Gaps in windows. Fix?

B0bbyEwing

Just been round to a house where the owner is complaining about gaps in their windows & was asking me about seals.

To me (and I'm no DIY guy that's for sure unless it's Destroy It Yourself) it looks like a window fitting issue rather than a seal issue. The seals actually look and feel fairly new. I've no idea why the previous owner lived in the house with windows that bad. You can hear outside noise very clearly & you can most certainly feel a draught - because you can actually see daylight out of the side of the window!!

There's about 3 of them that are affected in the house. One of the more noticeable ones, it's like the opening is slant. I measured at the top on the left side & it was 30mm between frame and one of the lines/grooves in the window section. As I ran this down to the bottom which is where the gap was, this then became 36mm-38mm. It's like the bottom is too far right & the top is too far left. I'm wondering if 'my mate Dave can fit windows' was the case here.

Disclaimer: nothing against Daves.

Just wondering what the fix is here? I'm going to hazard a guess at it being more than a DIY job (for my level of DIYness) and it'll be a case of get some window fitters to sort it. Doesn't stop me being curious what the fix is though. I would've thought you couldn't set windows so obviously slant??

And while I'm asking questions about uPVC stuff, is it fairly straight forward to replace the bottom part of a uPVC door? The previous owners had a cat flap installed. Looks like a crappy one with a literal flappy bit of material. I'd hate to have been paying their heating bill I know that much!! 

fenwick458

the fact that the windows don't shut right can in some cases be fixed by adjusting the cams on the latches, this makes them pull in tighter, but realistically it's probably due to worn hinges and only way is to replace hinges. 
It's fairly easy but you either need to know what you're doing or have 3 hands...
replacing a panel is very easy too you just pop off the 4 internal beads using a 75mm paint scraper, then fit the new panel and tap in the beads with a hammer and block of wood

B0bbyEwing

Thanks. Sounds like it's going to be better to get someone to sort the windows. 
Door seems within ability but really if someone is coming out to do then they may as well do the lot & that way the job (in theory) is done right.

housebuyer143

If you can see light through the top of the window, the part that opens and closes, it is likely the glass needs packing in the correct places. I don't know why but packing the glass causes the window to straighten 🤷‍♂️

 I had a few like this and we took the glass out and put packers in the correct place and reinstalled. No gaps now and they are no longer on a slant.

B0bbyEwing

housebuyer143 said:

If you can see light through the top of the window, the part that opens and closes, it is likely the glass needs packing in the correct places. I don't know why but packing the glass causes the window to straighten 🤷‍♂️

 I had a few like this and we took the glass out and put packers in the correct place and reinstalled. No gaps now and they are no longer on a slant.

Nope, you can see gaps down the side/edge.

The window is taller than it is wider with the opener at the bottom & you push out.

As you look at it from the inside, the gap is on the left side at the bottom but not the right. 

The gap stops where the metalwork is on the inside. Whether this is the reason you can't see a gap from there upwards or not, I don't know, but you certainly see a gap below it.

There's no gap at the top that I could see.

webjaved

Any chance you could post a couple of pictures here for us to see?

B0bbyEwing

webjaved said:

Any chance you could post a couple of pictures here for us to see?

I think that window might actually be a different one to the one I'm asking about. The one I'm asking about I spotted a pretty obvious slant. Some of the other ones I couldn't quite figure out what was causing the gap.