Anyone have any information on how to tear out a rotted wood sill under a steel casement window? I need to replace a few on my house and dont know exactly how hard/easy this might be and how the window and the sill might be connected if at all. The exterior is of the house is brick. Thanks
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Are the exterior walls of the house entirely brick, or is it wood framed with a brick veneer? How the windows are attached is pretty different for the two cases.
If you have all brick construction, then there are nailing blocks set into the inside wyeth of brick that everything fastens to. At least that is one way to do it, there might be others.
Its wood frame construction with a brick veneer. I basically need to know if it is possible to use a sawzall to just cut out the old sill and slide in a new one. I have no experience with these old windows and dont want to mess them up as I change the sills
Sort of depends on how far under the window frame the sill extends, and how rotten the wood is.
If you get lucky, it may be possible to cut off the protruding part of the sill flush, and form just a new nosepiece.
If so, it would be best to attach the nosepiece with screws and epoxy to prevent any water from getting into the joint between new and old. I have repaired several like this, and they have held up well.
With brick though, you may find that the masonry has kept the wood under the frame wet enough to rot as well, mushrooming the repair effort. Hard to know until you start digging into it. Wood and masonry in contact is just a bad arrangement.
If you end up having to replace the whole thing, it may be worth considering forming the new sill out of cellular PVC. I just made 3 of them to reproduce some historic trim. It took 3 pieces built up to get the right thickness, but the stuff is easy to work with.
Royal Mouldings actually makes 2 piece PVC windowsills, though the chances they would fit just right out of the box are slim.
Royal Moulding PVC Sill dimensions (nosepieces are separate): (http://cb.cadregister.com/oem/CADREgister.ppow?GB&17186388/proser/)
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Thanks for the information. How much could I expect to pay for someone to replace the sills either in wood or PVC. The windows are about 4 ft wide and the sills look to be about 1.5 inch thick
Be wary of anyone who give you a fixed quote with any confidence. There is no way they can guess the labor on something like this until they really dig in. The guy who says "it depends" or gives you a range is actually going to be more trustworthy in this case.
Things like this are not straight-forward 'off the shelf' repairs. If you really have to dig in, or go so far as to remove the window, it gets ugly.