Post-Replacement Info for Residents:
Because our heads are probably swollen, we at Cutting Edge Windows, LLC are sure that you are enjoying your new beautifully installed windows. We wish to address a few things here, and also, you’ll see below where we try to answer any questions that you may have.

1: The first thing that you’ll probably notice about your new windows (besides how great they look), is how much quieter your home is now. The next thing you’ll discover is how much more comfortable your home is with a more balanced temperature throughout. If you pay the heating bill, you’ll probably soon be benefiting from a nice reduction in energy costs. Double-pane vinyl windows tend to be fairly energy-efficient and quiet, but the windows we provide have the best energy ratings we’ve seen on any dual-pane line of products, and come with these extra features:
  • LowE heat-reflective and ultraviolet-reflective glass
  • A total of FOUR air chambers in the vinyl frame for more insulation value
  • Argon gas in the glass panes for insulation and sound-dampening value
  • Foam Super-Spacers between the glass for more insulation & sound control


2: There is an important safety issue to be aware of: Every year we hear news of children falling out of windows to their death. Window screens will not protect anyone from falling out. Although we try very hard to not provide windows with large openings that are very low to the floor, everyone needs to watch out for small children in this regard. They can fit through small openings, and they can get themselves in a lot of trouble in a very small amount of time when your eyes are turned away. Please be mindful of this subject. Furniture placed next to windows provide easy access for children to fall out. Do not place a bed or chair next to a window that opens out over a high potential drop. Another thing to watch out for is to not close drapes or blinds over a window that is in the open position. If kids or young adults are roughhousing, they can fall right through the curtain and out the window, thinking it was closed (sometimes children and young adults don’t think at all). –Yes, we’re a bit jaded here… we have kids too.











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© 2010   Cutting Edge Windows, LLC   (window replacement for multi-family buildings) (206) 633-0202




































Questions & Answers:

Any tips for washing my windows?

 Sure! Use Windex on warm, dry days. On cool, wet days, use rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle. If you don’t like the smell of the alcohol, just pretend you’re making a martini. Use two terrycloth rags that have not been dried with a fabric softener sheet. The first rag is meant to get wet as you go from window to window. Use it to actually scrub and wash the glass up well (don’t forget the corners and edges). Quickly get the dry rag out and buff the glass dry so that you don’t get streaks (again, get the corners & edges good).

During the wet wash, if the glass still has grime on it after a wipe down, you can use #0000 steel wool (as long as you keep the glass wet). Do not use any other kind of steel wool, or you’ll scratch the glass up. That’s four-zero’s, pronounced “Four Aught steel wool”, also known as super fine. Four aught is the finest steel wool you can get (as apposed to coarse!), and it’s the only steel wool that will not scratch glass! If you don’t know for sure if it’s Four Aught (that’s “#0000”), then do not use it! It’s better to take another trip to the hardware store. What’s that? Where does steel wool come from? From steel sheep.

For the vinyl frames, Simple Green works great, using another terrycloth rag dampened with warm water. Be sure to clean out the bottom tracks of any sliding windows and patio doors so that they stay operating smoothly. For tough spots on the vinyl frame, use a citrus cleaner.

Question: If you clean the glass with rubbing alcohol, and the vinyl frame with a citrus cleaner, does it smell like an orange martini?


How do I remove the window screens?

Please don’t remove the screens unless you get permission from the owner. There’s one thing for sure that can fade the beauty your new windows in a big hurry: all the torn, bent, and missing screens! They usually get damaged by residents who try to remove them. Cost-wise, when we sell window screens, usually the bulk price is $25 plus tax each. By the way, if you are the owner or manager, please call me, and I’ll get some instructions to you.


I feel a breeze coming through the window.

Daring to sound arrogant here, please understand that the breeze you feel probably doesn’t have anything to do with our installation. However, there are a few things that should be covered and explored if we’re going to get to the solution. Below, you’ll see three likely possibilities that you may be observing. You can quickly scan them to see which better-describes your situation.

1: If you’re feeling a very small, but sharply cold breeze near the opener on your window, please understand that’s normal. Windows have a natural air infiltration rating called AL (Air Leakage). Almost every window manufacturer in the United States sends their windows to the NFRC (National Fenestration Ratings Council) to get tested for several things. One of these tests measures infiltration (air that leaks through the weather stripping & other minute gaps). On cold days, when the exterior air really wants to come inside for a warm up, you might be able to feel a small air flow near certain vulnerable spots on a window. It’s much more noticeable on cold days, because even a little cold air feels... well, very cold. Furthermore, if your bathroom fan or clothes dryer is running, they will be sucking all the air they can into your home, through these parts of your windows. This is normal, and the only way anyone can stop it is to caulk the window completely shut.

Compare your new, super energy-efficient windows to the old drafty pieces of junk your building used to have. Also, it’s not healthy to live inside a completely sealed environment. As a non-reptile, you need air. If you sealed your home up too much, you’d be living in a stagnant, sweaty, moldy, mildew-infested home. In other words, quit while you’re ahead; life is great.

2: Are you feeling a large blow of air coming from the top of one of your windows? We usually make sure to provide a passive fresh-air ventilator in at least one window (located at the top) for each apartment or condominium home. This is to help your bathroom fan be much more efficient in doing its job. With your new weather-tight windows, there needs to be somewhere for air to still come into your home to replace the air your bathroom fan is sucking out. So, when your bathroom fan, kitchen fan, or laundry dryer is on, blasto! You’ll feel as much air as they can possibly pull through that little ventilator. That’s a good thing. It means everything is probably working well. Blocking off the entrance for air to come in is similar to blocking off the exhaust side of your fan, which renders the fan useless, and burns the motor out. The biggest source for unhealthy, mold-causing, humid moisture in a home is the tub or shower, making the bathroom fan one of the most important fixtures in a home. Another thing to consider: failing to provide enough fresh air for a clothes dryer (if you have one), makes it very inefficient & slow, and causes it to run much hotter. This can potentially encourage a fire-hazard at its exhaust point for two compound reasons: 1The excess heat generated could ignite lint buildup in the exhaust vent, 2which clogs up easier without the proper air flow (which a window ventilator helps to provide).

Question: “Don’t these ventilators just make my house colder? They are passive, and when a fan isn’t running, they typically reduce the energy-efficiency of that one window by only one point from a .29 to a .30 U-factor. The U-factor is an NFRC measurement that describes heat-loss, so the lower this number is, the more efficient the product is. To put this in perspective, to say a .30 U-factor easily qualifies as an efficient, EnergyStar-qualified product is an understatement.

3: If you’re feeling a real draft of air infiltration near your window, and it’s not due to the two possibilities described above, then it sounds like something is probably wrong and some investigation is in order. The first easy thing we should do is to send the most unlikely suspect item to the back of our list, and focus on the others: The windows aren’t causing the problem. What, you’re not satisfied with that? Haha, I don’t blame you, but you will be in a few seconds...

The windows we install are sealed with caulk on the outside, protecting your building from rain and wind, and also caulked with a secondary air seal on the interior. This is like a plastic zip-locked bag being sealed up inside a Tupperware bowl and lid. Can a windy breeze get through both of our seals? Not even close to likely. We’ve installed thousands of windows per year since 1993, and not even one of our installations has been responsible for excess air infiltration. This should put our window installation at the bottom of our possibility list.

That leaves all the other surfaces around the window as likely suspects. How could the wind get into the walls in the first place? On most buildings, I can find all sorts of places for air to pass right into an exterior wall. Unless the outside of your apartment building is one big slab of granite, winds can pass through gaps in shingles, ends of boards, between boards, and through buckled plywood siding. Maybe the outside wind gets in the walls way up high or way down low, finding its way right on through. Now lets look on the inside; where do you feel the draft? Where are the gaps? Being right there, you can see for yourself and know that our window is caulked quite well on the inside, but are there layers of interior wood trim around the window? The air is probably coming in through gaps between this trim and the wall. Other strong possibilities could be gaps below your tile windowsill, or down near the floor where the carpet tucks under the baseboard trim. In my house, I can feel air coming in through the electrical wall outlets. The easiest way to precisely locate a draft: Get the backside of your hand damp, and hold it up to any suspect areas on the wall. Once you've located the problem area, call your manager and explain what the problem is so they can get it fixed. If for some reason it is the window, then either let the management know, or contact us, and we'll get it fixed. After all, although it's highly unlikely, we can't completely rule the window out.


I think my window is leaking. What do I do about it?

For every 1000 windows we install, there tends to be one that leaks. Please call us at (206) 633-0202 immediately at any time to let us know if you’re one of the “lucky” ones. We’ll want to rush right out and get it fixed up!

While installing thousands of windows each year, it’s during the November - December storms that we discover if we have any possible leaks. It’s always very embarrassing if we do, but we take our warranties seriously and repair them right away. Since 1993, every warranty promise we have ever made is still being honored today. In contrast, we’ve seen many window companies go out of business or change their names around that time of year. It’s also the same time of year that we get a lot of calls from apartment building owners to repair those other guys’ leaks.

Now, keep something else in mind. Every year, we get called several times for windows that someone only thought were leaking, where either the 1exterior siding or roofing is the culprit, or someone mistakes interior 2condensation on the glass for a leak: 1: When it’s the siding or roofing that leaks, it’s easy for us to determine. We remove the interior trim, and inspect the window closely inside and out. Then we can spray around the outside of the window with a full blast of garden-hose water through a spray nozzle for several minutes. If we can’t get a drop of water to come in, it becomes obvious that the window is not at fault.

2: When there’s condensation on the inside of our super energy-efficient windows, that means that there’s a serious problem with moisture in the interior air! Look at your toilet, I’ll bet it’s all sweaty too. See? I’m right, aren’t I? The first thing to check is the bathroom fan. Usually, more moisture enters a home’s atmosphere from hot, steaming bathroom showers than everything else put together. Turn the fan on. Does it sound at all funny? If you hold a full sheet of paper up near it, does it pull the paper up against it, or does the paper just sit there drooped over? There you go! The building owner just might need to toss the old fan and get a new one. Problem solved. If it’s not the fan, check out the Question & Answer about ongoing condensation or mold problems. It’s a full subject by itself.


Why don’t I have a lock on my screen door?

If we installed a sliding patio door in your apartment, you’ll notice that we did not provide a lock for the sliding screen. This has always been a matter of policy for us at Cutting Edge Windows, LLC. The reason we don’t install these is that such a lock would severely reduce the life expectancy of the screen door itself (due to several inherent problems). One of these problems would be obvious to anyone who has quarrelsome children (in other words, to anyone who has children). Anyhow, a screen lock provides no security against burglars, because anyone can easily tear right through the screen material.

Speaking of screen doors, we recommend that when your sliding glass door is closed, that you leave the sliding screen door fully opened. Otherwise, if someone opens the glass door, they might walk right into the screen door and damage it, not realizing that it was there. Don’t laugh, we’ve seen it happen many times.


I don’t think my window or patio door is working properly.

Once in a while, when we’re installing windows and patio doors in multi-unit housing, things can go unnoticed before we leave and go on to the next apartment. This means that maybe a window or patio door isn’t working smoothly or quite right. Either way, go ahead and let the building manager know, or contact us with the form at the bottom of this web page, and we’ll get it fixed up (sorry for the inconvenience).

Sometimes a resident only thinks that one of our windows doesn’t work right, when actually it does. Here are a few examples of when things are actually working just fine: A window opener that slides up and down vertically will always have a small amount of play in it as it’s opened or closed. We could use the word “slop” here, but for some reason prefer the word “play”. If the window opens, closes, locks, and keeps the rain out, then it’s working just fine.

If a window or patio door has some condensation on the “fourth surface” (the surface on the inside of your home that you can wash), it’s not a window problem; it’s a moisture-in-your-air problem (see the Question & Answer about Ongoing Condensation or Mold Problems).

If, on a cold day, a window or patio door has some condensation on the “first surface” (the surface on the outside of your home that you can wash), it’s not a window problem; it’s a consequence of having super energy-efficient windows. Because the window is so efficient, the outer pane isn’t getting much heat from your apartment, and it remains very cold. As the outside air warms even just a degree or two, the temperature of the glass takes time to catch up, and because It’s temporarily colder than the air during that short time, any moisture the air holds will be released onto the glass in the form of condensation.

As far as patio doors go, there is a strange phenomenon that can happen, and sometimes the only scientific answer is to blame the resident (not you... a previous resident - we’d never blame you.). We sometimes get a call from any particular building manager who lets us know that a patio door isn’t locking like it should (weeks, months, or years after we installed it). Yes, that can happen, and it can easily be our fault. But, when we’ve gone out to fix some, once in a while, we find that the lock is greatly out of adjustment, where a particular adjustment screw has been tightened all the way. Upon fixing the matter, the resident always denies having touched it. Then, a few months later, we get the same phone call, regarding the same exact patio door. Upon our return, believe it or not, the adjustment screw miraculously had tightened itself several revolutions all the way up again, while the tenant continues to deny touching it. Over the years, we’ve seen this problem again and again, sometimes repeated as many as four times on the same door! Ok, so maybe we can’t prove that the door isn’t possessed, but we would rather believe that some unqualified person is trying to “improve” the lock’s settings. What we want to get across here is that when we’re done adjusting a patio door, there will be some play in the opener when it’s locked! This is normal, and it’s necessary. If we tightened that movement up all the way (by loosening that adjustment screw by the way), the door would require gorilla-strength to engage and disengage the lock. Some residents might think that this small amount of play affects the security of the locked door. It doesn’t (-but a lock that is way out of adjustment most definitely does).


How secure are my windows; can I make them more secure?

First of all, your new vinyl windows are probably much more secure than the old ones that we took out. Many of the old windows that we replace are single-pane, and your new ones are dual-pane. This means that if someone really wanted in, he must now break through two panes of glass. With that much noise, you should have plenty of warning to grab your shotgun. In contrast, often when we’re removing the original windows, the old single pane glass almost silently falls right out into our hands after pulling off the exterior snap trim around it. Glass breaking all over is kind of a universal alarm system of sorts for everyone (including your neighbors who might have a shotgun too).

Sometimes on horizontal sliding windows and sliding patio doors, folks cut a stick just a bit smaller than the remaining length of the slider track, so that the opener can open up about three inches, but no more. That might work great for security while simultaneously getting some ventilation. Usually a 2x2 sized board fits nice and snug in the track.


What can I do about ongoing condensation or mold problems?

Because condensation causes mold and mildew, we’re just going to deal with the condensation issue here. Now that you have new, super energy-efficient windows, your inside panes of glass are much warmer in the winter. However, if your new windows have interior condensation issues, then you definitely have some serious moisture problems with your air. Don’t worry; it can be fixed. So far, in solving this problem again and again, we at Cutting Edge Windows haven’t been beaten by air moisture yet. We’re going to take this problem head on here, so bring your fortitude along (and your political sense of humor).

First, we need to understand exactly what’s going on here... What happens is, the warm air in your home can hold much more moisture than cooler air can. It absorbs water from every source that’s made available to it, such as fish tanks, boiling pots & pans, and especially hot steaming showers & baths. People & pets breath out a lot of moisture, and plants put as much moisture in the air as you give them in the form of water. Well, when you begin to maximize the air’s ability to absorb this humidity, it gets very heavy, making it easy to drop that moisture on any cooler surface. Just like a paper towel: the more water it holds, the easier it is to wring out.

Let’s consider or imagine extremely humid, 70-degree air getting pushed up and along the ceiling, and then being forced downward toward a window. On one side of the room, the heater is pushing the air up, and on the other side, the cooler window is pulling the air down, creating a convectional current inside your home. Your new windows are very energy efficient, but they’ll still be the coolest surface in the room. If your interior glass surface is 65 degrees, it will cool the extremely humid 70-degree air down just a bit, causing it to release moisture onto those cooler surfaces. The condensation just camps out on the glass as a wet puddle. Some people say that the moisture is in “transition”, because it’s not nice to call it homeless. So what do we do about all that transient moisture? Easy! We’re going to send it out into the world where it can be put to work to finally do some good again.

Where do we start? The bathroom fan! The bathroom shower is the biggest contributor of moisture in a home, and the fan’s job is to get that humidity where it starts, and send it right on outside where it belongs. Like a lot of politicians, your bathroom fan has probably been shirking its responsibilities. It’s gotten lazy & complacent, and probably complains & whines when it actually has to work. Give it the paper test. Hold a full sheet of paper up near it when it’s on. A proper working fan should pull the paper right up against itself. If you hear whining from your bathroom fan or it fails the test, impeach it. Call the building management and register your vote of incompetence in the current fan and log in your vote for a new efficient one. If asked for my opinion, I’d choose Superblican fans over Demo-matic. Although several Superblican models aren’t as energy-conservative as they ought to be, they’re still less wasteful than most of the Demo-matic ones. Also by comparison, they’re usually stronger on defense from the terrors of mold & mildew! As a side note, generic fans are usually just knockoffs made by those who didn’t have the fortitude to stick around and put in their fair share of work at Superblican. If you ignore the generics, maybe they’ll go back to Superblican and make some much-needed contributions to core policy & integrity. (I’m just talking about bathroom fans, what were you thinking?)

Here’s some more excellent tips on controlling humidity and mold:

1: This is by far, the first and most important thing to do in helping to control your home’s humidity: When you get done taking a bath or shower, don’t just throw your bathroom door wide open. Make sure it’s closed to a crack, and run your bathroom fan for an hour. This stops the foggy air from flooding your home, and allows the fan to escort it outside much more efficiently. If you need to rush off to work regularly, and don’t want to leave the fan on all day long, ask your building manager if he can get you a timer switch for it. If you don’t have a fan, leave your bathroom window open a bit, and keep the bathroom door completely closed until the heavy air clears.

2: Leave your blinds or curtains open enough to allow some airflow when you can.

3: If you have plants, pets, a fish tank, or people that are home all the time, these factors all significantly add to the moisture content in the air. As needed, be sure to open some windows to air the place out on a periodic basis.


Oh no! I broke some glass or tore a screen. What do I do now?

If you accidentally broke some glass or a screen, call the apartment or condominium manager up and have them forward the following information to us:

1: Your name & phone number,
2: Your address & apartment number,
3: Which direction the window faces (N,S,E,or W),
4: Which room it is in,
5: If it’s a piece of glass, what part of the window it’s on (example: Stationary Side, or the Opener),
6: If the glass is completely broken through, or if it just has a crack in it.

You can leave all this information with us on the form at the bottom of this web page too, but please also include the name & number of your building’s manager as well. Either way, we might need to call you to get more information If we think we need it.

If the glass is cracked, you might want to carefully put some tape over the crack to prevent anyone from accidentally getting cut. If it’s broken completely through, you might want to cut out and tape a heavy piece of cardboard over it for the time-being.

In an emergency situation, we might be able to come right out to remove the glass, and install a temporary plywood cutout so you’ll be more secure until the new glass arrives. This could get expensive, depending on how far we have to drive on that particular day, but for these kinds of emergency things, you can always call us directly to find out.




© 2010   Cutting Edge Windows, LLC   (window replacement for multi-family buildings) (206) 633-0202

































Any tips for washing my windows?

Sure! Use Windex on warm, dry days. On cool, wet days, use rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle. If you don’t like the smell of the alcohol, just pretend you’re making a martini. Use two terrycloth rags that have not been dried with a fabric softener sheet. The first rag is meant to get wet as you go from window to window. Use it to actually scrub and wash the glass up well (don’t forget the corners and edges). Quickly get the dry rag out and buff the glass dry so that you don’t get streaks (again, get the corners & edges good).

During the wet wash, if the glass still has grime on it after a wipe down, you can use #0000 steel wool (as long as you keep the glass wet). Do not use any other kind of steel wool, or you’ll scratch the glass up. That’s four-zero’s, pronounced “Four Aught steel wool”, also known as super fine. Four aught is the finest steel wool you can get (as apposed to coarse!), and it’s the only steel wool that will not scratch glass! If you don’t know for sure if it’s Four Aught (that’s “#0000”), then do not use it! It’s better to take another trip to the hardware store. What’s that? Where does steel wool come from? From steel sheep.

For the vinyl frames, Simple Green works great, using another terrycloth rag dampened with warm water. Be sure to clean out the bottom tracks of any sliding windows and patio doors so that they stay operating smoothly. For tough spots on the vinyl frame, use a citrus cleaner.

Question: If you clean the glass with rubbing alcohol, and the vinyl frame with a citrus cleaner, does it smell like an orange martini?


CLICK HERE TO CLOSE


How do I remove the window screens?

Please don’t remove the screens unless you get permission from the owner. There’s one thing for sure that can fade the beauty your new windows in a big hurry: all the torn, bent, and missing screens! They usually get damaged by residents who try to remove them. Cost-wise, when we sell window screens, usually the bulk price is $25 plus tax each. By the way, if you are the owner or manager, please call me, and I’ll get some instructions to you.


CLICK HERE TO CLOSE


I feel a breeze coming through the window.

Daring to sound arrogant here, please understand that the breeze you feel probably doesn’t have anything to do with our installation. However, there are a few things that should be covered and explored if we’re going to get to the solution. Below, you’ll see three likely possibilities that you may be observing. You can quickly scan them to see which better-describes your situation.

1: If you’re feeling a very small, but sharply cold breeze near the opener on your window, please understand that’s normal. Windows have a natural air infiltration rating called AL (Air Leakage). Almost every window manufacturer in the United States sends their windows to the NFRC (National Fenestration Ratings Council) to get tested for several things. One of these tests measures infiltration (air that leaks through the weather stripping & other minute gaps). On cold days, when the exterior air really wants to come inside for a warm up, you might be able to feel a small air flow near certain vulnerable spots on a window. It’s much more noticeable on cold days, because even a little cold air feels... well, very cold. Furthermore, if your bathroom fan or clothes dryer is running, they will be sucking all the air they can into your home, through these parts of your windows. This is normal, and the only way anyone can stop it is to caulk the window completely shut.

Compare your new, super energy-efficient windows to the old drafty pieces of junk your building used to have. Also, it’s not healthy to live inside a completely sealed environment. As a non-reptile, you need air. If you sealed your home up too much, you’d be living in a stagnant, sweaty, moldy, mildew-infested home. In other words, quit while you’re ahead; life is great.

2: Are you feeling a large blow of air coming from the top of one of your windows? We usually make sure to provide a passive fresh-air ventilator in at least one window (located at the top) for each apartment or condominium home. This is to help your bathroom fan be much more efficient in doing its job. With your new weather-tight windows, there needs to be somewhere for air to still come into your home to replace the air your bathroom fan is sucking out. So, when your bathroom fan, kitchen fan, or laundry dryer is on, blasto! You’ll feel as much air as they can possibly pull through that little ventilator. That’s a good thing. It means everything is probably working well. Blocking off the entrance for air to come in is similar to blocking off the exhaust side of your fan, which renders the fan useless, and burns the motor out. The biggest source for unhealthy, mold-causing, humid moisture in a home is the tub or shower, making the bathroom fan one of the most important fixtures in a home. Another thing to consider: failing to provide enough fresh air for a clothes dryer (if you have one), makes it very inefficient & slow, and causes it to run much hotter. This can potentially encourage a fire-hazard at its exhaust point for two compound reasons: 1The excess heat generated could ignite lint buildup in the exhaust vent, 2which clogs up easier without the proper air flow (which a window ventilator helps to provide).

Question: “Don’t these ventilators just make my house colder? They are passive, and when a fan isn’t running, they typically reduce the energy-efficiency of that one window by only one point from a .29 to a .30 U-factor. The U-factor is an NFRC measurement that describes heat-loss, so the lower this number is, the more efficient the product is. To put this in perspective, to say a .30 U-factor easily qualifies as an efficient, EnergyStar-qualified product is an understatement.

3: If you’re feeling a real draft of air infiltration near your window, and it’s not due to the two possibilities described above, then it sounds like something is probably wrong and some investigation is in order. The first easy thing we should do is to send the most unlikely suspect item to the back of our list, and focus on the others: The windows aren’t causing the problem. What, you’re not satisfied with that? Haha, I don’t blame you, but you will be in a few seconds...

The windows we install are sealed with caulk on the outside, protecting your building from rain and wind, and also caulked with a secondary air seal on the interior. This is like a plastic zip-locked bag being sealed up inside a Tupperware bowl and lid. Can a windy breeze get through both of our seals? Not even close to likely. We’ve installed thousands of windows per year since 1993, and not even one of our installations has been responsible for excess air infiltration. This should put our window installation at the bottom of our possibility list.

That leaves all the other surfaces around the window as likely suspects. How could the wind get into the walls in the first place? On most buildings, I can find all sorts of places for air to pass right into an exterior wall. Unless the outside of your apartment building is one big slab of granite, winds can pass through gaps in shingles, ends of boards, between boards, and through buckled plywood siding. Maybe the outside wind gets in the walls way up high or way down low, finding its way right on through. Now lets look on the inside; where do you feel the draft? Where are the gaps? Being right there, you can see for yourself and know that our window is caulked quite well on the inside, but are there layers of interior wood trim around the window? The air is probably coming in through gaps between this trim and the wall. Other strong possibilities could be gaps below your tile windowsill, or down near the floor where the carpet tucks under the baseboard trim. In my house, I can feel air coming in through the electrical wall outlets. The easiest way to precisely locate a draft: Get the backside of your hand damp, and hold it up to any suspect areas on the wall. Once you've located the problem area, call your manager and explain what the problem is so they can get it fixed. If for some reason it is the window, then either let the management know, or contact us, and we'll get it fixed. After all, although it's highly unlikely, we can't completely rule the window out.


CLICK HERE TO CLOSE


I think my window is leaking. What do I do about it?

For every 1000 windows we install, there tends to be one that leaks. Please call us at (206) 633-0202 immediately at any time to let us know if you’re one of the “lucky” ones. We’ll want to rush right out and get it fixed up!

While installing thousands of windows each year, it’s during the November - December storms that we discover if we have any possible leaks. It’s always very embarrassing if we do, but we take our warranties seriously and repair them right away. Since 1993, every warranty promise we have ever made is still being honored today.

In contrast, we’ve seen many window companies go out of business or change their names around that time of year. It’s also the same time of year that we get a lot of calls from apartment building owners to repair those other guys’ leaks.

Now, keep something else in mind. Every year, we get called several times for windows that someone only thought were leaking, where either the 1exterior siding or roofing is the culprit, or someone mistakes interior 2condensation on the glass for a leak: 1: When it’s the siding or roofing that leaks, it’s easy for us to determine. We remove the interior trim, and inspect the window closely inside and out. Then we can spray around the outside of the window with a full blast of garden-hose water through a spray nozzle for several minutes. If we can’t get a drop of water to come in, it becomes obvious that the window is not at fault.

2: When there’s condensation on the inside of our super energy-efficient windows, that means that there’s a serious problem with moisture in the interior air! Look at your toilet, I’ll bet it’s all sweaty too. See? I’m right, aren’t I? The first thing to check is the bathroom fan. Usually, more moisture enters a home’s atmosphere from hot, steaming bathroom showers than everything else put together. Turn the fan on. Does it sound at all funny? If you hold a full sheet of paper up near it, does it pull the paper up against it, or does the paper just sit there drooped over? There you go! The building owner just might need to toss the old fan and get a new one. Problem solved. If it’s not the fan, check out the Question & Answer about ongoing condensation or mold problems. It’s a full subject by itself.

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Why don’t I have a lock on my screen door?

If we installed a sliding patio door in your apartment, you’ll notice that we did not provide a lock for the sliding screen. This has always been a matter of policy for us at Cutting Edge Windows, LLC. The reason we don’t install these is that such a lock would severely reduce the life expectancy of the screen door itself (due to several inherent problems). One of these problems would be obvious to anyone who has quarrelsome children (in other words, to anyone who has children). Anyhow, a screen lock provides no security against burglars, because anyone can easily tear right through the screen material.

Speaking of screen doors, we recommend that when your sliding glass door is closed, that you leave the sliding screen door fully opened. Otherwise, if someone opens the glass door, they might walk right into the screen door and damage it, not realizing that it was there. Don’t laugh, we’ve seen it happen many times.


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I don’t think my window or patio door is working properly.

Once in a while, when we’re installing windows and patio doors in multi-unit housing, things can go unnoticed before we leave and go on to the next apartment. This means that maybe a window or patio door isn’t working smoothly or quite right. Either way, go ahead and let the building manager know, or contact us with the form at the bottom of this web page, and we’ll get it fixed up (sorry for the inconvenience).

Sometimes a resident only thinks that one of our windows doesn’t work right, when actually it does. Here are a few examples of when things are actually working just fine: A window opener that slides up and down vertically will always have a small amount of play in it as it’s opened or closed. We could use the word “slop” here, but for some reason prefer the word “play”. If the window opens, closes, locks, and keeps the rain out, then it’s working just fine.

If a window or patio door has some condensation on the “fourth surface” (the surface on the inside of your home that you can wash), it’s not a window problem; it’s a moisture-in-your-air problem (see the Question & Answer about Ongoing Condensation or Mold Problems).

If, on a cold day, a window or patio door has some condensation on the “first surface” (the surface on the outside of your home that you can wash), it’s not a window problem; it’s a consequence of having super energy-efficient windows. Because the window is so efficient, the outer pane isn’t getting much heat from your apartment, and it remains very cold. As the outside air warms even just a degree or two, the temperature of the glass takes time to catch up, and because It’s temporarily colder than the air during that short time, any moisture the air holds will be released onto the glass in the form of condensation.

As far as patio doors go, there is a strange phenomenon that can happen, and sometimes the only scientific answer is to blame the resident (not you... a previous resident - we’d never blame you.). We sometimes get a call from any particular building manager who lets us know that a patio door isn’t locking like it should (weeks, months, or years after we installed it). Yes, that can happen, and it can easily be our fault. But, when we’ve gone out to fix some, once in a while, we find that the lock is greatly out of adjustment, where a particular adjustment screw has been tightened all the way. Upon fixing the matter, the resident always denies having touched it. Then, a few months later, we get the same phone call, regarding the same exact patio door. Upon our return, believe it or not, the adjustment screw miraculously had tightened itself several revolutions all the way up again, while the tenant continues to deny touching it. Over the years, we’ve seen this problem again and again, sometimes repeated as many as four times on the same door! Ok, so maybe we can’t prove that the door isn’t possessed, but we would rather believe that some unqualified person is trying to “improve” the lock’s settings. What we want to get across here is that when we’re done adjusting a patio door, there will be some play in the opener when it’s locked! This is normal, and it’s necessary. If we tightened that movement up all the way (by loosening that adjustment screw by the way), the door would require gorilla-strength to engage and disengage the lock. Some residents might think that this small amount of play affects the security of the locked door. It doesn’t (-but a lock that is way out of adjustment most definitely does).


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How secure are my windows; can I make them more secure?

First of all, your new vinyl windows are probably much more secure than the old ones that we took out. Many of the old windows that we replace are single-pane, and your new ones are dual-pane. This means that if someone really wanted in, he must now break through two panes of glass. With that much noise, you should have plenty of warning to grab your shotgun. In contrast, often when we’re removing the original windows, the old single pane glass almost silently falls right out into our hands after pulling off the exterior snap trim around it. Glass breaking all over is kind of a universal alarm system of sorts for everyone (including your neighbors who might have a shotgun too).

Sometimes on horizontal sliding windows and sliding patio doors, folks cut a stick just a bit smaller than the remaining length of the slider track, so that the opener can open up about three inches, but no more. That might work great for security while simultaneously getting some ventilation. Usually a 2x2 sized board fits nice and snug in the track.


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What can I do about ongoing condensation or mold problems?

Because condensation causes mold and mildew, we’re just going to deal with the condensation issue here. Now that you have new, super energy-efficient windows, your inside panes of glass are much warmer in the winter. However, if your new windows have interior condensation issues, then you definitely have some serious moisture problems with your air. Don’t worry; it can be fixed. So far, in solving this problem again and again, we at Cutting Edge Windows haven’t been beaten by air moisture yet. We’re going to take this problem head on here, so bring your fortitude along (and your political sense of humor).

First, we need to understand exactly what’s going on here... What happens is, the warm air in your home can hold much more moisture than cooler air can. It absorbs water from every source that’s made available to it, such as fish tanks, boiling pots & pans, and especially hot steaming showers & baths. People & pets breath out a lot of moisture, and plants put as much moisture in the air as you give them in the form of water. Well, when you begin to maximize the air’s ability to absorb this humidity, it gets very heavy, making it easy to drop that moisture on any cooler surface. Just like a paper towel: the more water it holds, the easier it is to wring out.

Let’s consider or imagine extremely humid, 70-degree air getting pushed up and along the ceiling, and then being forced downward toward a window. On one side of the room, the heater is pushing the air up, and on the other side, the cooler window is pulling the air down, creating a convectional current inside your home. Your new windows are very energy efficient, but they’ll still be the coolest surface in the room. If your interior glass surface is 65 degrees, it will cool the extremely humid 70-degree air down just a bit, causing it to release moisture onto those cooler surfaces. The condensation just camps out on the glass as a wet puddle. Some people say that the moisture is in “transition”, because it’s not nice to call it homeless. So what do we do about all that transient moisture? Easy! We’re going to send it out into the world where it can be put to work to finally do some good again.

Where do we start? The bathroom fan! The bathroom shower is the biggest contributor of moisture in a home, and the fan’s job is to get that humidity where it starts, and send it right on outside where it belongs. Like a lot of politicians, your bathroom fan has probably been shirking its responsibilities. It’s gotten lazy & complacent, and probably complains & whines when it actually has to work. Give it the paper test. Hold a full sheet of paper up near it when it’s on. A proper working fan should pull the paper right up against itself. If you hear whining from your bathroom fan or it fails the test, impeach it. Call the building management and register your vote of incompetence in the current fan and log in your vote for a new efficient one.

If asked for my opinion, I’d choose Superblican fans over Demo-matic. Although several Superblican models aren’t as energy-conservative as they ought to be, they’re still less wasteful than most of the Demo-matic ones. Also by comparison, they’re usually stronger on defense from the terrors of mold & mildew! As a side note, generic fans are usually just knockoffs made by those who didn’t have the fortitude to stick around and put in their fair share of work at Superblican. If you ignore the generics, maybe they’ll go back to Superblican and make some much-needed contributions to core policy & integrity. (I’m just talking about bathroom fans, what were you thinking?)

Here’s some more excellent tips on controlling humidity and mold:

1: This is by far, the first and most important thing to do in helping to control your home’s humidity: When you get done taking a bath or shower, don’t just throw your bathroom door wide open. Make sure it’s closed to a crack, and run your bathroom fan for an hour. This stops the foggy air from flooding your home, and allows the fan to escort it outside much more efficiently. If you need to rush off to work regularly, and don’t want to leave the fan on all day long, ask your building manager if he can get you a timer switch for it. If you don’t have a fan, leave your bathroom window open a bit, and keep the bathroom door completely closed until the heavy air clears.

2: Leave your blinds or curtains open enough to allow some airflow when you can.

3: If you have plants, pets, a fish tank, or people that are home all the time, these factors all significantly add to the moisture content in the air. As needed, be sure to open some windows to air the place out on a periodic basis.

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Oh no! I broke some glass or tore a screen. What do I do now?

If you accidentally broke some glass or a screen, call the apartment or condominium manager up and have them forward the following information to us:

1: Your name & phone number,
2: Your address & apartment number,
3: Which direction the window faces (N,S,E,or W),
4: Which room it is in,
5: If it’s a piece of glass, what part of the window it’s on (example: Stationary Side, or the Opener),
6: If the glass is completely broken through, or if it just has a crack in it.

You can leave all this information with us on the form at the bottom of this web page too, but please also include the name & number of your building’s manager as well. Either way, we might need to call you to get more information If we think we need it.

If the glass is cracked, you might want to carefully put some tape over the crack to prevent anyone from accidentally getting cut. If it’s broken completely through, you might want to cut out and tape a heavy piece of cardboard over it for the time-being.

In an emergency situation, we might be able to come right out to remove the glass, and install a temporary plywood cutout so you’ll be more secure until the new glass arrives. This could get expensive, depending on how far we have to drive on that particular day, but for these kinds of emergency things, you can always call us directly to find out.

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