My Sash Cords Are Broken How Much To Repair

[andr3]

Hi everyone — my sash cords are currently broken, and I’m trying to get an idea of current pricing for sash cord repairs. I'd love to hear about other people’s experiences having their repaired
If possible, could you include:
Whether you used a specialist or did it yourself
Trying to understand what people are actually paying at the moment. Thanks in advance, Andre

Broken Sash Cord

 

[Badger_Boom]

We have one that needs to be replaced too. The old Reader's DIY Manual has instructions on how to do it and I was planning to have ago myself.

 

[slowmotion]

It's not difficult to fix them yourself but you will probably have to do a bit of paintwork touching up afterwards. I'm sure that YouTube has loads of clips.

 

[Gwylan]

Not difficult.
Expect to do quite a lot of work to do the job properly.
Is the separation bead metric or imperial? That could be important.
Google a few examples.
Use decent sash cord.
Expect to strip and paint the frames - the older the frames then the more likely that is.
I did an entire Victorian house, about 20 windows in all. Got quite good at it, eventually.
Back in the day there was no Google. My brother was a carpenter and gave me a range of expletives to use for the job.
And suggested I paid someone. He was 200 miles away not prepared to take on the job as a favour.
I found there were artisan carpenters who wanted to rebuild the wooden frames and so on. Would cost a fortune.
Or the Jack the lad boys with a big hammer and cash no questions.

Good luck.

 

[PeteXXX]

The mistake that I made when replacing the ropes in some sash windows in my late Victorian/early Edwardian house was not realising the importance of the the relative weights of the counterbalances..

When I'd finished the perfect job and took the wedges out of the frames, the bottom window rose gently to the top and the top window descended majesticly to the bottom 😂

 

[geocycle]

I’ve done several cords over the years. It’s pretty straightforward if the windows are in decent condition and not gummed with paint. You tend to find that once a cord breaks some folk will just paint it shut. You then have the joy of pint stripping and sanding which is rewarding if you have time, patience and appropriate PPE!

 

[MontyVeda]

We have one that needs to be replaced too. The old Reader's DIY Manual has instructions on how to do it and I was planning to have ago myself.

just the thread title brought the Reader's Digest home repair manual to mind.
I reckon if you can replace a brake cable you can replace a sash cord.
The hardest part will be plucking up the courage to remove the sashes if need be.