Window repair
Window Repair
Sash that will not stay up, windows painted shut, locks that no longer pull tight. One component failed. The rest of the window is almost certainly fine.
- Typical visit
- One to three hours
- Coverage
- All 56 counties
- Estimate
- Free, fixed in writing
- We sell
- Repairs only
The drive is the job
In Montana, most of what you pay for is the drive
That is not a complaint, it is just arithmetic. This is the fourth largest state in the country with about a million people in it. A service call from Billings to Glendive, or Missoula out to Dillon, is most of a day before anybody picks up a screwdriver.
Which has one useful consequence: the marginal cost of the second repair, and the third, is small. The window you called about and the five others you have been ignoring cost far less done together than they would in separate visits, and the difference is not modest.
So the whole of this page is written around one visit. What we carry so the job finishes first time, what to check before we set off, and how to make a long drive worth both our while.
On the truck
What rides on the truck for window work
A return trip for a forgotten part is a wasted day in this state. Everything here travels as standard.
| What we carry | Why it is on board |
|---|---|
| Sash cord, pulleys and weights | Older Montana housing in Butte, Helena and Billings still runs on cords and weights. The parts cost almost nothing and they fail predictably. |
| Balances in several patterns | Spiral, block-and-tackle and constant-force, in the common sizes. We carry a spread because identifying the exact one from a phone call is not always possible. |
| Locks, keepers and tilt latches | The most common single fault we attend, and the cheapest to fix. Carrying a selection means it gets done today. |
| Weatherstrip in multiple profiles | Different ages of window take different sections. In a climate like this it is the highest-return item we fit, so we never want to be short of it. |
| Crank operators and arms | Casement and awning gearboxes strip, and the housing cracks at low temperatures. Replaced as a unit. |
| Glazing compound, points and beads | So reglazing and re-bedding can happen on the same visit rather than becoming a second trip. |
Make the trip count
Walk round before we set off
Five minutes with a notepad before you ring saves a second visit. Anything you add to the list costs a fraction of what it would as its own call-out.
Try every window, not just the bad one
Open, close and lock each one. In a house of the same age with the same hardware, the fault you noticed is usually present in three or four others at an earlier stage.
Check the locks pull tight
Close each window on a strip of paper. Where it pulls out freely, the lock is not compressing the seal. That is both the rattle and the draught, and it is quick to put right.
Press the sills
Firm thumb pressure along the bottom rail and the sill. Soft or dark timber is the one fault that is getting worse while everything else waits, and it changes what we bring.
Note which ones you never open
Those are the candidates for sealing rather than servicing, and knowing in advance lets us plan the visit sensibly.
Look at the doors and screens too
Same trip, same drive. A door that will not latch and four torn screens cost very little added to a window visit and a great deal as their own.
What Montana does to it
Five forces acting on a Montana window
Not weather in general. Five specific mechanisms, and each one does something different.
Chinook swings
Montana holds the national record for the largest temperature change in twenty-four hours, and the mechanism behind it — a chinook wind coming down off the Rockies — is a normal part of winter along the Front. Materials that expand and contract that fast do not do it evenly, and hardware set for one extreme binds at the other.
Wind, sustained and gusting
Great Falls and the Livingston corridor are among the windiest places in the country, with gusts that regularly reach speeds most states only see in storms. Sustained pressure finds every seal that has stopped compressing, and it works fasteners loose over years.
Cold that changes materials
Montana goes genuinely, seriously cold. Polymer balance shoes, tilt latches and crank housings lose flexibility and snap rather than flex. Most of our hardware failures are reported in the week after a cold snap.
Ultraviolet at elevation
Thinner air and high sun exposure mean stronger ultraviolet than most of the country. It degrades weatherstrip, embrittles vinyl and makes screen mesh split rather than stretch, well inside the lifespans those products were sold with.
Elevation and pressure
Sealed glass units made at one altitude and installed at another are under permanent stress. Across Montana's range of elevations this is a real factor in how long a unit lasts, and it is why capillary tubes exist.
By building
The buildings we work in
Montana puts four quite different kinds of building in front of us, and the window in each one wants something different.
Log and timber homes
Log walls settle vertically for years after they go up, and the windows and doors in them need slip space above the frame to allow for it. Where that space was never left, or has been filled with trim and foam over the years, the opening slowly crushes the unit. A door that will not latch in a log home is often the building moving, not the hardware failing.
Ranch and outbuildings
Shops, barns, bunkhouses and equipment buildings with hardware that has to work in weather and gets no attention until it stops. Usually simple assemblies, usually repairable, and usually a long way from anybody who would come out for them.
In-town housing
Billings, Missoula, Butte, Helena and Great Falls hold a great deal of early-century stock — weight-and-pulley sash, putty glazing and original storm windows — plus post-war and modern suburbs where balances and sealed units fail together.
Manufactured homes
Common across rural Montana. Lightweight aluminium or vinyl frames, out-swing doors and sizes that match nothing in a store. We have a separate page for these because the parts and the advice are genuinely different.
Questions
Window repair questions
Do you sell replacement windows?
No, deliberately. It is the whole reason our recommendation about repairing yours carries weight. When replacement genuinely is right, we say so and tell you who to call.
Will you drive out to us?
Yes. That is the business. Tell us where you are and we will plan a route rather than pricing the distance into the job.
My windows are painted shut.
Common in older Montana housing. Scored carefully, they open without damage to the sash, the glazing or the trim.
The sash will not stay up.
A cord has parted or a balance has lost tension. Routine either way, and neither needs a new window.
Our log home windows are binding.
Likely settlement rather than the window. Log walls move vertically for years and the opening needs slip space above the frame. We will tell you if that is what we are looking at.
Several things broke after the cold snap.
That is normal. Polymer hardware goes brittle well below zero and a hard cold snap finds every component that was already marginal.
Coverage
Window repair across Montana
A mobile service covering the whole state. Pick your town below, or call and we will plan a route to you.
Window Repair Across Montana
Related
Other repairs we handle
Windows and doors are the whole business, so whatever has failed, it is on this list — and it can go on the same visit.
Next step
Tell us what the window is doing
Free estimates across Montana, and a route planned to you rather than a surcharge.