I removed the old basement windows and now have repair work in the masonry opening ahead of me. There is some moisture damage to take care of as well as filling the recesses of the old wooden window sill and head in the top and bottom corners.
One of the windows is an unusual case and requires a little more tender-loving care.
We discovered during our basement deconstruction that it is not an original window, but had been added sometime later.
This is a curse as well as a blessing as with most other things that had been added later in this building. We don’t mind having the extra window in the basement, but we now have to deal with shoddy masonry work around the edges, which was done with the wrong mortar. But worst of all, this window had no header and thus no support for the two floor joists. Instead, they were just resting on the window jambs – not something you can call a structurally sound solution.
That said, this setup obviously has worked for a number of years. Nevertheless, I got increasingly nervous each time I looked at the window and decided quickly to shore up the non-supported floor joists.
I now could safely remove the shoddy masonry work around the window edge, deconstructing everything back to the original brick work.
After everything was cleaned out, I began to rebuild the masonry opening with salvaged common brick and the right mortar (type O). I finished the job by crowning the window with a 4 by 6 old growth header, the same kind of header we have over all other basement windows. This set-up has a 100+ year successful track record … enough to convince us that this is the way to put it back together.
This takes care of the inside work. Next step is to get the outside part of the window fixed.
