At least they didn't tape the bottom flange! Other than that, the sill pans look pretty terrible from the inside. Simple plastic sheeting is not a good sill pan material because it doesn't seal fastener penetrations. It's hard to mold into the proper shape of sill flashing while maintaining good drainage. You would also need to tape it to the framing from the inside to reduce air leakage. Here's a link to an article on Weatherproof Window Installation with the videos here.

No-casings and painted sheetrock returns are the right look for a modern house, and the major brands of windows have all gotten on board with all-fiberglass or for Andersen, all fibrex, windows, this class of windows having relatively shallow frame depth, and all offer dark colors same outside as in, to achieve this popular new look in "modern." The #1 favorite color is black, followed by dark bronze. To do it right, the carpenter needs to properly shim the opening before the rockers get there, so reveals are consistent all around. Insider Carpentry channel on YouTube has a great vid on how to do this right. The rockers need to mask well, then use a tearaway bead at the window side, and a good corner bead at the outboard sides. The best look, IMHO, is to have a 3/4" thick sill at bottom with the same window reveal as the sides, so the bottom of the opening is not shimmed in as much as the sides. To get this right, the window sits up on shims at installation time and the bottom of the opening is only shimmed to get it dead level and flat for the drywall corner bead. That sill gets no apron under and has to have a good plate-like bed. Anything more than 3/4" looks to beefy. Sills should have tiny returns. Here is a 3D render done in Chief Architect of a window with sill and another without. The windows are modeled at the same dimesions as the all-fibrex Andersen Series 100, the wall is 2x6 framing, and the depth of the returns to the drywall face is 4-9/16". Note the very shallow bullnose on the sill edge, and the small return. A painted wood or stone, metal, or composite sill is going to be more durable and easier to wipe clean than painted drywall, no matter the paint. And as for the dust on those vertical returns at jambs, or horizontal across the head, and durability, you have all kinds of drywall corners eleswhere in the house. Why are corners at windows going to behave differently. If your builder has not done these no-casings openings before, think twice before asking him to do it. If he has, insist on seeing examples of work. You don't need to be a first time event for the builder, his carpenter, or his sheetrocker.

You'll be so much happier with window replacement! Retrofitting is efficient and quick, and much less expensive than many homeowners realize. Give us a call if you have questions!

An extremely high % of inquiries about how much light plants grown indoors can tolerate are being misdirected, this, because the main determining factor is usually to what degree heat from passive solar gain raises leaf temperatures. We all know that a portion of the energy contained in light waves turns to heat when it strikes an object. In the glass/glazing world, this light-to-heat change is called passive solar gain, and the leaves that do so well at capturing photons and turning their energy into carbohydrates (the plant's real food) are also capable solar collectors that turn light energy into heat, and therein lies the rub. Almost all homes now use IGUs (insulating glass units) with at least 2 lites (a 'lite' is a piece of glass) of glass. With the sun at 30* to the horizon, an IGU with no special features (plain glass) will transmit about 79% of the visible light that strikes the IGU's surface, and 70% of the light that strikes the window will be turned to heat energy. That's a lot of heat. Just for comparison, IGUs with pyrolytic coatings like low-e, might transmit 69% of visible light and turn only 27% of the light that strikes the IGU into heat energy. Add a tint to the IGU with a low-e coating, and the visible light transmittance changes to only 48% while the light-to-heat change rises to 50%, which seems an anomaly, but isn't. If there is interest, I'll explain. What you should take away from the comparative numbers is that window features can have a profound impact on your plants' well being, and heat build-up is actually a larger problem than photo loads (light levels) in most cases. We know that light energy striking leaves creates heat which is absorbed by the leaves. surrounding leaves is a layer of still air called the boundary layer. It's primary job is to raise humidity and slow evaporative water loss from leaves. Unfortunately, dead air, which is essentially what the boundary layer is, is an excellent insulator that very effectively acts to trap heat within its boundaries. This can quickly raise leaf temperatures high enough that severe death or damage to the leaf is inevitable. Heat damage is much different than damage from high light loads. Light loads that are too high actually produce H2O2 peroxidase. H2O2 is hydrogen peroxide, which destroys/oxidizes chlorophyll and any other organic molecule it contacts. What we've learned: * Almost all plants are capable of withstanding the photo load that passes through windows without suffering photo-oxidation (sunburn). * The problem is more often heat build-up in leaves than damage from light (but plants do need to be acclimated to significant increases in photo loads). What you're going to learn if you stuck it out this far: There's a fix for heat buildup. Put a fan in the room during the brightest part of the day. The moving air disrupts the boundary layer and allows heat to escape the leaf and be lost to the surrounding air. Al