Question: Water drips inside our living room from the top of the sliding glass door frame whenever we have rain for a day or two.
There are quite a few cracks in the stucco wall above the sliding glass door but the second-floor window above it doesn’t leak at all.
I have tried spraying the wall with the hose to try to pinpoint the leak, but I can’t get it to leak with the hose.
Our condominium is about 7 years old, and the roof is in good shape.
Why does just this one window leak and how can we get it fixed?
Your Handyman: It sounds like there may have been a problem with the water sealing of your sliding glass door when the condo complex was being built.
Water sealing doors and windows is a very important step in the construction of any building. It must be done correctly or moisture can enter the walls to eventually cause dry rot and mold — and can create a leak like the one you are trying to solve.
During the later phases of construction, the plywood exterior of your condo building was wrapped in a waterproof membrane, most likely made of Tyvek; all the window and door openings were wrapped in a similar membrane; and then the plastering contractor installed the stucco exterior over this membrane.
Cracking in stucco is not unusual, and moisture can seep through these cracks after prolonged exposure to rain or heavy misting.
After passing through the stucco, the moisture slowly drains down the exterior side of the waterproof membrane under the stucco and ultimately exits the wall at the metal weep screed flashing located at the base of the exterior wall where the stucco coating overlaps the cement foundation.
The metal frame that encloses your sliding glass door has a continuous flange, or fin, that is an integral part of the frame. It extends out away from the perimeter door opening for an inch or more, and this fin is nailed to the exterior face of the plywood surrounding the opening for the window.
The waterproof membrane, if installed correctly, laps over this metal fin. Any descending moisture is prevented from entering inside the wall by either draining out at the exterior top of the sliding glass door frame or flowing laterally to the side of the frame and eventually down and out to the weep screed.
If the membrane was cut short and does not overlap the fin adequately, or if the membrane was nailed behind the fin, this could possibly be the cause of your leak.
A solution is to break away 10 inches or so of the stucco along the top of the door frame, lap in a new continuous section of a waterproof membrane over the fin and under the existing Tyvek membrane and then apply stucco over this exposed area.
You need a contractor who is experienced in water sealing doors and windows to make an evaluation of your leak before you start chipping away at the stucco.
The last thing you want is to go through all the trouble of making this repair only to have the leak continue.
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Question: My husband and I recently purchased a Montecito home that has beautiful custom wood doors and windows, but they are very drafty, and daylight can be seen at many places when they are closed.
There is a little groove or slot cut into the inside edge of the door and window frames but there is no weather stripping of any type.
What can be done to seal up these beautiful doors and windows?
Your Handyman: Many higher-quality doors and windows use Q-LON weatherstripping. Each strip has a barbed plastic spine that presses into a kerf — the narrow slot cut in the door or window frame.
Your doors and windows likely had Q-LON or a similar weather-stripping product in place originally, but they may have been removed by painters who didn’t reinstall them after the paint dried.
Q-LON can be purchased at most hardware and window stores and is made from urethane foam wrapped in a polyethylene coating. It is weather- and UV-resistant, does not stick to paint and stains, and, most important, it retains its original shape over many years of being compressed when the door or window is shut, thus providing an excellent weather seal.
Try to purchase the new Q-LON in strips of sufficient length so they can be installed in continuous pieces rather than using multiple pieces in one run.
A common way to insert the Q-LON barbed fastening strip into the kerf is by using a small piece of wood trim or a paint mixing stick rather than using a metal tool like a screwdriver and risking a scrape or gouge in the window or door frame.
Once the Q-LON strips are all fitted back in place your doors and window should be weathertight and sealed.
