Eagle Rock Windows & Doors Built to Shed Water
Older Eagle Rock houses get windows and doors with drip caps over the head, back-dammed pans under the sill and open weeps, so rain never reaches the studs.
The narrow groove cut under the front edge of an old wood sill has one job: it makes rain drop clear at that line so it cannot creep back along the underside and into the wall. On an older Eagle Rock house we keep small details like that working, scrape out the paint that has filled them, and add the hidden flashing an older opening may lack, so the sashes and trim that give the house its face stay dry.
A drip cap over every head
Water running down the wall lands first on the head casing above a window or door. A bent metal drip cap over that casing, with its upper leg tucked behind the building paper, throws the water past the face of the trim. Some older openings never had one, and others have one painted solid to the wall. Where the stucco around a frame has to come back, we cut a clean band, lap fresh paper over the cap so each layer sheds onto the one under it, and patch the plaster to the existing texture. Sealant is only a backup, since a wall relying on a bead of caulk leaks again once it dries and cracks.
Pans, weeps and thresholds
At the bottom of the opening the order reverses: the pan goes in first and everything else laps onto it. We use a formed pan or a self-adhered membrane with its rear edge turned up as a dam, and any rain blown in around the frame hits that lip and drains back out. The weep slots in the new frame stay open to the outside. Entry and garden doors sit on the same kind of pan, with a sweep that meets the sill evenly. If the landing outside tips toward the house, the written scope says so, since a new threshold cannot cure a slab that drains the wrong way.
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Look first at where water has been. A sash whose bottom rail and sill are hard and dry under the paint can be reglazed, given fresh weatherstrip and rehung on new cord. Soft gray wood at the joints, or a stain running down the inside face of the wall under the sill, points to a full-frame replacement with new flashing behind it.
Sightlines lead the order: how wide the frame face reads from the sidewalk, the step from casing face back to the glass and where the bars split each pane. New units are built to those lines in wood or a narrow clad frame. Old casing and sill noses that come off whole are cleaned, given back their drip grooves and reinstalled.
For Eagle Rock, LADBS is the permitting office, as it is for every City of Los Angeles neighborhood. Most window and door replacements there need a permit, and new glazing has to meet California's energy code. Widening an opening adds a structural check of the new header, which the inspector sees before the wall is closed.
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Send the details and we will set up a walk-through and a written scope.