Reseda ADU Construction With Windows Matched to the House
Reseda ADUs fitted with aluminum-clad wood windows ordered to the older main house's sightlines, while its original sash is repaired and kept in place.
Aluminum-clad wood windows give a Reseda ADU a hard outer shell and a wood inner face. The shell is extruded aluminum with a baked finish, so the hard sun and dry wind of an inland lot cannot blister, check or peel it, and it skips the scraping and repainting a wood frame asks for. The sash inside is wood, painted in the old house's trim color, and its slim profile can be ordered to match the sightlines of the original windows across the yard.
Ordering frames to the old sightlines
Measurements from the old windows set the order. We take the width of their stiles and rails, the height of the meeting rail and how far the sash sits back from the face of the casing, then choose a clad unit whose frame shows about as much as the old one did. A divided pattern is copied with bars on both faces of the glass and a shadow bar between the panes. Exterior trim around each unit is milled to the house's casing width, so the aluminum shows only on the sash itself.
Original sash on the main house
The house's own windows are a separate decision. Wood sash that has held up keeps its old glass and gets fresh putty, cord and weatherstrip, and only a window whose bottom rail has rotted through, or whose frame is out of square, is replaced. A window on the house's back wall that faces the new unit stays as built, because the gap between the buildings is drawn wide enough that neither facing wall needs rated glazing or fewer openings. That keeps the rear of the house looking the way it always has from the yard.
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If the house still has galvanized supply pipe, the unit is the moment to replace it. A new line from the meter can feed both buildings at full pressure, with a shutoff for each. Electric service follows the panel's numbers, either a subpanel off the house or a separate LADWP meter, and the drain meets the lateral through a new fitting with its own cleanout.
Often, and its new windows are a chance to match the house. A converted garage needs openings for light and air, and each can take an aluminum-clad unit sized like the main house's windows. Before any of that, the floor is checked for cracks, the base of each wall for rot and the rafters for the depth insulation needs.
Start at the roof. The unit copies the main house's pitch, the direction its ridge runs and the depth of its eaves, then takes the same covering, composition shingle in the same blend or tile in the same profile. With the roof in agreement, the windows and siding carry the rest of the match at a smaller scale.
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