Window Replacement in Randolph, ME

Vinyl window replacement makes sense for a Randolph house whose openings are plain and whose owner is finished with painting sash every few summers. Vinyl is the least costly of our frame materials, and it is never painted.

Much of Randolph's compact village sits near the river, and the shoreland band runs 250 feet back from the Kennebec, so we read your lot against that line first. An insert (a complete unit sized to the old frame, so the casing inside stays put) goes only into a frame that tests square and dry.

Wood window replacement fits the 39.1 percent of Randolph housing built in 1939 or earlier, where a wood sash and its pane layout are part of the face the house shows the street. A wood-clad unit gives you wood to finish on the inside and a skin of aluminum, vinyl or fiberglass where rain and sun hit.

We found no local historic review in Randolph, and no National Register listing in town either. We still match the old grid, two-over-two or six-over-six, because a prewar Randolph house looks wrong without it.

Entry door replacement on a Randolph house turns on the threshold: a sound sill means a new slab can be hung on the old jambs, while a rotted one means a prehung door (the slab delivered already hinged in its own frame and sill). Andersen, for one, sells its front doors only prehung, with the panel already hung on hinges in its own frame.

A door sill on a prewar house has had many winters of snowmelt to soak up, so we check the subfloor under it before we price the door. If the wood there is soft, you see it, and the repair goes on the written price before we go on.