Glass and Window Repair in Mount Victoria, Wellington

Mount Victoria was settled from the early 1840s by New Zealand Company colonists, and the housing that followed is mainly 19th century wooden villas and cottages. Streets like Elizabeth Street still hold rows of late 1800s bay villas with pedimented upper windows and timber fretwork imitating stone detailing. That is a lot of original joinery in one place, and it is the reason so much of our timber work happens here.

Bay villas and the windows that define them

The bay window is the whole front elevation on a Mount Victoria villa. Three faces of glass, decorative pediments above the upper sashes, and mullions that have been holding a sealed joint since the 1890s.

Bays fail at the vertical corner joints and at the sill. Water tracks down inside the mullion and shows up at the bottom or in the wall below. We open the joint properly rather than running a bead over it, because sealing over a failed joint traps the water inside.

Leadlight fanlights and top sashes

Coloured and textured leadlight panels turn up constantly here, in front door fanlights, hall windows and the top sashes of bay windows. Lead came has a working life of roughly eighty to a hundred years, so most of these panels are at or past that.

A bowed panel is not lost. It comes out, gets flattened, has failed came replaced and the original glass reused. It can then be sealed inside a double glazed unit, which protects it permanently and stops the fanlight being the coldest spot in the house.

Steep sections and access

Mount Victoria climbs hard off the town belt, and a lot of houses are reached by steps with no vehicle access. That matters for glazing, because a large double glazed unit is heavy and has to be carried.

We assess access before quoting and price it honestly rather than discovering it on the morning. Where a house lot of sashes is going out for bench work we plan the carry once instead of four times.

What we get called out for in Mount Victoria

• Window Repair in Mount Victoria, diagnosed before anything is quoted, not after.
• Glass Repair in Mount Victoria, common sizes measured and glazed in 24 to 48 hours.
• Glass Replacement in Mount Victoria, most single panes measured and glazed within 24 to 48 hours.
• Emergency Glass and Window Repair in Mount Victoria, 24 hour callout across Wellington, the Hutt and Porirua.
• Aluminium Window Repair in Mount Victoria, stays, catches, handles, rollers and rubbers replaced.

Mount Victoria sits on the same run as Thorndon, Newtown and Hataitai, so we are usually in the area anyway.