Unless a window is very large, I usually install it by myself. Over the years I’ve played with a few variations of how to install a window without it falling out of the opening while I move from inside to outside to check its placement. The simplest method I have come up with is to use a quick-adjusting clamp or two on the top jamb extension with the bar pointing up toward the ceiling. If the window starts to tip out of the opening, the bar on the clamp keeps it from falling. This technique also leaves the window free for leveling in the rough opening before attaching the nailing fins on the exterior.
—Curt Lyons, Fort Collins, Colo.
Edited and Illustrated by Charles Miller
From Fine Homebuilding #285
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I guess when you're installing windows at a couple hundred bucks a pop you're able to do solo. I've never had that pleasure, my customers have always gone for the ones at several thousand, in which case they've always paid the price for professional installation of two. three, or more installers. Why play around with a clamp to save a few bucks on labor and risk losing several hundred, or thousand dollars on labor? Not only is it unprofessional, it's simply a lack of class.
That’s a pretty negative response to someone offering a potentially useful tip to anyone finding themselves in the position of installing windows solo. Personally, I don’t understand how you could think this adds anything at all to this reader‘s thread. Rather, it reads like mere grandstanding.
I’m currently installing middle-tier windows for a client and am absolutely doing a highly professional, quality job. And, I’m doing it solo…not necessarily to save on labor. Rather, it facilitates my ability to pay attention to every detail myself…from the 3D model, to schematics generation, to demo, carpentry, installation and trim. I’m probably, in fact, a good bit more expensive than installers that use crews…however, my client is delighted with the work and that is the goal: delight the client, right?
One, it’s a good tip that I — and likely others — find useful. Two, the number of workers a contractor uses in a crew is a poor metric indeed for forecasting his/her quality of work.
Well said! I install windows by myself all the time. Other times I have an apprentice to help. Even then, he might need to go change a battery, bend over to pick up a dropped shim etc. and the clamp trick is added insurance.
There's certainly no need to be snobby.