Vinyl Window Sealing
Vinyl windows are
new innovation that they are soon going to completely replace
old-style windows. A lot of home owners currently have or are
going to replace existing windows frame by vinyl material. There
is a proof of this statement, especially if you go the western
part of the USA such as in California, so you can see many house
have used vinyl windows. However, even though there are plenty
of benefit using vinyl windows, but when you have to replace the
existing ones, there were some arguments that widely discussed
about the retrofit process that this may cause to water leaks.
In my personal opinion this is absolutely true if you do not do
it properly. It is quite sensitive process that you have to
carefully do the job. There will be water leak if you could not
completely remove your tear out of your old window down to the
studs and properly replace the new one. In fact, you have to
make sure that you have done BOTH of these processes completely.
Even though you have removed the tear out from the old window
perfectly but there still are water leaks if you fail to replace
the new windows effectively.
As a result, if you fail to
replace new windows properly, you will have problems of
water leak into your house. Let's have California as an example;
California is the area that has frequent rain fall throughout
the season as it's locates to close proximity to the ocean. So
people who living in this area should pay extra attention when
they want to install retrofit frames. Particularly, for stucco
house, which home owners have to use thicker bead of sealant and
seal on the outside of the window.
Some people may have another alternative of sealing material
such as latex caulk. In fact, this material is working find but
you have to bear in mind that the quality may compensate to its
cheap price. So the suggestion is; if you just have more
budgets, using 100% silicone is probably the best choice.
However, even though using silicone is more effective but you
have to consider about the total number of windows that you have
because the cost will rise depends on the number of windows you
have. For instance, in average the total cost for a tube of
acrylic latex caulk is about one dollar, mean while the average
cost for a tube of silicone is about four dollars and you have
to use for about 3 tubes for a window, depending on the size of
the windows but roughly it take about 3 tubes.
However we can reduce cost by using both type of sealing
materials in stead of using only silicone tubes. I have learnt
that we can use silicone with the most sensitive part of the
windows and that part needs extra protection. I am talking about
the top side of the window.
The top of the window have to face with strong power of water
that comes directly from roof top, so it seem that this part
must be more sealed securely than any other part of the window
such as below or side of the window. Therefore, the idea is we
only use silicone with the top of the window and use latex caulk
with the rest and this will save you a lot of money.
Contact our Window Specialist today to help you with your window needs.
Cherdkiat Taesookavat is an architect, providing information and directories about home decor, please visit Vinyl Window
