Installation Details That Consider Future Window / Door Replacements
wranch
| Posted in General Questions on
Does anyone detail specifically for ease of future window and door replacement?
I haven’t seen mention of planning for future replacement, particularly in exterior foam details. Most details would require stripping a fair bit of siding to get enough space to remove trim, cut out the foam, and detail the WRB after install of a new window or door.
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Replies
Michael,
This is a sort of chicken and egg situation - much like whether you should run your flooring under cabinets or not - as it's far from certain your cladding will outlast y0ur windows and doors, but I agree making them, or indeed any other building component which any be potentially replaced easier makes sense.
There are a couple of things that would make window and door replacement a lot simpler.
- Mounting the trim directly on the WRB, or rain-screen furring, not on top of the siding.
- If you are including a rain-screen cavity, keep the furring off the window flanges.
- If you have exterior foam, consider mounting the windows as "outies".
I'll be following this discussion as I hope to get some tips to incorporate into my builds too.
Good points Malcolm and I agree, I like to make things easier to work on the second time around if possible.
"Outies" on top of foam greatly simplify the situation. I chose "innies" with 3" of EPS, rain screen furring and metal siding. The easiest to build and most robust trim detail I can think of also seems to be the hardest to work on later. Wood or metal jam extensions with metal j-trim for the face trim to catch the metal siding edge.
In my case to set the siding back to allow some room for future window removal, I would have to use wider traditional face trim and then j-trim the metal siding around the face trim or try to hide it under the edge of the face trim.
Michael,
Faced with the same situation when re-siding my own house some years ago, I included pt wood 2"x4" trim around the windows.
Another area that's worth thinking thr0ugh when siding dormers is how the roofing can be replaced without removing the cladding to get at the flashing. It can be as easy as nailing the step-flashing to the roof, not sidewall, or better including a counter-flashing you can slip the step-flashing under.
Malcolm,
That turned out well and is exactly what I am considering as an option. Thank you for your photo. Well placed comment on the dormers, I also have six to address on a Gambrel roof at some point in the future.
Interesting you ask this. When I redid my siding and windows this summer, my furring is seperate for siding and trim, and trim is on the furring, not the siding. This makes replacement in the future easy, and it reduces the demo work to get back to my flashing and WRB.
Craig, What width of trim did you use? I have found typical trim sizes ~4", leave little room to detail the new window flange back to the existing WRB, not to mention shingling the top flap of WRB over the window head A fluid-applied product to retrofit would probably make more sense here than peel and stick.
I used LP's 3.5" trim. We went basic with our materials (Lowe's, H-D) to reduce costs and lead times. Attached a picture of my WRB and window flashing detail. 1x6 furring on top, and trim to that. I don't have a good photo of that process as we were moving quickly during that phase.