Replacing a basement window

Replacing this particular basement window has been on our to-do list since we bought Rockleaf. The glass in the upper pane was cracked from the day we saw the house, and during Justin’s very first stint at the house, half the cracked pane fell to the floor and shattered.

Since then, it’s been plastic-ed over and duct-taped in to keep the elements out (with decent success — the dehumidifiers regularly register 30% humidity in the space when they’ve been running). We ordered replacement windows for both of the basement window wells a while back, but rain, cold, and other projects kept the window upgrade on the back burner — until now!

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We assembled our materials (including a newly acquired hammer drill to help us put screws into concrete) and got to work. First we de-duct-taped the pane, then we removed the panes and screens, and next we took our reciprocating saw and metal-cutting blade to slice into the old frame.

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The bottom piece of the frame pried out pretty easily, and from there we could use pry bars to wrench the other 3 sides out of the concrete and cinderblock opening without too much trouble. In the process, we also found the final resting place of a very tiny snake.

We hammer-and-chiseled out some of the jutting-out sections of concrete that made the window opening uneven, and checked to see that the window fit into its appointed slot.

Here’s where the process slowed way down. See this gap above the window?

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The way the old frame was configured belied the exact size of the window opening. Having already gone to the store that day to get ourselves ready for this project and purchased a hammer drill, we were loath to head all the way back into town to get foam to fill the gap here. Plus, why buy something new when we have perfectly good materials with us, right? … Right?

A while ago, we replaced some of the fascia along with sections of gutters, and we still had some of the wood for the fascia boards leftover, sitting in the basement. It was slightly too thick to comfortably fit into the opening above the frame, but we decided to try to make it work. Justin brought out the circular saw, cut the board to length, and used our orbital sander to start sanding. The sander made some good progress but we didn’t have coarse enough sandpaper for it to really shave the wood down as quickly as we wanted.

Rockleaf to the rescue! A previous owner had left a lot of things in the newer shed (in addition to all the things in the other, “haunted” shed), including a Christmas tin of very coarse sand paper. While the paper didn’t fit our sander, the previous own had left it set up with a nuts-bolts-and-washers combo that would allow it to be affixed to a drill. It worked!

Somewhere in the midst of the sanding it started to rain, so we set up our canopy to give a little more rain cover to the window well than the eaves alone could provide. It also proved a good location to do some of the sanding.

Because of the unevenness of the concrete window opening, measuring could only get us so close to the exact correct width for the board — it had to go into the space and be tried with the window itself. On first pass, it was very close but not quite right, so we used a combination of the orbital sander and files to get it just right. A little bit of extra concrete chiseling was in order, too. Finally, at long last, everything fit into place.

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As an aside, the replacement windows came with screws, but we wanted to use sturdier, concrete screws to hold the new window in place. To do so, we need to make the inside-of-frame access point for the screws (not the screw holes themselves) big enough to accept the hexagonal fastener on the drill. Thankfully, every part of this particular step went as planned!

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With all that done, the last step would be to caulk around the window, inside and out. While we’re sure that caulking by flashlight is not on anyone’s bucket list, there were thankfully no surprises or hiccups at this stage of the process and all went smoothly.

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Altogether, we used…
❧ a reciprocating saw
❧ a hammer
❧ a chisel
❧ pry bars
❧ a tape measure
❧ a circular saw
❧ an orbital sander
❧ an improvised orbital sander (using a drill)
❧ files
❧ a regular drill
❧ a hammer drill
❧ a caulk gun

Lastly, our favorite part: the Before and After shots!

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