When we moved into our current house it had a persistent water leak that the previous owner had spent a lot of time and a ton of silicone trying to fix. I took the widow out and found that the nails through the sill into the mullion or centre part of the frame had rusted out letting water in. The dodgy bit of wood got soaked with resin and now is ok. While the window was out a builder neighbour gave me some of the sill tape used on new builds. Possibly it could have had a sill flashing as well but the tape is enough to direct any water outside.
I had this exact problem in a previous house (and sold it for this and other maintenance reasons). It's a lot of work but what I did to fix it was remove the glass, clean out the alu frame corner joint really well with meths/acetone and a toothbrush, and then give it a compressed air clean and bog it up with silicone, sealing that mitred corner as best I could, inside and out - remember that condensation will drip down and be sucked in on the inside as well.
Thanks, hopefully that'll fix it. There's been rot in the corners of several other windows that I've had to bog up in the past so it might be a general problem with the joinery as you say.
What moisture meter did you use? I am looking at getting one but there are so many.
The Klein Tools ET140, based on a plethora of positive reviews and having used their other stuff before. It's brilliant, you can generate a heat map of moisture inside the wall and see where it's coming in, where it's going, and how far it's spread out.
You can also get it locally from e.g. DigiKey, but given that Amazon seem to be able to move stuff faster than NZ Post I just got it from there.
What moisture meter did you use? I am looking at getting one but there are so many.
The Klein Tools ET140, based on a plethora of positive reviews and having used their other stuff before. It's brilliant, you can generate a heat map of moisture inside the wall and see where it's coming in, where it's going, and how far it's spread out. You can also get it locally from e.g. DigiKey, but given that Amazon seem to be able to move stuff faster than NZ Post I just got it from there.
Thanks, that looks a good one. I had been using one that had pins, and it worked well until it broken, but the pins also left marks.
I had been using one that had pins, and it worked well until it broken, but the pins also left marks.
Yeah, that's the problem with the pin-based one, it's intended more for checking moisture content of timber than tracking down dampness in walls, and vice versa. If you're looking for where water's getting in you definitely want the pinless one.
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