As renovation and restoration experts, we are often called out to provide quotes for repairing window frames that have seen better days, most suffering from what I refer to as being “soggy”, where both hardwood and softwood alike have taken a turn with wood rot, and are causing many more problems for you, whether it’s mould, leaks or just an unpleasant part of your home you see every day.

In my daily work life, these are actually one of my favorite jobs to work on, because I am good at it, and the window rot repair results speak for themselves.

Part of the process of walking clients through the process is, I inform them of how it happened, and what they need to do in future to ensure that this doesn’t reoccur. It’s often a case of simply maintaining the woods protection from water, typically the paint membrane. Usually this would happen with an area of the house that is more prone to the daily weathering elements, that is, it may not be overly protected from harsh sunlight or heavy rains. Perhaps it’s a window sill and it offers no “fall” for the water to run off its surface. Maybe it has fall, but maybe there is a sprinkler nearby that enables the water to get upward and into an area it would not be able to do naturally. The last possibility is poor workmanship by whoever build the window or door frame, that’s now suffering from rot. Take a look at our article on how to paint doors if you need help with door restoration.

Either way, the main issue is that there is a breakage in your homes protective shield and water has somehow made it’s way in. The longer the rot is left for, the more damage that will occur, and therefore it will come with a higher price tag at the end to repair.

What steps can be taken to preemptively avoiding door and window rot?

First on your list, you need to do an inspection of all doors and windows in your home, pay close attention to the base of the doors and windows, as that is typically the main hot spot for rot.

What you will need to look for is cracks in the paint membrane, or deformed or odd sections of the window that are shaped inconsistently, as these are the typical entry points for water to penetrate past the first area of your homes defenses.

Using your fingers, test the integrity of the wood around your door or window, if it feels anything but firm to the touch, then you likely have a rot. The deeper you can press into what should be a solid surface, the worse your rot is.

If you’ve done the check around your home and found not rot issues, but some minor cracks in the paint, simple give the area a light sanding and repaint the section, this can easily be done by yourself, however, if you would prefer to hire a painter or handyman to take care of the painting maintenance around your home, then by all means, get in touch with our team. However if you opt to take care of things yourself and do not have a paint match, we recommend you go to your nearest painting store, we usually use Bunnings paint matching services, just keep in mind you’ll need to take at least a 25mm square sample of the paint in so that it can be matched.

Also keep in mind that paint matching is not perfect, especially if your paint work is more than 6 months old. The best example I can give you is that of a kitchen ceiling, lets say its a few years old, if it’s a busy kitchen, the epicenter of the stove top area is going to be constantly bombarded with airborne cooking oils on a daily basis, which will discolour the area above, and gradually fade out from the centre spot. Therefor if you were to paint a small patch of the ceiling in the kitchen, the point where you get the colour match will be fine, but either side of the could be noticeably off.

We hope that the above walkthrough will be helpful, let us know below if it’s benefited you and your home. Have a great day! Contact Aspect Renovations for a quote on window restoration work.