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Window & Door Repair in Montville, NJ

A steel front door from the 1980s or 1990s can rust along its bottom edge. In Montville, where many houses are that age, early rust is usually a repair job.

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Has rust begun to lift the paint along the bottom of your front door in Montville? Has a window on the lower level gone stiff because nobody opens it? Rust and stiffness both start small, and a repair usually deals with them. About half the homes in the Township have been built since 1980. At that age, many doors and windows may only be due for care. Cared for in time, they stay part of your home and its original style, and the work leaves them looking better.

A mahogany double entry door with leaded glass and an arched transom

Rust along the bottom of a steel front door

A front door put on a Montville house in the 1980s or 1990s is often steel. That means a thin metal skin over a foam core, hung in a wood frame. Steel does not swell the way wood does. Its weak spot is rust.

Rust usually shows first along the bottom edge, where rain and melting snow sit. It can also start at a dent or a deep scratch. You may see paint that bubbles, or a brown streak running down from a chip.

Surface rust can often be sanded back, treated, primed and painted. Rust that has eaten through the metal skin leaves fewer choices. Ask for an estimate when you first see either sign.

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Lower-level windows close to the ground

Roughly one home in three here dates from the 1960s or 1970s. If yours is a split-level or a bi-level, its lower rooms may have short, wide windows set just above the soil. Rain splashes back on them. Mulch creeps up to the sill, and shrubs hold the damp against the wood.

These windows are also the ones opened least. A latch stiffens, the frame swells, and one day the window will not move. Montville reaches the Rockaway and Passaic rivers, and on low ground toward either one the soil may stay wet for longer.

Pull the mulch back a few inches below each sill and look at the wood. If the paint is gone and bare wood shows, call 516-841-5048.

Schedule G, the Township’s list of historic sites

Montville is mostly newer houses, but not only. The Township keeps a list of locally designated historic sites and districts, called Schedule G. It names dozens of single sites, many of them old houses and farms. Their addresses fall on Main Road (Route 202), Jacksonville Road, Waughaw Road, River Road and Changebridge Road, among others.

The list also sets out two districts, lot by lot: the Capstick Historic District and the Morris Canal in Montville Historic District.

Being near one of those roads proves nothing by itself. The list goes by address and by block and lot, so check it against your own. The Township posts it on the Historic Preservation Commission’s page of its website.

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Three photographs and a brochure of the window

For a property on that list, the Township has a Certificate of Appropriateness application. Its text says the form must be completed before building permits are issued for any construction, repair or alteration of the exterior. It covers every building and structure on the lot.

The form asks for at least three photographs: the street side of the building, and the spots the work would touch. It asks for a sketch of the change. It also asks for brochures showing the types of doors and windows, and for the materials and colors.

A completed application is due at least ten business days before a regular meeting of the Historic Preservation Commission. It sits at 7:00 p.m. on the fourth Monday of the month, in the Municipal Building.

The form’s own word for a good application is “thorough”: a full description of the work, with photographs of how things stand today. So start with that description and those photographs.

One construction office for Montville, Towaco and Pine Brook

Towaco and Pine Brook are sections of Montville Township, not towns of their own. Whichever name is on your mail, permits come from the Township’s Department of Construction and Inspections. It is at 195 Changebridge Road. Office hours are 8:30 to 4:30 on weekdays.

Trim and moldings come up by name in the state construction code. Repairing or replacing them, inside the house or outside, is treated there as ordinary maintenance. The code says its own list is not complete.

Phone 973-331-3318 with the details of your job. If it is permit work, the department’s forms page links straight to the state’s own construction permit forms.

FAQ

Questions from Montville homeowners

Must we attend the Historic Preservation Commission meeting in person?

The Township’s application form says the applicant’s attendance at the meeting is mandatory. The applicant must be the owner of the building, or a representative who holds a notarized power of attorney from the owner. So plan on an evening at the Municipal Building.

We own one of the listed sites. What is the technical assistance the Township’s form mentions?

The Township’s form says its historic commission may provide technical assistance to owners of historic sites and of properties in the historic districts. That help is for the outside rehabilitation or restoration of the property. Call (973) 331-3319, ask for Land Use, and request the application for technical assistance.

The blinds sealed inside the glass of our deck door no longer tilt. Is that repairable?

Those blinds sit between two panes, so they cannot be reached from the room. Sometimes the fault is only in the slide control on the face of the door, which can be reset or replaced. If the fault is inside, the sealed glass unit that holds the blinds can often be swapped for a new one. We look at the control first.

The plastic frame that holds the glass pane in the entry door has yellowed and cracked. Does the door have to go?

Usually not. On many steel and fiberglass doors, the glass is held by a two-piece frame that screws together through the door. That frame can often be replaced by itself. Check for a draft or a water mark around the glass, and let us know what you find.

Do you work in Livingston and Franklin Lakes too?

Yes. We serve Livingston and Franklin Lakes as well as Montville.

How do I get a price?

Call us or fill out the short form at the top of this page. The estimate is free.

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