Steps to remove and reinstall 1946 spring balanced window sashes and related parts

These sashes can be removed by dismantling just the pieces on the left side of the jamb. Only working with one side of the window can reduce wear and tear to the parts, which is beneficial with windows like these that are unique and because replacement pieces will be hard, if not impossible, to find. However, should there need to be repairs to the sills or jamb or other parts of the window that would be easier to access without the removable parts in place, these pieces are easy to remove with care and consideration.

Locate where left interior stop is attached to the jamb. 

Carefully examine the profile to score in the correct spot. Use a utility blade to score the paint line, use hands to gently start to pry stop away from jamb, and then use a small pry bar to complete the removal from the lower part of the stop to the upper where the miter cut is. Label the stop with location and set aside. 

There are three wood pieces of weatherstrip pieces that fit into the jamb and the stiles of the sash. Fully lower bottom sash and remove top left weatherstrip piece using vice clamps.

Clamp down on the piece and gently rock the piece from front to back until it starts to pull away from the jamb. Remove the small retainer clips from the jamb or piece, depending on where they end up when the piece is removed. Do the same with the lower piece of strip with the sash fully open. Finally, fully lower the bottom sash again and gently ease the middle piece up and away from the jamb.

Label the back side of the weatherstrip pieces with detailed info about their location and set aside.

Tilt left side of the sash out of the jamb and unhook the spring from the catch at the bottom of the lower sash and leave hanging in the jamb. The spring can contain a lot of tension so take care to do this slowly and carefully.

Using a needle nose pliers can be helpful. Then make space to remove the right spring the same way and set the sash aside.

To remove the top sash, lower it completely and remove the left parting stop starting from the top so it tilts away and lifts up and away from the bottom of the jamb and the sill. Label the back of the stop with detailed information and set aside.

Lower the top sash and remove the stop weatherstrip pieces and then the middle piece. Be sure to score the paint as these may have been treated more as exterior pieces and likely have paint on them that will make the more difficult to remove. Once removed, tilt the sash out and unhook springs. 

Remove the weatherstrip pieces from top to bottom, label, and set aside.

Tilt sash out from left and unhook springs using the same method as the bottom sash. Set aside.

Over time the spring steel pieces providing tension on the stiles of the top and bottom sash has lost some tension.

I intend to find new spring steel to replace these or add a very thing shim behind the weatherstrip pieces to regain the correct amount of tension and friction on the sashes to balance them. An alternative is to shim behind the wood weatherstrips. The springs don’t appear to provide enough of that on their own. 

Determine what interventions need to be taken to ensure the sashes are balanced and then reinstall. Reverse order of these steps to get pieces back into place.

After my battle royale with the windows in Hidden Pulleys, Part 1, I got to this project a couple of months later. They were easier in a way as the pulley system was much more visible, but harder in that it was much more invasive to get access to the pulleys. I had to remove all of the trim and cut holes through lathe and plaster in places to get new cords installed.

These two corner windows are very close together and I would eventually discovered the center mullion, if that’s really what that would be called, wasn’t a pocket in any way. It was totally solid.

These windows were fascinating in that each sash was balanced by ONE weight and FOUR pulleys (as you’ll see soon in my bad drawing).

You can see in the photo that I’ve removed stops (which is normal) and trim (which isn’t) and started punching holes in lathe and plaster (also not normal).

The far left and far right pulley were located where you would expect. The center pulleys were at the top of the jamb. Which you would not really expect. And then I would encounter the other pulley at the top of the jamb and the one attached to the weight.

Once I got all the way opened up, it didn’t take long for me to figure out a game plan. It wasn’t exactly easy but it was logical, and that helps. Here is quick rendering of the sash cord path.

Pulleys attached to a weight like this are not super uncommon. I see them when mullion is fairly skinny or in other situations. But I’ve never seen it involved in a set up quite like this.

I used my chain attached to my sash cord to drop down from the pulleys in the top of the jamb and even use my extendable magnet to grab the chain at times and help me along.

As in Hidden Pulleys, Part 1 I drew a simple version of the set up for the bottom sashes. The top sash scheme was the same.

I ran the cord through following the numbered steps in the drawing. I have some videos but I wasn’t able to upload them for some reason. But hopefully the drawing is still helpful in some way. The drawing shows the right window but the left is an exact mirror image.

While Hidden Pulleys, Part 1 was super hard, it helped me quite a bit to expect the unexpected when it came to this project. Overall this took about 5-6 hours to complete. A “normal” sash is something I can easily get new sash cords on in an hour or less, for perspecitve.

I am lucky to get to work with lovely homeowners and this one was very grateful for my efforts. It was truly a delight to get these windows functioning again and to learn so much from the process. While it was another wrestling match and quite difficult at times, I was very pleased with the results.

I encountered these windows earlier this summer and they were my first experience with not being able to see what the hell I was working with because of these hidden, and partially hidden, pulleys. I wish I had written this sooner because I have forgotten some of the subtleties involved with putting these windows back together but hopefully what I can provide with my pictures and diagram will be helpful.

This is a bank of three windows with two pretty slim mullions. The center window is about twice the width of the the left and right window. Bottom sashes are quarter inch glass which is why the weights for the bottom sashes are so huge. I had no idea the pulleys with the visible portion were actually double pulleys or compound or whatever you want to call them. That was a fun surprise!

In my drawing (forgive me, I am not a talented artist) I’ve shown what I think the totally hidden pulleys sort of look like but I never actually saw them entirely. I could look through the holes in the top of the jamb but that’s all I got.

All the stops and trim had to be removed. Meaning the trim covering the mullions.

I sadly don’t remember exactly how I managed to get new cords on these windows. It wasn’t the same for each sash. It was so hard and took epic amounts of patients and troubleshooting. I had my hands inside those jambs as far as they would good trying to fight gravity to grab on to sash cord and string it through so much I couldn’t even see.

The center sash was balanced with two totally obscured pulleys. Well, I could see them a little through the holes but it was very difficult to visualize.

I drew this digram showing the sash cord and pulley configuration for the bottom sash weights. The top sashes are balanced the same way, just that the pulleys are behind (toward the exterior) the pulleys for the bottom sashes.

All four weights for the smaller sashes were in the far left pocket or far right pocket, respectively. So all the weights for one sash were in the same pocket. Obviously different from usual. The middle sash weights were in the mullions. Each mullion only had two weights.

In the end I got these all back together and they looked great. AND the client was both happy and impressed. Her home has one more bank of these three windows with the same pulley set up and we both agreed they are just fine not having new sash cords. This project was a true wrestling match and was both physically and mentally painful. But I did feel a great sense of satisfaction when I walked away from those new restored and beautifully functioning windows.

I’ve been working on windows for over 7 years at this point and hadn’t seen hidden pulleys until this summer….when I had three separate projects with this pulley situation. And they were all different from each other!

So this week I installed two double hung windows with hidden pulleys. I was so unsure of how I was going to get new cords installed but knew I’d figure it out eventually. But, I was honestly dreading it. Turns out, the simplest method was correct and I was overthinking it.

I didn’t take any pictures as I was removing the sashes because I was trying to figure out what was going on but I did take a number of pictures and videos when I put the sashes back. I’ll outline the removal process and then outline and add pics for the installation process.

Here’s the pulley situation. You can see where the cord is exposed but here is not visual of the pulley. The cords have a metal cuff of sorts that fits into the plow on the sash stiles. These are new to me.

Steps for removal:

Remove interior stops, label and set aside. Raise bottom sash as high as possible. Remove wooden weather stripping. I was able to do this with just my hands as they were friction fit and not too tight. This is for the best or these would surely have broken. Unhook sash cords from sash if necessary. I was able to pull the cord away from the sash with the cuff and cord intact. Save the cuffs. Set bottom sash aside. If at all possible, lower the top sash as much as you can. I was not able to do this because they were heavily painted shut. This means I had to destroy the parting stops to get the top sashes out. I finally got them lowered and was able to remove the wood weatherstrip as I had with the bottom sashes. Label all pieces and set aside. Remove top sash in the same way as the bottom sash.

To install:

This is a reverse of the steps above, for the most part.

Open the weight pockets by removing the weight pocket cover.

Remove the weights from the weight pocket.

Starting with the top sash pulleys, install new sash cord by pushing the cord through the small hole at the top of the jamb. This video shows what’s happening because the trim for the center mullion has been removed. I could not see the cord moving into the jamb on the far left and right of this two double hung set up.

This is the part that surprised me. I was expecting to have to remove all the trim and cut a whole through the plaster and lathe because I just couldn’t imagine how this was going to work. It seems the pulleys are closed in a way that allows the cord to move through them in a way that typical pulleys are not. It’s pretty slick and very quick. I found it worked even better if I sprayed some dry lube into where I thought the pulley was inside the casing.

Tie the cord to the weight. Remove the cuff from the original cords by opening them enough to allow the new cord to fit. Close tightly over the sash cord. Make sure the small tab on the cuff is installed away from the end of the cord. The length of the cord should be long enough just so the cuff hangs about an inch or two out of the hole in the jamb.

Connect sash cords to top sash and lower the sash as much as possible. Install the wood weatherstrip into the slot on the jamb from the top of the sash.

While the sash is lowered, install two parting stops. Raise sash.

Install the bottom sash cords in the same manner. Lift the bottom sash all way way up to install weatherstrip.

Lower sash into place and install interior stops.

This winter is going to be long (and we should all be staying home) so here’s an idea for a cold weather project: storm window inspection and maintenance.Storms are an important part of the window system and existing ones can be maintained very affordably. I’m specifically talking about metal storm windows here. Are yours hard to use? Broken? Incomplete? Here’s what you do:

Missing pieces? Take a good look around your home. Check the basement, attic, crawl space, closets, garage, garage loft, etc. if you’re still missing panels, you can have new ones made locally at Ace, True Value, and the like. If the whole frame is missing, call Corn Belt Aluminum (these recommendations are specifically for those of you in or around Des Moines, IA).

Broken? Remove panels and take them to a local place for glass replacement, screen replacement, new tabs, new brush weatherstripping, new rubber gasket pieces that hold the glass in, etc, etc.

Hard to use? Get an old tooth brush and a vacuum and suck up the dirt, debris, and dead bugs in the tracks. Then spray tracks and tabs with spray lubricant. My favorite is Liquid Wrench Dry Lubricant that I get at Ace Hardware. Don’t be shy with it. It’s worth the $9/can or whatever in the difference it makes in ease of operation.

I’m happy to answer questions! Yes, I restore and maintain original windows for a living but storms are such an important part of the system that I’m happy to dispense free advice about them.

Have fun!!

This is related to windows but really about painting. Planning any DIY interior painting projects this winter? Pro tip: (and comment from an irritated window preservationist) REMOVE your window hardware before you paint. Or cabinet hardware or door knobs or whatever. It’s sloppy and lazy not to but it also interferes with the function of that hardware. It stuns me when I see what people slop paint on as if they were badly and aggressively frosting a cupcake.

Is the hardware already painted? Don’t paint it again! Take it off and clean it up (or bring it to me and I’ll do it).

Here are some before and after shots of painted hardware and then cleaned up hardware after I’m done with it. It’s very satisfying but I’d prefer if the stuff never got painted in the first place.

Your locks especially need to work as intended. That’s what keeps your windows tight and closed and that’s what helps keep drafts out. Simple things like this keep your windows lasting and working for you for a long, long time.