Window Replacement in Winthrop, ME

Vinyl window replacement is our recommendation for the half of Winthrop's housing built after its 1977 median year, where plain double-hungs belong and a frame that needs no paint makes sense. Harvey's replacement guide warns that over-insulating with foam can make a window operate incorrectly, so we use low-expansion foam and a light hand.

Where the frame is sound, a vinyl insert slides into it and the outside trim stays put. Where ice dams have soaked the sill or the header (the framing over the window), the old frame comes out and the opening gets a pan and tape before the new unit goes in.

Wood window replacement suits Winthrop's pre-1940 houses, 24.2 percent of the town's housing, in a place first settled in 1765 as Pondtown. On those houses we order the new wood-clad sash (the part that moves) to the old pane pattern, six-over-six or two-over-two, whichever the house was built with.

We could find no local historic review in Winthrop, and the National Park Service says a Register listing on its own puts no limits on a private owner. We still match the pattern on an old house, because its windows set its face.

Entry door replacement in Winthrop usually starts with a draft: long, cold winters and frequent snow find every gap around an old door, from tired weatherstrip to a sweep that no longer meets the threshold. If the frame is sound, only the slab changes, while a soft threshold calls for a whole prehung door (slab, frame and sill as one) set over a sill pan.

Maine's adopted residential code treats any glass in a door, and low glass within 24 inches of its edge, as a spot that needs safety glass. We order sidelights to that rule from the start.