How To Repair Water Damaged Window Frame

Water stained window sashes are a common problem in many homes. It's frustrating to see not only the eyesore of a stained window sash and sill but window are expensive and nobody wants to replace their windows before they have to!

Thankfully, repairing window sash and sill damage is an easy DIY projection that requires minimal tools and a bit of patience. In this post, I'm going to show you how you can hands repair your window sill in under two hours.

Improve nonetheless, once your windows are fixed, I'thousand going to requite you an incredibly simple mode to proceed them looking peachy and prevent future damage.

Index

Tools and Materials Needed
What Causes Window Sash Damage
How To Repair Window Sash Stains
Printable Instructions
How To Prevent Water Damage on Your Window Sash

Repairing window sills and sashes doesn't require a lot of expensive tools. Below are the tools I recommend to make the task go as rapidly and easily as possible.

Multi-Tool with Sanding Head

A multi-tool is a great tool for many around the business firm projects. For this projection, I utilize my multi-tool with the sanding head fastened. The triangle sanding pads are perfect to become into pocket-size corners on the window sills and sashes and make quick work of sanding abroad damaged surface area.

Yous could also go with a particular sander, which accomplishes the same affair. But for the money, the multi-tool gives y'all so much more than versatility.

Other Tools and Materials

Shop-Vac
Drop Cloths
Painter'due south Record
Minwax Clear Satin Polyurethane
1.five″ White Bristle Stain Brush
Minwax Wood Hardener
Minwax Forest Filler
Oxalic Acrid Forest Bleach

What Causes Window Sash Damage

Near window sash and sill damage is acquired past moisture in the form of condensation getting into the wooden window sill.

Condensation forms on the windows when the temperature outside cools down and in render lowers the temperature of the glass on your window. When boiling air inside your home then comes into contact with the glass on the window, water droplets form on the drinking glass and eventually run down into the window sill.

Over time, this water forming on your window and getting on your sash slowly causes damage. It kickoff breaks downward the protective clear coat on the window sill and and so it starts damaging the wood.

How To Repair H2o Damaged Windows

Asses The Harm To The Window Sash and Sill

The first thing you are going to want to do is asses how much damage there currently is on your window sash and sill.

Is the clear glaze just starting to fail by cracking and flaking off the woods? If so, you're in luck every bit this is your easiest fix and will require minimal piece of work.

Do y'all have blackness h2o impairment merely the wood its self is notwithstanding solid? This tin can still be stock-still and should exist before the wood begins to rot.

Is the wood soft and squishy? If this is the example, your forest has begun to rot and yous volition have to decide if the rot has affected the integrity of the entire window, or if the area is pocket-size and nevertheless salvageable.

The window in the higher up picture has lots of declining clear coat and water damage to the window sash and sill. However, the wood is withal solid and fixable.

Prep Your Work Surface area

The first thing you demand to practise for any paint task is to prep your work surface area to contain your mess and protect the surrounding areas.

For this project, I like to lay out a large drib cloth to catch my sanding grit and run a piece of tape on the drinking glass surface of the window. This is to forbid scratching the glass while I am sanding the window sash.

Sand Away Water Damaged Forest

The first thing I am going to do is start sanding away the damaged surfaces.

How much y'all need to sand is entirely dependant upon how much damage at that place currently is on your window.

If your window sills and sash but accept impairment to the clear coat simply there is no rot in the forest and not blackening, then merely sand downwardly the existing clear coat.

If your windows accept black water damage, you're going to want to sand off the articulate coat and sand every bit far downwardly needed with your sanding tool to remove equally much the black water damage as possible. This may stop up re-shaping the edges of your sash and sill, simply this is acceptable collateral impairment. Merely try to proceed information technology to a minimum.

Stabilize, Remove, or Supercede Rotten Wood

If you lot take soft, rotted forest on your windows, you lot will accept to do one of iii things.

Stabilize the rotted woods. Minwax Wood Hardener is a product I like to use a lot for projects like this (and a lot on exteriors every bit well). It is non a perfect solution but works great for many situations.

Minwax Wood Hardener penetrates the routing wood and uses a resin to bail and harden the rotting woods fibers. Information technology also deals the area against time to come moisture damage.

Another option for rotting wood is to remove (dig out) the routing forest and make full the expanse with wood filler. This method is perfect for small-scale areas and is preferred past many painters over using wood gardener. Once your wood filler has dried hard, you tin can sand it to shape, stain and seal. A warning about this method, forest filler never stains the aforementioned color as existent wood, it ordinarily stands out quite a chip.

Your last selection is to supersede the tired piece of wood. This is for when there is too much to repair. I won't be covering this option hither.

Bleach Out The H2o Stains

Subsequently yous have sanded off any articulate coat, an pick I like to apply is bleaching away water stains using oxalic acrid.

Oxalic acid will finer blackness away light surface staining on wood. It does require a lot of time to piece of work properly and a handful of coats.

Oxalic acid can at the very least lighten the black staining in wood and at its best, completely eliminate it.

Make sure you use beating and pare protection when using oxalic acid though as information technology is some nasty stuff.

When you lot are washed bleaching am area, you will demand to neutralize the surface area with baking soda. A mix of baking soda and water volition neutralize the acid and make the woods set up for staining and sealing.

Sand and Clean Any Remaining Discoloration

After you have finished repairing whatever rotted wood and bleaching away h2o stains, information technology's fourth dimension for your final Sanding.

This is where I go and away whatever remaining dark stain, missed clear glaze, and give information technology a fine smooth surface (usually 150 – 180 dust sandpaper).

When you're satisfied with your sanding it's time to clean the window and get set for stain.

I like to store vac the expanse as clean as possible and and so go back with a slightly clammy rag and clean the area of any remaining grit.

Re-Stain The Window Sill

If you have the original stain colour, then staining your windows sills and sashes is as easy every bit applying the stain, allow information technology to sit, then wrote off the excess.

If you don't take the original stain color you are going to have to exercise ane of two things.

The easiest is to remove a piece of trim from your home and bring it to the paint store for a custom match. I similar to get into a closet and take a minor piece of trim that is out of sight. To re-install the piece of trim, y'all can employ liquid nails or whatever other agglutinative.

The second option is to try to mix a custom match yourself. I oftentimes practise this, but I likewise have a large stain kit with many different colors, pigments, and dyes. So this likely won't work for everyone.

You can likewise take your chances eyeballing the color. Many homes are stained with very common stain colors such equally Golden Oak. If you lot call up that your colour might be one of these common stain colors, give it a shot.

Clear Coat The Window Sill & Sash

The final step in repairing rotted window sills is to clear coat the area that you have repaired.

Match your existing sheen (typically stain and occasionally semi-gloss) and brush on two coats of Minwax Clear Polyurethane clear coat. Allow the finish to dry out betwixt coats and lightly sand with a 220 grit sandpaper to become the smoothest finish possible.

Printable Instructions

Prep Time 15 minutes

Active Time 1 hour 15 minutes

Full Time one hour xxx minutes

Difficulty Medium

Estimated Cost $25-$200

Instructions

Asses The Impairment To The Window Sill
Prep Your Piece of work Surface area
Sand Away Water Damage Wood
Stabilize, Remove and Replace Rotted Forest
Bleach Out The H2o Stains
Sand and Clean the Remaining Sill
Re-Stain The Window Sill
Clear Coat The Window Sill

How To Prevent Window Sash Damage From Happening

If you've already repaired your window sills or you are lucky enough to have caught them before any major damage has happened (maybe the clear coat is just starting to break down), at present is the time to have a plan to foreclose future impairment.

Preventative window maintenance is incredibly easy and will salvage you lot hours of DIY work, thousands of dollars to hire someone similar me, or even tens of thousands of dollars in replacing your windows.

In my domicile, and what I recommend all my clients doing, is to continue a quart of clear coat that matches your current clear coat sheen (satin, semi-gloss etc.) and use a fresh articulate coat on your window sills every 1-two years.

Get-go past giving your window sills a small scuff with some 150 or 180 dust sanding paper. Don't over sand. Keep it light and just scuff the surface. Vacuum the surface make clean (or wipe information technology clean).

Adjacent, accept a small one inch angled brush and castor and your clear coat and brush one fresh coat onto the bottoms of your window sills. It'southward that simple.

This should only have 5 minutes per window.

What information technology does is it keeps the wood on your window sill sealed and protected against moisture harm.

Of course, controlling humidity through humidifiers, dehumidifiers and air exchangers is recommended (but that'due south for a dissimilar website).

Source: https://diypaintingtips.com/repair-water-stained-window-sashes/