Does anyone know how to resolve this?? My new to me house has them in the wrong order — storm window on the outside screen inside of that. It makes the little spring tabs inaccessible too. I don’t get who wanted it this way
It appears to be sealed all the way around like this
That does look a tad peculiar. Can you post a pic or two of the view from the inside?
You may or may not be able to pull it off. Gut reaction is put a hole in the screen and have it redone, but I could do one in about 10min, ymmv. Otherwise it sort of looked like you need to go from the inside, push the tabs, and shove the screen inward. Frames and screens are easily redone, so you could just do a smash and grab too.
They’re built like that so that when closed the upper and lower sashes “seal” against each other at the meeting rail. If you can flip inside sash with screen you lose that.
Regarding the order and sealing properly I can understand the concept, though I think putting them in the order from inside to outside of low storm, high storm and screen would achieve the same effect, wouldn’t it?
and regardless, I can’t think of any time I would want to have the screen up and then the window down. And if I want the window up for fresh air I have to lift the screen, lift the lower window on the outside track and then when I want it back down I don’t actually have access to it - best case scenario is to go from outside and pull the tabs in to release it. And even then I can’t really access the screen’s tabs without some finagling.
That’s not the wrong order at all. You want the storms on the outside.
It is assumed that in the winter you will put the lower storm sash in the down position for better insulation, and the screen in the up position so you have a better view out the bottom sash.
It is assumed that in summer you will put the lower storm sash in the up position, the screen in the down position, and adjust ventilation using the main window sash.
In reply to Duke :
Yup.
Screens last longer that way, as well.
Duke said:That’s not the wrong order at all. You want the storms on the outside.
It is assumed that in the winter you will put the lower storm sash in the down position for better insulation, and the screen in the up position so you have a better view out the bottom sash.
It is assumed that in summer you will put the lower storm sash in the up position, the screen in the down position, and adjust ventilation using the main window sash.
Yup.
It's been a good while since I installed "triple-track" storm windows on my first house. Seeing the pic from the inside and reading comments here has me convinced your install is proper.
The ones in my childhood house were like that and the latches for the upper storm sash were on top. That way you could slide the upper window sash down, slide the upper storm sash down, then slide the screen up. Upstairs rooms used the upper sash and downstairs used the lower to get the warm air out of the house at night.
On the ones we had you could slide both inner windows all the way up, grab the screen latches and tip the bottom of the screen into the room. Then the top of the screen would slide down the track until you had the screen horizontal into the room. At that point you would twist the screen, lowering just one side, until the two top tabs disengaged and pull the screen clear. Repeat for the lower sash. The upper tipped in the top.
Those are exactly how they are supposed to be. Storm windows always go on the outside to protect the screen. Otherwise, ice, snow, rain, UV, etc will just tear up the screen.
It was always a neat day in the spring in my house growing up when we got to open the windows. Storm pane up, screen comes down. It was like a family event.
Another for that is the right oder.
You should be able to put the screen all the way up or pop it out in order to access the lower storm window.
Yeah, with ours at the old house (which looked identical to those, actually) the top detent for the screen was about 1" higher than the top detent for the storm pane. In the fall you pop the screen up and it gives direct access to the storm pane latches.
Huh. Backward from what my last two places had. But I guess I’ll stop stressing about it, no matter how akward it seems. Thanks, all
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