While Dave sanded, mudded little holes, and primed and painted the bedroom, I got to work on the last two remaining windows that need replacement – the bedroom and the living room.
The amount of dirt inside the old framing was substantial, more than the other windows.
The living room was a little different. There was a lot of rot in the sill…
…along with dirt, of course.
Both windows have the same rough opening – 30″ (76cm) wide x 60″ (152cm) high.
Floyd was down below picking up the pieces.
I called around to see who would rent scaffolding for one day, Fri to Sat. Only Cooper had scaffolding, but they a) only had 5′ tall and b) weren’t open Saturdays. So we ended up renting an electric scissor lift from United Rentals.
While waiting Aaron at United to deliver the lift, I went to Lealta for some 2×8 10′ to reframe as the windows are only 24″ (61cm) wide. It didn’t take long for the lift to be delivered.
However, it did take forever to get this thing into place. It’s heavy! Four layers of 1/2″ treated ply and a 3/4″ were laid down as a platform. That worked out fairly well after a pile of dirt was moved a bit.
The problem was trying to move it from the driveway to beside the house. I broke some sidewalk and got stuck in the front yard.
After almost an hour, I finally got it in place.
Up and down, cutting various chunks of wood to get the window nail flanges to sit straight, all this took time. The sun was directly behind me, meaning I was overheating and Dave was blinded by sun in his eyes. Floyd scoped out various tools and screws and clamps scattered around in the suite while I swayed in the wind.
Dave’s son, Brock, came by and saw that I was struggling to get the living room window in place. His demeanour was that it was no big deal – the weight of the window, the height, swaying back and forth. This had the effect of calming my fear of heights. We straightened and mounted the window and tested its opening and closing ability. All was well. Thank you, Brock!
But, in moving the lift to the bedroom, an error prevented the lift from going up any further. It happened at the living room window as well but magically corrected itself. Now, however, the lift would not go up. “Error 18”
Floyd came down to see if the stabilizer bars were coming down as the lift went up. They were. I put four sheets of 1/2″ plywood under the machine, but it would not go above 9′ or so.
It was late, and everyone was tired. Dave covered up the window rough opening, and we all called it a day.
