Windows Flashed for the Wind
Replacement windows set with a sill pan, side and head flashing lapped into the weather barrier, and sealed against driven rain. On the east wall we check the sheathing behind the old window before the new one goes in.
Washougal sits where the Columbia River Gorge opens onto the county, and in winter the wind comes out of it hard enough to drive rain sideways. A house here does not get rained on; it gets rained at, from the east and south, for weeks. Any gap in the flashing above a window, any siding joint that was not lapped, any bead of caulk that has let go on those two elevations is an open door for water. When IE Pro Exteriors inspects a Washougal house, the east wall is where we start, because that is where the trouble is.
The symptoms are consistent. Paint that keeps peeling in the same place on the east side while the west side is fine. Siding that is soft below the corner of an east-facing window. A window that whistles in a storm. Staining on the inside of a wall under a window that never seems to leak on a calm day. None of those are paint problems or window problems on their own; they are flashing and exposure problems, and the fix has to address the wall as a system rather than the piece that shows.
Inside the city, permits go through the City of Washougal Building Department; outside it, including the acreage up Washougal River Road and out toward Cape Horn, Clark County reviews the work. Same-size window replacement generally needs no permit. A changed opening or a patio cover does, and in this wind a cover is framed and tied down for uplift, which is a reason to build one properly rather than assemble a kit that the first east-wind storm will test.
What We Do Most in Washougal
East-Wall Siding Repair
The soft boards below an east-facing window are replaced along with the flashing that let the water in, and the patch is matched and painted. When the whole east wall has gone, we say so.
Painting That Lasts on the Weather Side
Prep, primer and two coats on walls that face the Gorge, with rotten trim replaced first. Paint over a leak lasts one winter here.
Covers Built for Uplift
Hurricane ties, post caps and a ledger bolted to framing, on permit drawings that show it. The wind that comes down the river is a real load.
Everything else we do is on the services page.
What the East Wind Does to a House
Most of the year Washougal weather is Vancouver weather. Then a high-pressure system parks over eastern Washington, the pressure gradient through the Gorge builds, and for days the wind comes out of the east at a steady thirty to forty miles an hour with gusts well above that. Rain in that wind does not fall; it travels, and it finds the joint between a window frame and the siding, the underside of a lap board, the top edge of a piece of head trim.
The houses that hold up are the ones where every one of those joints sheds water in the direction the water is actually moving. That is a flashing question first and a caulk question last. When we replace a window on an east or south wall here we treat the opening as a rebuild: the old flashing comes out, the sheathing is checked and replaced if it is wet, a proper sill pan goes in, and the new unit is flashed so that water driven up under the siding still ends up outside.
Downtown, the Slopes and the River Road
The grid of streets near downtown and the river has 1960s through 1980s houses with aluminum windows and hardboard siding, the same stock as Vancouver but with a harder exposure. The subdivisions on the slopes to the north went in from the 1990s onward with vinyl windows that are now fogging, often on the east elevation first. Up Washougal River Road the properties are acreage, and the shop or barn needs the same weather-tight windows and doors as the house.
We cover all three. Tell us the address when you call and we will confirm it is in range; most of the road is.
Why Washougal Homeowners Call IE Pro
- We flash for the Gorge. Every window on an exposed wall is set with a sill pan and lapped flashing, and the sheathing behind it is checked first.
- Registered with WA L&I. General contractor registration IEPROE*797LN, active since June 2021. Bonded and insured as the state requires.
- Fix the cause, then the finish. Peeling paint and soft siding on the east wall are flashing problems. We fix the flashing, then the siding, then the paint.
- Owners on every job. Eric and Izak measure and install. The person who found the leak is the person who closes it.