Your home’s windows are its (and your) eyes on the bigger world. In addition to lighting your interiors, keeping fresh air flowing in good weather, and shutting out the elements when it’s foul outside, windows that work and look good make a statement about you. So subdue that stubborn sash, banish those broken windows and torn screens, and give your home a clean, bright face.

There are many kinds of windows, but nothing’s better for your fenestration vocabulary than learning the names of the parts of the most common window style—the double-hung. Now you can talk the talk!

Let’s start from the top. The header is the top horizontal piece of the frame. The jamb refers to the vertical side pieces of the frame. The sill is the horizontal part at the bottom of the frame. (Looking at the window from outside, you’d see the stool where the sill is, often supported by a small board called an apron.)

Now let’s get to the real business of this window. Double-hungs have two moving pieces, called the sash. The piece on top is the upper sash, which can be lowered from its closed position, and on the bottom is the lower sash, which can be raised. The rails are the horizontal part of the sash frame and the stiles are the vertical parts.

The sash, upper and lower, hold the glass portion of the window. A single piece of glass is called a pane. A sash can have one or more panes; the dividers between the panes are called muntins. On both vertical sides of the sash are channels, which guide the sash up or down in a straight line. The small molding piece that runs up the front, at the sides of the lower sash is called the inside stop, which keeps the sash running smoothly in its channel. The sashes lock together by means of a two-piece latch, positioned atop the upper rail of the lower sash, and the bottom rail of the upper sash.

If your windows look like double-hungs, but the upper sash doesn’t move, these are called single-hung windows.

Are you getting clear about windows yet? Don’t worry; review the illustration if you forget some of the names referred to in the repairs.

Modern double-hung windows are truly things of beauty. Double glazed, weather-stripped, and vinyl-clad at the factory, they need very little maintenance. In the spring and fall, you just clean the channels, and spray and wipe the moving parts with a little lubricant.

When it’s time to wash the glass parts, the real benefits of modern double-hung windows are even more apparent. The sash of most good-quality double hung windows can be removed from their channels and washed. No more ladders, no more freezing fingers as you try to clean them from the outside. Technology can be a blessing.

However, this part of the chapter is not for owners of fabulous, new, easy-care windows. It’s for the rest of us who have sticky, drafty, balky, and unrepentant old wood windows that need more than their fair share of attention. So let’s get busy!

This section proceeds from a no-load solution to some nitty-gritty ideas.

This is not often the case (it’s too easy), but sometimes the only problems with your windows is that it’s been hot and humid for days. If the windows worked well before the heat wave, you may want to leave them alone temporarily.

Once a dry spell arrives, your windows may go up and down as before.

Don’t take drastic action to sand or plane windows during humid seasons. While they may be sticky in the spring and summer, the cooler, drier months could set your newly sanded windows rattling in the jambs because you removed too much wood. If you are trying to make balky windows glide to your tune in summer—when you need to open and close them frequently—try the less invasive fixes.

Before you disturb the paint on the windows with any type of prying tool, you can try this little wake-up call. This technique works best if you can work both sides of the window; you may need a helper if the windows are on the second floor and require a ladder to reach their exterior side.

You’ll need the following:

If gentle tapping doesn’t work, you’ll need a stronger approach. You’ll need the following:

To pry the window from inside:

Once the window is moving freely, examine the channels. Clean out any debris and dirt with a damp sponge. Let dry, and spray some lubricant or silicon spray in the channels.

To pry the window from outside:

You can prop up a window that won’t stay open with a stick or a ruler, set in the channel below one side of the sash. Or you can install some hardware, as described next. But neither of these “make do” fixes really corrects the underlying problem.

A sash that’s loose in the jamb, and won’t stay put when it’s opened, usually means that its raising/lowering mechanism has failed. In old, single-paned wood windows, this is often a rope-and-weight pulley system; your window won’t stay open because the weights have come loose from the rope, or the rope has simply broken from age and wear. If you look at the top of the jamb, you’ll probably see the little pulley.

Some rope-and-pulley controlled windows have access panels in the jambs that allow you to get to the weights without removing the window casings. Even when you can get to them, though, this is a delicate, often frustrating (the weights fall down inside the walls!), and time-consuming job. Remember, these old, single-paned windows are probably leaky, and they’re costing you for the extra money you have to spend on heating and air-conditioning your drafty house. The best fix is to start saving for new, energy-efficient sashes that can be fitted in the old jambs, or spring for completely new windows.

In the meantime, you can apply weather stripping at the joints of your windows: between sash and sill, between the sash and the stops, anywhere air is leaking in (put your hand at one of the joints on a cold, windy day and you’ll feel the cold air passing through).

And to keep the windows up when you do want fresh air, you can install little stainless steel controls in the channels of the lower sash that provide some resistance to your weight-less window. They work like the stick or the ruler, but they’re a bit more sturdy, and only cost a couple of dollars.

To install them, you’ll need the following:

Modern windows—the double-glazed, gas-filled, or tempered variety—are pretty sturdy. But when they break, you’ll need a professional glass installer to fix them. Current building codes require that door glass (for sidelights and other door panes) be tempered. If it breaks, it does so harmlessly into about a million little chips per pane. I know this because my lawn guys got too close to our French doors with a weed-whacker, and it was doomsday for the bottom right pane. Specialized glass products have a little seal imprinted in a lower corner of the glass, which is your indicator that all such panes need professional replacement.

When tempered or other specialty glass breaks, you’ll have to do a temporary repair until the glass man arrives. Even when you’re just picking up glass chips, take precautions when you clean up the glass.

You’ll need the following:

To clean up a broken specialty glass window:

For small window panes that are single-glazed (one layer of conventional glass, no little imprint in the lower corner), you can replace them yourself. I don’t recommend cutting your own glass unless you’ve had a lot of experience with a glass cutter (it’s best to test your skill with a small pane first). Do the cardboard make-do fix, and take your window frame measurements to the hardware store so they can cut your glass.

You’ll need all the tools and materials mentioned earlier for removing tempered glass and installing a temporary make-do (cardboard will do until you get your replacement glass).

In addition, if you’re doing the replacement, you’ll need the following:

Once you have your replacement glass, you can proceed with the next part of the repair:

The screen and storm windows at our ancient house are heavy and cranky. They’re in wood frames—no nice little slide-out or pop-out aluminum framed stuff. Our least favorite weekends in spring and fall are those when we have to change from storms to screens, and from screens to storms. But before we do any of the really tiresome leg work and ladder climbing, the stored windows must be cleaned. You clean storms the way you clean any window: with glass cleaner and clean rags or paper towels. And the spring changeover is the time to replace any storm window glass. If it’s the single-glazed variety of storm window, you can follow the previous directions.

This is also a good time to clean the frames, if your storm/screens are of the slide-out variety. Clean the runners and the channels where they fit, and lubricate them with a lubricating oil or silicon spray—they’ll go in and out more easily.

To clean dirty screens, simply spray the screens with your garden hose and clean them with the sponge (or a wire brush) and soapy water. Rinse, let dry, and hang ’em!

Once the screens are out, you may notice some defects: a loose screen here, a little hole there. Last spring while cleaning her window screens, my sister noticed that her big red Persian cat, Gizmo, had been slipping out of the house the previous summer because one of the screens for the living room windows had come loose from its frame. She had to replace it, or Gizmo would be doing his warm-weather wandering once again!

Here’s how to handle common screen defects.

Holes in the screens let in all kinds of unappealing critters when your windows are open: mosquitoes, moths, flies, and other little creatures will take advantage.

To some of us, little repairs in a screen door might look a bit tacky, so if it bothers you to have a patch at your door, you might want to go all the way and replace the whole screen (see how in the next section; door screens work just like the window screens). But for window screens that don’t get as much scrutiny as a front or back door, you can patch; it’s a less time-consuming fix.

You’ll need the following:

You’ll notice that screens are composed of lengths of fine, interwoven metal wire or fiberglass filament.

If a screen has big holes or tears or has become loose and taken on a “wavy” look, you’ll want to replace it. Even if the old screen isn’t torn, if it’s bulging in places it may be weakened by the stretching. You may as well get new material to work with. Use the old screen for patches (store it in one of your “leftovers” bins).

The most common window and door screens are attached to the screen’s frame with a flexible, vinyl rope known as spline. The spline fits into a groove where mesh meets frame. If you look carefully at the corners of the screen, you may also see little plastic pieces that help fit the spline snugly in each corner.

If the screen is mounted in the window (or door), you’ll need to detach it from the surrounding frame. In the case of window screens, you’ll probably just need to pop or slide them out. A door screen may be mounted to the frame with screws; if so, unscrew the screen from the frame, take out the screen, and put the screws in the screw holes in the window or door with a couple of turns so they don’t fall out. Loose screws are always rolling away and getting lost!

You’ll need the following:

A spline tool is a hand tool with a wheel at each end. One wheel has a convex (∪) rim, for pushing the screen into the spline channel; the other wheel has a concave (∩) rim, for pushing the spline down over the mesh and into the channel.

While setting in the mesh and inserting the spline, an extra set of hands is helpful for holding the mesh in place. Or you can hold the mesh down at the corners you’re not working on with a wood block or two.

You will need to bring samples of your mesh screening, old spline, and plastic corners (if they’re used for your screens) to the hardware store so that you can buy the exact match of each material. There are different types of all three.

You will also need to measure the screen so that you buy replacement screening of sufficient size to cover the screen opening. Also, measure the perimeter of the window opening(s) so that you buy a sufficient length of spline.

You’re done! Put the screen back in the window or door opening.

In areas of your home that are hidden from view on the ground floor, it’s easy for someone with bad intentions to break a window, undo the latch, and make mayhem. If you have a perimeter security system installed, that’s one way to safeguard unwanted entry. Security gates (not window guards, which protect children from falling out) for windows will do the job, but will also make you feel like you’re living in a prison. I had these in one apartment in Manhattan where my bedroom windows opened on a fire escape. I hated the feeling of being locked in, and moved out within months.

If you don’t have the budget for a security service, you can add a layer of protection from forced window entry using the simple method of drilling holes through the lower sash of your double hung windows and installing window security pins, common nails, or eye bolts that prevent the window from easily being raised, even if a pane is broken out.

You’ll need the following: