of the glass for privacy, but our blinds person showed us the one that can open from the top and we went with that. When standing at the window from inside, we can look over it to see outside, but somebody outside would need to be 10ft tall to see in.