Yesterday was a long, stressful, busy day for this man, working as a laborer, a grunt, and watching men tear apart his house. The damage was deep, thorough, and as bad as could have been expected.
The windows themselves were apparently attached not with silicone, but with liquid nails making removal a tedious and difficult task. Eventually, the old cracked window was extracted.
After this ordeal, removing the center window seemed unwise; there was no replacement glass built for such, and the weather was to dip below freezing for the first time in the overnight. We devised a plan to prop up the window such that it shouldn’t drop whilst the rotten log below was fully extracted. My over length 2x6s from the ranch came in quite handy for this securing.
Rotten log, oh, was there a rotten log under my windows.
The new d-log was inserted with a bit of sledge hammering, as well as finesse. We even managed to rip (again, from my local wood) some replacement bracing to replace the myriad of thirty five years of patchwork.
Inserting the replacement window was a stressful task for us all. We needed to dry fit it before silicone was applied, and with wedging and testing, we had to put in the window, and take it out, three times before sealing it in place. We all breathed easier with the hole again filled.
Today I will go seal up the seams, the cracks, the gaps and continue on with my seasonal sealing up of the house, the depth of this crisis behind me. Many thanks to all for their help, ideas, and support. I have a new log, a more stable set of windows, and many personal memories tying this all together.