Windows & Doors In Caulfield

Hanging an internal door set, including the jamb, hardware and architraves, generally runs between $120 and $250 per door depending on the door, the hardware and whether the opening is square. External doors cost more because of the threshold, the weather seal and the locking hardware, and a solid entry door with quality hardware can be several times an internal one. Window replacement is priced per opening and varies enormously with size, material and whether the opening needs reframing, so a like-for-like aluminium swap is a modest job while a heritage timber sash replacement is not. Removing rot around an existing frame and repairing it is almost always far cheaper than replacing the window. Call 0468 347 781 and describe the opening.

Hanging a set of internal doors through a standard house is usually a one to two day job. A single window replacement into an existing opening typically takes half a day to a day once the unit is on site, and a run of windows across an elevation takes several days. What extends it is reframing, because if the opening has to change size you are into structural work with a lintel and that is a different scope. Lead time on the units themselves is often the real delay, particularly for custom timber or double glazing, so we order early and give you the install date once the delivery date is confirmed.

In a heritage overlay it depends on what is visible from the street, and a lot of the streets we work in are covered by one. Glen Eira, Stonnington, Bayside and Port Phillip all carry overlays across substantial residential precincts, and replacing original timber sash windows on a street-facing elevation with modern aluminium is the kind of change that attracts a problem. The good news is that most heritage window failures are localised rot in the sill or lower rail, and that can be cut out and repaired with new timber spliced in for a fraction of the cost of replacement. We will tell you at quote stage whether we think you are in an overlay and what that means.

We protect the floor and the surrounding area before anything comes out, because dust and offcuts travel further than people expect. The old unit comes out, we check the opening is square and the framing sound, and we repair anything rotten before the new unit goes in rather than covering it. The unit is then packed, plumbed and fixed, flashed at the sill and head where it is an external opening, and made weathertight the same day so you are never left with a hole overnight. Architraves and reveals go on, hardware is fitted and adjusted, and we test the door or window opens, closes and locks before we pack up.

Usually because the house moved rather than because the door failed. Across Melbourne's south-east, Class H to Class E reactive clay soils are common in suburbs like Bentleigh, Glen Iris and Malvern East, and ground that swells through a wet winter and shrinks through a dry summer will rack a door frame out of square by enough to bind a door. Other causes are hinges that have worked loose, a jamb fixed into plaster instead of framing, swelling in an unsealed timber door, or a dropped stump under that part of the floor. We diagnose which one it is before touching the door, because planing a door to fit a frame that is still moving means doing it again next winter.

Timber suits period homes and heritage streets, looks right, and can be repaired rather than replaced when it fails, but it needs recoating and it will move with the seasons. Aluminium is cheaper, dimensionally stable and effectively maintenance free, and it is the sensible default on a non-heritage house, though thermally it is the weakest unless you get a thermally broken frame. Double glazing is worth it if you are on a main road, if a room is unusable in winter, or if you are replacing anyway and the incremental cost is small. What we would not do is put aluminium on the street face of a house in a heritage precinct to save money, because that is a decision you cannot easily undo.