Debate I keep having about diy window replacement in abq

Last week my neighbor Maria told me she spent $600 on a new window from Lowe's and installed it herself in a weekend. I went the other route and paid a guy out of Corrales $1,200 for one window, but he fixed the frame rot too. She says I overpaid, I say her window will leak by next monsoon season. Anybody else go back and forth on this?

2 comments

2 Comments

jana1799d ago

Oh, come on, is it really that bad? I've swapped out a couple windows myself and never had issues like that, just made sure to check around the frame before I started. Sometimes people make it sound scarier than it is to justify paying twice as much. If the old window wasn't actively leaking and the wood felt solid, a little extra caulk and some care probably does the trick just fine.

william8169d ago

Yeah, "frame rot" is the key thing there. Maria's window might look fine now but that wood behind it is probably already spongy. I helped my buddy replace his kitchen window two years back, we sealed everything tight, caulked it good. But we didn't know the sill underneath was basically termite dust. First heavy rain, water showed up on the drywall below. Had to rip the whole wall open. Cost him triple what I'd have charged to just fix the frame then. That $600 window becomes a $2,000 problem real fast. She'll learn.