Why Your Window Will Not Stay Open
You lift the sash, it drops. Or it creeps down slowly over a minute. Or it takes a paint stirrer wedged in the track to hold it up.
Your window is not broken. Your balance is.
You lift the sash, it drops. Or it creeps down slowly over a minute. Or it takes a paint stirrer wedged in the track to hold it up.
Your window is not broken. Your balance is.
Every single hung and double hung window has a counterbalance system that holds the sash against gravity. What kind you have depends on the age of the window.
Weight and pulley, on pre-1950s wood windows. A cast iron weight hangs in a pocket inside the frame, connected to the sash by a cord or chain over a pulley. When the cord snaps, the weight drops into the bottom of the pocket and the sash loses its counterweight. Extremely common in older Denver homes, and the cords were never going to last a century.
Spiral or block-and-tackle balances, on most windows from the 1970s onward. A spring mechanism in the jamb track. Springs fatigue and lose tension with age and cycling.
Constant force coil balances, on many newer vinyl windows. A coiled steel spring. Same failure mode, different packaging.
None of this means the window has failed. The glass, frame, and seal can be in fine shape while the balance is dead.
Usually yes, and this is one of the more satisfying repairs because the fix is genuinely a fix rather than a patch.
Weight and pulley systems can be re-corded. Spiral and coil balances can be replaced if the correct part is available, which depends on the manufacturer and how long the window has been out of production.
The main obstacle is parts availability on discontinued lines. Sometimes there is a compatible substitute. Sometimes there is not, and that is when the conversation changes.
A note on the older wood windows: a pre-1940 Denver window with intact frames and a snapped cord is frequently worth repairing rather than replacing, especially in a historic district where a replacement has to clear design review anyway. Most companies in this market will not tell you that.
No number on this page, and here is the honest reason.
Balance repair pricing hinges almost entirely on what is in your jamb and whether the part still exists. Re-cording a weight and pulley system, swapping a spiral balance that is still in production, and hunting a substitute for a discontinued coil balance are three different jobs. We will not know which one you have until someone opens the track.
The good news is that repair moves fast. A visit is a look, a diagnosis, and a number, not a four hour presentation. If a part has to be ordered we will tell you the real timeline at the quote rather than guessing at it now.
Then it is your call. No deposit to get a number, no pressure at the door, and you pick the start date.
Related: foggy glass · stuck windows · all window repair
No deposit to get a number, no four hour presentation, and you pick the start date.