STUCCO NEWS.NET

Here are some pics of one window of our house that needs to be repaired. The window sill was rotted and as we took it out we noticed the rot extends beyond the sill and into the wall below as well.

In the 1950's and 60's, people would drill weep holes through the window sill to let water out that was trapped behind the storm window channel, or else the channel for the screens. Failure to drill holes or have weeps would lead to water pooling inside the storm window channel, rotting the sill.

I know these sills don't look beautiful, but they haven't been painted since 1875. Only one sill on this whole house, built 149 years ago, needed to be replaced.

Sometimes, these weep holes are drilled in the sills from inside the storm window and exiting out the front or bottom of the sill, two to three per window sill. It was a lot because very few people carried electric drills, but the hand crank type. This way, any water trapped inside the storm window, or screen casing, can exit instead of pooling..

I hope I run across sills done this way so I can take pictures. A lot of times, these holes were filled in by painters.

I see weep holes drilled on houses where the storm windows or screens were put in in the 50's or 60's. This is another lost skill, lost in the sands of time.

Also a big source of rot under the window trim at the sides is from lack of flashing over the wood trim at the top. Water runs down the sides of the window jamb and the framing and rots the bottom edges of the sill or the framing at the bottom of the window.