How to Replace a Rotted Windowsill | This Old House

[Music] okay well this sill is definitely rotted let's cut it out now i'm just cutting the nails that hold the stool to the sill freeing up the silk this is an oscillating saw where the blade goes back and forth now i just cut the siding under the silt i want you to cut out the center section of the seal stay about two inches away from the side jam when the tip of the blade is lower than the stool i want you to push the star up at the same time want to tip it upside down take the tip of the blade and put it in the slot and push down and it'll land on the structure underneath the sill now don't push the blade in too far but what i want you to do is take the saw push it up and let the saw slide in a little bit once you feel it biting on the wood then you're going to push down gently bringing the tip up cutting the remaining part of the cell all right now i'll cut this side all right it's loose all right that's not coming out i'm going to go after this side using my flat bar i'll put a screw right into the face of the silt all right now i'm going to use my flat bar hook onto the screw see if i can pry the seal up okay now it should come out and there it is wow all right we'll save that piece now we have to break these pieces off down the ends and for this side i'll use the chisel i have to get these nails out of here using my end nippers so we can slide the new sill into position we're going to recreate this old sill using a new piece of wood what are we going to use we're going to use a piece of spanish seed it really holds up well to the weather first thing i want to do now is take a measurement right okay now we need the depth now i need the width between the two jams 31 and a half and now i need the overall length and that's 38 and 9 16. okay i'm ready to transfer the measurements that we took onto our new piece of wood now i like to run a center line on here and then transfer my measurements from my center line so each notch will be equal on each end i've used a piece of the old horn off the old silf to mark for our new horn it gave me the angle and the depth i'm now going to use it to set my saw for the angle that i need to cut now when i cut the sill from the underside for the horn i didn't over cut it i didn't want to weaken the horn so now we have to finish up that cut on the face side using the hand side good down there what we need to do now is put a dado cut right down the leading edge to break that surface tension of the water spanish cedar is a soft wood so the grit of the sandpaper shouldn't be too coarse we're going to use a 120 or a 150. before we install the sill we're going to spray all sides using a water-based primer before we put the sill in i want to caulk around the underside of the casings and inside the jambs of the window then we'll slide the sill into the wet caulking i don't want to push it in yet because now i want to inject some foam in there before i push it up now the foam is actually going to do two things it's going to insulate under the sill and when the foam expands it's going to start pushing the sill up and holding it in place okay kenny now we need to nail the stool back to the silk and toenail the gun out slightly so the nail will come right into the sill okay that's good now all i want to do is run a thin bead of caulking right between the sill and the stool okay all right ken you got a brand new watertight seal good for the next 50 years [Music]

Channel: This Old House

Views: 2,070,605

Keywords: This Old House, Ask This Old House, DIY, Home Improvement, DIY Ideas, Renovation, Renovation Ideas, How To Fix, How To Install, How To Build, Episode, TV Show, Do It Yourself, Tom Silva, windowsill, rotted, window, Repair, replace, rotten window frame repair, replacing rotted window sill, window sill replacement, window sill repair, tom silva this old house, tom silva house, tom silva construction, tom silva tools, tommy silva

Id: x8iu9dLrV-E

Length: 4min 25sec (265 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 01 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/ThaUniversal]

I watched the whole video waiting for them to fuck something up hilariously, still I have no regrets.

[u/skelemingo]

You gotta love that Boston accent.

[u/whitewallsuprise]

Such a huge DIY boner right now.

[u/spongeBond]

I'm surprised foam wouldn't expand and warp the entire window. Expanding foam is pretty brutal.

[u/[deleted]]

Damn, I feel like I learned something! TOH makes things look so doable.

[u/Kerahcaz]

CUT THEH SILL HAWRN FLUSH TO THE CASING WETH THIS HYERE SAWR. SPANISH CEDAH WOOD!