Wood rot repair; restore, don't replace
It can be hard trying to make the right choice for your home. In this blog post, we explain why, when it comes to wood rot repair, restoring your windows is better than replacing them for the environment, your wallet and your home.
Restoring vs. replacing
Windows must not be weight bearing. They are essentially a single unit suspended within the framework of your home. So, replacing your rotting window requires that you replace the whole thing. Even if you only have a small, damaged area you’ll be discarding the whole thing – unless you do what we do. Anything else is a waste of time, money and importantly resources.
This is what we do. We fix and restore windows. Other companies will replace your windows, but the problem is that when you put a new structure in, it’s highly unlikely you’ll find a match to your existing windows and doors.
Is replacing better?
Your benefits for repairing wood rot
For you, it’s going to be a lot quicker. It will take us a day or two, and then there’s the obvious savings of cost and disrupting other parts of your house. The first thing is the cost, it’s probably a quarter or third of the price. Obviously we can tell you more once we’ve quoted and we’ve had a look at it.
Our process restores them to look exactly the same as your existing windows so your home will be uniform. Also, when you install a new window or door, you tend to damage other parts of the house. That may be the render on the outside of your house, it may be the plaster on the inside of your house. Then all of the sudden you’re replacing plaster, then you need to paint, and it becomes a ‘pandora’s box’.
When we fix your window, we don’t disturb any part of your house. You may be considering restoring your windows to sell your house. If a shrewd buyer looks at some windows that are different to others, they’ll realise that they’ve been replaced. Their next thought is that “if this window needed to be replaced, that means that the other windows may also rot’. Whereas when you get your windows restored by Stop the Rot, we mirror them exactly.
In terms of restorations, whether your home was built in 1890 or 1980, the process that we use on your home, is the same as our Heritage Approved process…meaning we can restore any window on any home. You only get heritage approval if you can structurally and visually restore a window as it was meant to look when the house was first built, which we do. The process that has passed heritage approval will be used on your home.
I’m not sure if you care about the environment; but we do. It’s much better because we’ll be primarily using the materials in your structure that have been unaffected. When you replace, discard the whole window. Usually, the damage to that window is 5% of the window, and when you replace that structure your discarding 95% of avoidable waste. That’s all going to end up in landfill, and you’re going to be chopping down a lot more trees to replace your window.
The process of wood rot repair
There are a few companies in Melbourne who can do what we do, we don’t think they do it as well as we do… But that’s for you to determine. We don’t really compete against new door and windows installation businesses.
By the time that you get a quote, you’ll see that our prices are so much better. The skill or trade that makes new windows are joiners, and all of our technicians are trained and qualified joiners, or they are trained in joinery skills with years of experience dealing with windows and doors. We’ve perfected this skillset over 17+ years, and very rarely do we come across a window or door that we can’t restore back to its original condition.
What we’re doing is not disturbing the glass, not disturbing the 90% of your structure that isn’t damaged, we’re cutting out the components that are affected, so we’re not just treating damaged timbers; we’re cutting them out. Then we replace this with new hardwood jointing the new timber to the old. As our new blocks of timber move (because new timber shrinks as it starts to dry out) they can cause cracks. Those cracks can then attract moisture and then start to rot again. But we have techniques that avoid those cracks appearing again using marine ply inlays over our joints.
We come to you, we take the mouldings, we take the trims, we go back to our warehouse and we machine them up to match exactly what your home needs. This is how we match exactly, as far as we know, we are the only ones who have this process and are therefore able to restore every window back to its original structure. We have a full-time guy who works in the factory doing this for you. If you have something on your window that isn’t available on hardware store shelves, our fully functioning warehouse can make that for you.
To restore your windows back to their original condition, beautifully, call us on (03) 9580 8933 or fill out the form below