French Doors with screen doors.

last year

I have a gable wall at the top of my house that is all glass. It was originally direct set glass held in by wood stops with a pair of French doors leading out onto a roof terrace. The glass area was great, because there was just a bit of wood mullion. But it had all the problems of single pane set into wood and only a few houses still have this.

This is not my house, this is glazed the same way, and is in the same development:

This exhibits many of the problems mine had, rotting deck, rotting window sills, added screen doors because none of these windows opened. It's been cobbled over time. I got rid of the deck, redid the roofs.

The previous owner replaced all of these openings with replacement vinyl, two of which are casement which is nice for ventilation, and a really cheap French door that you can feel the wind blow through. This faces west so the light control is terrible. It's blinding and it heats up in the summer.

My original plan was to go with new direct set with lots of UV and a big slider, 10 feet wide with the fixed panel adjacent to and over the stair area, and the operable toward the far corner, replacing the French door and the two squares on each side.

Really I am tired of spending money. There is nothing the matter with the replacement vinyl windows. I don't love them but they work. So now I would like to replace this with another set of french doors and screen doors, and I am thinking of:

Provia with blinds between the glass, and Provia Superview screen doors. And then blinds or shutters on the other windows to make the room livable. It also faces a row of houses that are a story taller and have a direct view into the room, so privacy is necessary.

Thoughts on this option? A 5 foot slider would be the cheapest but I need something bigger than a less than 30" clear opening.

Any other brands to consider?

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Comments (2)

PRO
HALLETT & Co.
last year
You need to show what you have now and only you can answer whether it’s worth the money to tear out brand new windows to put in newer new windows.
palimpsest
Original Author
last year
The windows that are in place are not brand new. The first time they tried to sell the house was 2006 or so and I think it was done then, along with a number of other "to sell" renovations. I remember this house from about 25 years ago, and it was falling apart. So they are probably 18 years old or so?

Anyway, here are some pictures of what's there now from the listing when we bought and from after we repaired the flat roof. (I spent a couple months sleeping with 13 buckets in my bedroom when it rained). This house was in terrible shape for many years and the owner who had it between about 2000 and 2011 patched a lot of things up so it was livable, but that's about it.

There is nothing the matter with the windows per se except they are not nice, and the are not the original intent. (Neither would a ten foot slider replacing the doors and four squares, but it would be closer to what the architect did when he had a healthier budget).

It's really only the door which must be replaced. It's an off the rack home depot french door that is very drafty and has two fully operable leaves without the right hardware.

But you can see that the frame area is just much thicker.

Is it worth replacing all of this, really that's doubtful except from an esthetic standpoint (and better Low e glass and some other things but since we need to cover them anyway...). It would be pretty expensive and involve scissor lifts or a cherry picker and things like that in addition. It will anyway because there is no way to get a French door up there but that's a little easier than the parts for the whole thing.) If I had lots of money, lying around sure. But I won't borrow money to do anything to a house.

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