Local Vinyl Window Replacement | Augusta Window Replacement

An insert, or pocket window, is a complete unit that slides into the existing frame once the old sash and balances are pulled, leaving the outside trim and inside casing in place. A full-frame unit removes the whole old window back to the rough opening, the hole the framing leaves for a window, which lets us see that framing, repair it and flash it.

Fine Homebuilding and This Old House draw the same line we do: an insert suits a frame that is square, level and sound, while a rotted or out-of-square frame needs full-frame. The Department of Energy's Building America checklist labels full-frame the recommended option and says the space behind an old window's trim was often never sealed against air.

On older capital-area houses, ice dams often leave a sill (the frame's lowest board, which takes runoff from the glass) soft under good paint, and an insert set on it only covers the rot. Where we go full-frame, a sill pan (a shaped tray under the window that drains any leak to the outside) goes in first, then flashing tape lapped into the house wrap so water on the tape always lands outside the layer beneath.

A rated window carries an NFRC label listing its U-factor, solar heat gain, visible light, condensation resistance and air leakage, and NFRC says the lower the U-factor, the better the window keeps heat in. If ice forms on the inside of your old glass every January, compare the condensation number too, though room humidity still plays a part.

Kennebec and Lincoln counties fall in IECC climate zone 6A, and there Maine's 2021 energy code caps a window's U-factor at 0.30. ENERGY STAR Version 7.0, which covers windows made on or after October 23, 2023, asks Northern zone windows for U-0.22 or lower with an SHGC (solar heat gain coefficient) of 0.17 or more, or an equivalent pair up to U-0.26.

Read the frame as closely as the glass: Andersen describes its 100 Series as Fibrex, a blend of wood fiber and polymer that is not vinyl, and Pella's 250 Series brochure describes multichambered frames with metal-reinforced sash. Before ordering, hold a sample against your old sash and compare the frame showing around the glass, since that strip reads from the street.

Grilles are the bars that split the glass into "the little panes," and on a vinyl window they usually sit between the panes of the insulated glass unit, the sealed double or triple pane. We match the pattern the house was built with: six-over-six or two-over-two on a farmhouse or an older cape, one-over-one on a 1960s ranch.

A bedroom window is also an escape opening, and Maine requires 5.7 square feet clear on every floor because the state deleted the smaller grade-floor exception. The Maine-adopted IEBC 505.3 lets a replacement skip that size when it is the largest standard unit the maker offers for the existing frame, in the same operating style or one that opens as wide or wider.