Bay & Bow Window Replacement in The Woodlands, TX
Projecting assemblies are carpentry as much as glazing — support, head board, seat board and a roof detail that has to shed water for decades. We handle all of it.
Bay, bow, and why they are different jobs
A bay is three units set at angles — a large fixed centre with two operating flankers. A bow is four to six units in a gentle curve. Both project out from the wall, which means both carry their own weight and need their own roof.
That projection is what makes this a carpentry job. There is a head board above, a seat board below, insulation in both, a support system carrying the load back to the wall, and a small roof with its own flashing and drainage detail.
Get any of that wrong and the assembly sags or the roof leaks quietly into the seat board. Most of the failed bays we open have water damage that started at the roof detail years before anyone noticed it inside.
Signs your bay or bow is failing
These assemblies give warning before they give up. The warnings are just easy to live with.
Staining on the seat board
Water coming through the roof detail lands here first. Dark rings or lifting veneer mean it has been happening a while.
The assembly has dropped
Gaps opening at the top corners, or flankers that suddenly bind, usually mean the support has given.
The flankers will not latch
A racked assembly throws the operating units out of square, and the locks stop meeting their keepers.
Soft trim at the outside corners
The mitred corners of the exterior trim are where water sits. Softness there means it is getting behind the cladding.
Fogged centre pane
The large fixed unit is the most expensive pane in the assembly and often the first seal to go.
Drafts you can feel at the seat
The head and seat boards are supposed to be insulated. Many original assemblies barely were.
How we do it
This is a two-day job on most houses, and worth every hour of it.
Template the projection
We measure the angle or curve, the projection depth and the existing roof pitch, because almost none of this is a stock dimension.
Rebuild the support
Cable or knee-brace support restored or replaced so the assembly carries its own weight back into the wall rather than hanging off the sheathing.
Set the units and build the boards
New units set and joined, then head and seat boards built and insulated properly rather than packed with offcuts.
Roof, flash and finish
The roof detail is rebuilt and flashed so water leaves the assembly, then interior and exterior trim finished out.
A 1990s Woodlands feature, now at the end of its run
Bay and bow assemblies were a signature detail on the builds that went up through Cochran's Crossing, Indian Springs and Alden Bridge in the 1980s and 1990s. Front rooms and breakfast nooks all over those villages have one.
Thirty years of Gulf-Coast rain on a small roof detail, under trees that keep it damp and drop debris into it, is exactly the condition those details were least designed for. When we open one here, the roof is usually the story.
Bay and bow questions
What people ask before committing to the bigger job.
Sometimes. It depends on the width of the opening, the projection your overhang allows, and whether the support can be rebuilt for the new geometry. We can tell you at the measure, not before.
Have Your Bay Looked At Properly
We will check the support, the seat board and the roof detail before quoting, so the number reflects the job rather than a guess at it.
Serving The Woodlands, Shenandoah, Oak Ridge North, Spring, Conroe and south Montgomery County