Window Installation

Because we've spent 8+ years opening up other people's installations to fix what went wrong inside them. Nearly every rotted frame, soaked sill, and moldy jamb we rebuild traces back to installation day: flashing that was skipped, sill pans that were never formed, flanges sealed on the wrong side, gaps stuffed with fiberglass instead of sealed against air and water. Installers rarely meet those failures — they surface five to fifteen years later, long after the truck has moved on. We meet them weekly. That autopsy experience is the qualification: when the crew that repairs water damage for a living installs your window, every detail is chosen by people who know precisely which shortcuts turn into which repairs, because we've invoiced for all of them. We install windows we'd be proud to repair — and would rather never have to.

Water management, almost always. A window opening is a hole in a rain screen, and the installation's real job — beneath the leveling and shimming — is to guarantee that water arriving at that hole ends up outside the wall. The classic failures: no sill pan, so water that gets past the window (it always eventually does) soaks the framing under it instead of draining out; reversed laps, where housewrap or flashing tape is layered so water runs behind the layer below it, straight into the sheathing; caulk as strategy, sealing the bottom flange so water that enters the assembly is trapped inside; and foam-and-forget, where a gap is filled for insulation but never sealed for air, so humid interior air condenses in the wall cavity every winter. None of these is visible at handoff. All of them are visible to us, years later, as the rot repairs on our rotten window frame page. Our installations exist so that page never features your house.

Yes — installation stands on its own. If you've already ordered units, or your architect specified a brand, or you're replacing one storm-damaged window with a matching unit you sourced, we'll install what you have and install it properly. We'll also tell you, before it goes in, if something about the unit worries us — a flange design that needs extra care, a size that's tight for the rough opening — because catching that on the ground beats discovering it on the wall. Where we do supply the window, our repair-first DNA shapes the recommendation: we have no exclusive brand allegiance and no volume quota, so the unit we suggest is the one whose construction we'd want to service in fifteen years. And when the opening calls for something no catalog carries — a historic profile, a discontinued line — the answer is our own custom window replication, built to match and installed by the same hands.

The window's warranty covers the window — the glass seal, the hardware, the frame material. It does not cover the wall around it, and the wall is where installation failures do their damage. When a missing sill pan lets water into the framing, the manufacturer owes you nothing: their product performed; the hole it sat in didn't. The repair bill for that distinction lands on the homeowner, and it's the kind of bill we know intimately, because rebuilding rotted framing, sheathing, and interior finishes around a perfectly functional window is bread-and-butter work for our repair crews. That's the quiet economics of installation: the cheapest line item on a window project controls the most expensive risk. Our installation workmanship carries its own 5-year workmanship warranty, separate from whatever the unit's manufacturer offers — meaning the flashing, sealing, and fit are backed by the people who did them, in writing.

It starts like all our work: send photos of the opening or the project to (973) 564-0958 or through the quote form, get an answer the same day, and book an onsite assessment within 1–2 days. The assessment is more thorough than a typical installer's measure visit — we check the condition of the framing and sills before quoting, because installing a new window over hidden rot is a disservice we decline to sell; if the opening needs repair first, you'll know, with a price beside it. Units are then ordered or built, and installation is scheduled — most single-family scopes complete within 1–2 weeks of the units arriving. On the day: old unit out clean, opening inspected and corrected, sill pan formed, unit set level and square, flashing lapped correctly, air-sealed inside, water-managed outside, trimmed, and tested. The crew is fully insured, we work Mon–Fri 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM, and we leave you with the one thing most installations never include: a wall assembly we'd bet our warranty on — because we do.