- Service
- Window repair
- Coverage
- All 105 counties
- Typical visit
- 1–3 hours
- Estimate
- Free, price fixed first
Main service
Window Repair
Sash that will not stay up, windows painted shut, locks that no longer pull tight, and a draught you can feel from the middle of the room. One part failed. The window did not.
Symptom index
Find your symptom
This is the list we work from. Find the line that matches what your window is doing and you will know what is wrong before anyone quotes you.
Falls shut when you let go
A sash cord has parted, or on a newer window the balance has lost tension. The sash is no longer counterweighted.Balance or cord
Drifts down slowly
Balance tension partly gone. Same part, caught earlier, and often both sides need doing together.Balance
Will not open at all
Paint across the sash line, swollen timber, or debris packed into the channel. Rarely anything structural.Freeing work
Opens part way then stops
An obstruction in the channel, or a balance shoe that has come out of its track.Channel or shoe
Rattles in wind
The lock closes without pulling the sashes together. This is your rattle and your draught in one fault.Keeper alignment
Will not lock
The sash has moved and the lock no longer meets its keeper. Usually no new hardware required.Keeper alignment
Crank turns, nothing moves
The gears inside the casement or awning operator have stripped. Replaced as a unit.Operator
Crank is stiff or grinding
Grit in the operator or a bent arm. Often recoverable with cleaning rather than replacement.Operator service
Cold air near the frame
Weatherstrip compressed flat and no longer springing back. The cheapest meaningful repair on this page.Weatherseal
Daylight visible around the sash
The sash is not closing parallel to the frame, usually after the opening has moved.Alignment
Water on the sill after rain
Blocked weep holes, or glazing putty that has failed and is letting water into the rail.Drainage or glazing
Glass rattles in the sash
Glazing putty or beads have let go. Water is getting into the timber underneath.Reglazing
Haze between the panes
The sealed unit has failed. The window is fine; the glass unit is not.Glass unit
Condensation on the room side
Indoor humidity meeting cold glass. Not a window fault at all.No repair needed
Tilt-in sash will not latch back
Tilt latches broken or the balance shoes are out of position.Latches and shoes
Soft or dark timber on the sill
Water has been sitting where it should have drained. Worth looking at before anything else.Inspect promptly
How it works
Six systems, one failure
A window is not a single object. Understanding the parts is what separates a two-hour repair from a whole-house quote.
01 / Frame
Fixed into the wall and shimmed square. It is the expensive part of a window and it is almost never what fails. If the frame is sound, nothing above it needs replacing.
02 / Sash
The moving element carrying the glass. It swells in a humid eastern Kansas summer, shrinks in a dry western winter, and gets painted into its channel by successive owners.
03 / Glazing
Putty on older wood sash, beads or a stop on anything newer. On a century-old window the putty usually fails decades before the glass does.
04 / Mechanism
Cords and weights on older sash, balances on later double-hungs, operators on casements and awnings. This is the part that does work, and the part that wears out.
05 / Lock
Not only security. A sash lock pulls the two sashes tight against each other, so a lock that does not grip is also the draught you can feel.
06 / Weatherseal
The strip that closes the gap when the window is shut. It compresses flat and hardens, and in a Kansas wind that gap is not theoretical.
Specification
What a window repair should include
This is the checklist we work to on every window call, whether you phoned about one window or fourteen. If a quote you have been given omits most of it, that is worth asking about.
| Item | Status | Why it is on the list |
|---|---|---|
| Full sash operation test | Included | Through the complete travel, both sashes, before anything is dismantled. |
| Balance or cord assessment | Included | Identifying the type and condition rather than guessing from the outside. |
| Lock and keeper register | Included | Whether the lock compresses the seal or merely closes. Half the draught complaints end here. |
| Weatherstrip compression check | Included | Pressed by hand. If it stays flat it is not sealing, whatever it looks like. |
| Glazing and putty inspection | Included | Failed compound lets water into the sash rails, which is how a cheap job becomes a joinery job. |
| Sill and rail probe | Included | Checking for soft timber before quoting anything that assumes sound timber. |
| Frame square measurement | Included | Diagonals measured where an opening has moved, which in Kansas clay country is common. |
| Drainage check | Included | Weep holes clear so water leaves the frame rather than standing in it. |
| Written fixed price | Included | Before any work begins, and it does not move afterwards. |
| Replacement window quote | Not offered | We do not sell them. If you need one we will say so and send you elsewhere. |
Kansas conditions
What Kansas does to a window
Kansas spans about four hundred miles and roughly three thousand feet of elevation. A window in Overland Park and a window in Garden City are not having the same experience.
01
Humid east, semi-arid west
Eastern Kansas summers are genuinely humid and swell timber sash shut. Western Kansas is semi-arid, and the dry air shrinks sash, opens joints and loosens the screws holding hardware. The same window fault has opposite causes depending which end of the state you are in.
02
Expansive clay in the east
Much of eastern and south-central Kansas sits on clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry, and houses move with it. Openings rack slowly out of square, so a sash that fitted for twenty years starts binding on one side and the lock stops meeting its keeper.
03
Wind, constantly
Kansas is among the windiest states in the country, and much of it is open ground. Sustained pressure finds every weak seal, and wind-driven rain and snow get through gaps that would never matter in sheltered country. A lock that does not pull tight is a real problem here.
04
Hail and severe storms
Kansas sits in the core of hail country. Storm damage to glass and screens arrives across a whole elevation rather than one window, and panes that survive visibly intact can still have lost their seal.
Workmanship
Five ways this gets done badly
Window repair is not difficult, but it is easy to do in a way that comes back. These are the shortcuts we are most often called out to undo.
01
Replacing one balance, not the pair
A sash is counterweighted on both sides. Replacing the failed one and leaving the tired one means the second fails within a season and the sash racks in the meantime.
02
Painting over the weatherstrip
Extremely common in older housing. Paint fills the pile and the strip stops compressing, so the window looks finished and seals worse than before it was touched.
03
Forcing a painted-shut sash
Levering a stuck sash without scoring the paint line first splits the stop, cracks the glazing and sometimes breaks the glass. The job then costs several times what freeing it properly would have.
04
Lubricating with oil
Oil attracts the dust that Kansas produces in quantity and turns a channel into grinding paste. Dry silicone is the correct product and it is not expensive.
05
Ignoring why the lock stopped meeting
Fitting a new lock to a sash that has moved produces a new lock that does not meet either. The geometry has to be corrected first, and usually that is the entire repair.
Coverage
Window repair across Kansas
A mobile service covering the whole state, east to west. Pick your town below, or call and we will come to you.
Window Repair Across Kansas
Questions
Window repair questions
Q1
Do you sell replacement windows?
No, deliberately. It is the whole reason our recommendation about repairing yours carries any weight. If replacement genuinely is right, we say so and you call somebody else.
Q2
My windows are original to a 1920s house. Should I keep them?
In most cases, yes. Original sash in sound condition, repaired and weatherstripped, outlasts the replacement unit sold against it, and it fits an opening that has moved and that a new unit would have to be packed into.
Q3
Should I open my windows when a tornado is coming?
No. That advice is out of date and the National Weather Service has long since corrected it — opening windows does not equalise pressure, does not protect the house, and costs you seconds you should be spending getting to shelter. Leave them shut and go.
Q4
My windows are painted shut.
Very common here. They can nearly always be freed without damaging the sash, the glazing or the trim, and they usually work normally afterwards.
Q5
Is weatherstripping really worth doing?
In a Kansas wind, yes. Most of what people describe as a draughty window is air leaking past a flattened seal and a lock that has stopped pulling tight. Both are inexpensive.
Q6
Will you do several windows in one visit?
Yes, and it is substantially cheaper per window. Most houses have the same fault repeated, so mention the others when you call.
Related
Other repairs we handle
Windows and doors are the whole business, so whatever has failed, it is on this list.
Next step
Tell us what the window is doing
Free estimates across Kansas, with a fixed written price before anything is touched.