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ArjinFerman  Tinfoil Gigachad  1d ago (text post)   184 thread views

Tinker Tuesday for April 29, 2025

This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.

Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.

If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service

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Working on replacing a couple of the hundred year old double hung windows in my house. Not really that challenging as far as home improvement projects go, if you order prefab vinyl pocket replacements. But I'm at the point now of being ready to install the new windows and am wondering is there is a better way to seal it on the outer stop than applying a thick bead of caulk and then working fast as hell to shim it true and square as is reasonably possible in such an old house.

New construction usually just spray foams from the inside (low-expansion kind) after installation -- depends a bit what your reno situation is.

What are you trying to accomplish with this sealant exactly? I do think I've seen guys slap some sort of cheap latex on there before installation; open time on that is plenty to get your shimming done. I've never been sure what the point was supposed to be though.

I'm not replacing the outer stops, which are rather rough and still have some old paint. The new window pushes up against it from the inside, so the caulk would, I guess, create a seal between the stop and the window. Granted, I'll also caulk between the edge of the stop and the window on the outside so maybe it's not that necessary anyways. It's just what the installation instructions say to do.

I think I see -- yes, that would be a good place to caulk. Reno guys around here typically come from the outside, I was confused.

You could test fit and get your shims (at least the bottom) figured out first I guess, but I think you'll have lots of time. Probably don't need any super high performance caulk in there -- you should use pretty good product for the outer bead, so that space will be dry and dark.

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