Windows & Doors in Simi Valley, Down to the Screens
Wood-framed window screens in bronze or aluminum mesh for older Simi Valley houses, plus repair or matched replacement of the windows behind them.
On an older Simi Valley house, each wood screen frame gets bronze or aluminum mesh. Hard sun on an inland lot turns vinyl-coated fiberglass brittle until it tears, and metal mesh holds up to that exposure. Where a lot lies in a mapped fire hazard zone, metal is also noncombustible, so an ember that lands on the screen does not burn through it the way it can through coated fiberglass. The frames are wood, made to the house's old pattern.
Screen frames made to the old pattern
An older house may have had wood screens with frames as wide as the sash stiles, so the window still read correctly from the street. We measure any that survive, or the hooks and hangers left on the casing, and build frames in a rot-resistant wood, joined at the corners and painted in the trim color. The mesh is held in a spline groove or under a wood bead, and each frame hangs on the old hardware or new hardware in the same spot. Where the house had half screens over the lower sash, the new ones follow suit.
Replacement glass and the wildfire rules
Simi Valley has parcels inside mapped fire hazard zones, and for new construction there the state's wildfire chapter calls for dual glazing with one pane or more tempered, or a fire-rated or tested unit, and exterior doors with a noncombustible face, a fire rating or a solid wood core of set thickness. Whether a replacement window on an existing house has to meet the same standard is settled with the city's building division at permit, and when it does, the tempered pane goes into the written scope from the start. Repairing an original sash in its frame leaves its old glass where it is.
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We judge each one by its weakest part. If the bottom rail and sill resist an awl and the sash slides true once freed, it is restored with its old glass in place. If soft wood runs down into the sill, or the whole frame leans out of square, the opening gets a new unit, and the casing outside is kept and refitted around it.
We copy an original that is still in the house. Its stile and rail widths, the meeting rail and the pane sizes are measured, and the replacement is chosen to show no more frame than that. A divided pattern is repeated with bars bonded to both faces of the glass, and the screen in front matches the house's restored wood screens.
Permits here come from the City of Simi Valley. One is needed when a whole frame comes out, an opening is enlarged or shrunk, or a new door opening is framed, and the inspector looks at energy labels and at safety glass where the code lists hazards, such as beside doors and tubs. On a mapped parcel, the city also decides whether the wildfire glazing rules apply.
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