How to Make Your Home Ready for Replacement Doors and Windows
Nothing lasts forever, and that includes your old windows and doors. From drafty entryways to old panes painted shut, there are a number of signs that it’s time for a replacement. And replacing your doors and windows comes with more benefits than you may immediately realize, too! They can increase the resale value of your home, shave dollars off your energy bill, insulate your home from temperatures and noise alike, and even make your home safer—should the worse happen and a house fire occur, you want to be able to open your windows if you can’t reach the door.
If you’re going to replace your windows and doors, these are the steps to preparing your home:
Consult with the Experts
For best results, you always want to deal with professional installers. The best manufacturers employ their own installers. By having your manufacturer install your doors and windows, you get to more easily oversee the entire process, from selecting the options that will best suit your home, to ensuring a quality installation that will stand up to environment and time alike. Once you’ve consulted with the manufacturers and set an installation date, it’s time to prepare your home.
Before Installation Day
Replacing windows and doors is messy work, and though your installers will clean up when they’re done, it’s good to give them a clear workspace anyway. Move furniture, decorations, or anything else in the work area to somewhere out of the way, leaving an ideal clearance of at least five feet in every direction from the workspace. When moving furniture, always be careful not to scratch the floors underneath; use a sheet or towel for heavy items that you can’t lift. It’s also a good idea to clear a path for workers to move through, where they can easy ferry tools and supplies to and from the work area.
Installers will always be careful with your home, but accidents can always happen. Because of this, it’s a good practice to move any fragile or breakable items to another room where no work is being performed. Before having new windows installed, remove your blinds or curtains. With your blinds, be sure to remove, store, and reinstall them carefully—components may break if treated carelessly.
What to Expect
Experts in doors and windows have done this task many times before, and they will bring the collected experience of their work to your project too. When they arrive, they should review the installation procedure with you and give you an estimated timeline. If you decide to leave your house and there will be no one else at home while the installers work, make sure that they have a phone number at which they can reach you, should there be any need to notify you of progress, complications, or anything else. Once the job is done, they’ll dispose of your old windows and doors for you, leaving their work area so clean you’ll hardly be able to tell they were ever there at all.