Window and door repair in Decatur, Georgia
Decatur has the houses to show its age. The courthouse site was laid out in 1822, the city was incorporated on December 10, 1823 and named for Commodore Stephen Decatur, and it has been the seat of DeKalb County ever since. On July 22, 1864, during the Battle of Atlanta, a skirmish was fought at the courthouse.
Its housing stock is unlike the suburbs around it. More than one in five homes in Decatur were built in 1939 or earlier, and about four in ten were built before 1960. At the same time, one in five went up in the 2010s. So a Decatur window is likely to be either very old or very new, and the two need quite different treatment.
We work out of our shop in Marietta and take on work across the city.
Decatur’s historic neighborhoods
Several of the older neighborhoods are recognised historic districts. The MAK Historic District, named for McDonough Street, Adams Street and Kings Highway, was Decatur’s first local historic district and is full of early twentieth-century Craftsman houses. The Clairemont Historic District lies north of the square. Winnona Park, in the southeast of the city, is on the National Register for its houses, as is the South Candler Street–Agnes Scott College Historic District around the college. Ponce de Leon Court is a single street of bungalows east of the square, and Oakhurst, in the southwest, was its own town before Decatur annexed it.
If your house is in a local historic district, changes to windows and doors that can be seen from the street may need review before you make them. Check with the city before signing a contract for replacement. Repair and restoration, which keep the original windows in place, are usually the simplest route in a district like this, and very often the best one for the house anyway.
Original wood windows: what fails and what does not
The windows in a 1910s or 1920s Craftsman house were made from old-growth timber that is denser and more rot-resistant than anything available now. A sash that has survived a century can usually survive another one once it is put right. The things that go wrong are predictable.
Glazing and paint. Old putty dries out and falls away, and layers of paint seal sashes shut. Reglazing, stripping and repainting bring a window back to working order. Our window restoration page explains the full process.
Rot at the sill and bottom rail. Decades of Georgia humidity and heavy rain find any break in the paint. Rot that has not spread through the frame is cut out and replaced with sound wood. See wood rot repair.
Ropes, pulleys and weights. Many original double-hungs still hang on sash cords and counterweights. Broken cords are why a sash slams down or will not stay open, and they are a straightforward repair. See window hardware repair.
Drafts. Usually a matter of worn or missing weatherstrip and loose-fitting sashes, both fixable without losing the original window.
The newer houses and doors
Decatur’s post-2010 houses are only now reaching the age where insulated glass starts to fog and builder hardware starts to wear. A fogged pane in a sound frame is a glass replacement.
Doors in the older neighborhoods are often original too: solid wood, frequently with glass, on porches that have shed rain onto the threshold for a hundred years. Rotted jamb bases, loose thresholds, sticking doors and cracked or fogged door glass are all repairs. See door repair and door glass repair. Where a door is past saving, we can do door replacement.
Repair or replace
We do both, and in Decatur the honest answer is usually repair. A sound original window is worth keeping. If a window has rotted beyond repair, or is a later replacement of poor quality, window replacement is the right call and we will say so. Our repair or replace guide and quiz walk through how we decide.
What a visit looks like
Someone comes out, looks at every window and door you are concerned about, and tells you which need work and which do not. You get a written estimate that separates what is urgent from what can wait. There is no charge for the visit.
Sash restoration happens in our Marietta shop. Your openings are closed up and weathertight while the sashes are away. Glass and hardware are usually measured on the first visit and fitted on the second.
Nearby
From Decatur we also cover Buckhead, Dunwoody and Sandy Springs, along with Cobb County around our shop in Marietta.
