Builder-Grade Window Upgrades
Full-frame replacement of the windows the builder chose, in the same openings, with the fiber cement and trim around them cut, flashed and refitted so the wall looks untouched.
Ridgefield has more new houses than any city its size in the county. The subdivisions along the I-5 corridor and up Pioneer Street went in through the 2010s and are still going in, and the homes in them are well built and finished with the window the builder could buy in volume. Ten or fifteen years on, those windows are the weak point: single-strength glass, minimal coatings, sashes that leak air, and sealed units that are starting to fog on the sunny side of the house. IE Pro Exteriors replaces them with a better unit in the same opening, and that is the most common job we do here.
On a newer house the frame is not the problem, so the decision is between a glass-insert replacement and a full-frame upgrade. An insert fixes a fogged unit. A full-frame replacement is the answer when the homeowner wants a better window, a different look, or a lower energy bill across the whole house, and it is a bigger job than it sounds on a house where the siding and trim are still perfect and have to stay that way. We cut, flash and refit fiber cement around a new window so the wall looks untouched.
Old Ridgefield is a different place. The blocks near the wildlife refuge, Lake River and the old downtown have houses from the early 1900s with wood windows and cedar siding, and the work there is carpentry: sills replaced, openings rebuilt, trim milled to match. Permits inside the city go through the City of Ridgefield Building Department; rural addresses toward the refuge and out along the county roads are reviewed by Clark County. Same-size window replacement generally needs no permit. Most of the newer subdivisions have HOA covenants that review visible exterior changes, and we supply the product details the board asks for.
What We Do Most in Ridgefield
Glass Inserts on Fogged Units
A new sealed glass unit in a sound frame for the windows on the sunny side that have fogged first. Cheaper than a new window and often the right call on a young house.
HOA-Approved Repaints
Color changes and whole exteriors on subdivision homes, with sample patches painted on the house for the review board and the product details supplied.
Patio Covers
Attached covers on the larger lots, matched to the roof pitch and trim of the house, built to the setback, permitted through the city and reviewed by the HOA where required.
Everything else we do is on the services page.
New Houses, Old Windows
It sounds wrong that a house built in 2012 needs new windows, but the window a production builder installs is chosen on price, and price buys the thinnest glass, the plainest coating and the loosest sash that meets code. Those windows are not failing because they were installed badly; they are doing what they were built to do, which was to pass inspection. The house around them is often worth far more than they are.
Replacing them is an upgrade rather than a repair, and it is quoted that way. We price the fogged units as inserts and the rest as a full-frame upgrade so you can do the ones that are failing now and the rest when it suits. The siding around each opening is fiber cement on most of these houses, and it is cut back, the new unit is flashed to the weather barrier, and the siding is refitted and touched up so there is no line.
The Old Town by the Refuge
Down by Lake River and the wildlife refuge the houses are a century old and the work is the opposite of the subdivisions. Wood windows worth repairing are repaired; the ones past that are replaced full-frame in a unit that suits the house. Cedar siding is patched and matched, and trim is milled to the profile rather than picked off a shelf. These jobs take longer to quote because we open things up to see what is there, and the quote says what happens if the sheathing is wet.
Ridgefield is about twenty minutes up I-5 from our Vancouver office, and it is on the same run as La Center, so a measuring visit is easy to schedule. The visit is free.
Why Ridgefield Homeowners Call IE Pro
- We do not scar a new house. Fiber cement and trim around a replaced window are cut, flashed and refitted so the wall reads as untouched.
- HOA paperwork handled. Product details, colors and drawings for the review board, so the approval is not your job.
- Registered with WA L&I. General contractor registration IEPROE*797LN, active since June 2021. Bonded and insured as the state requires.
- The owners do the work. Eric and Izak measure the job and install it. The person who quoted your windows is the person who sets them.