Need help with unifying which items to order.

Question

I'm working on a 40 year old, two unit apartment that has four bedrooms each. A total of 19 single wide windows that measure measured 35 13/16 x 34". and eight narrower windows (4 doubles) that measure 35 13/16 x 22 wide.

On disassembly of the first two windows, and balancers in the larger windows were stamped 3240, are 33" long and the balancers in the narrower windows were stamped 3220, are 33" long. With your CS staff Katherine we identified them as #390. All are not until windows with a half inch track.

I then pulled a few more and discovered they had in one wider window with a broken #3240 balancer on one side and a replacement balancer on the other side was #3230. Then I pulled out a narrower window and found a similar set - a broken #3220 and a much newer #3230.

One difference with these replacements is that the top shoe on the replacement balancers have flanges to keep the balancer centered in its track.

The second photo, the one without a paper roll behind it, is the one of the #3230's I just discovered with those tabs. Need help with unifying which items to order. On first pass it looked like I need to get 12 pairs of the 3240 and 4 pairs of the 3220

Tom · Accepted Answer

Thanks for posting! Based on your images here, these balances look more like our Series 395. The top fitting has wings while the bottom fitting does not.

You may be wondering whether the Series 390 could just replace these. The answer is: maybe. Those wings help stabilize the balance in the track. If the track is a little wider, and you have no wings, then the balance will likely wobble a little during operation.

It's ultimately up to you. I would personally go with our Series 395 and Series 390 on a window-by-window basis.

One thing you definitely want is to have matching stamp options on either side. It sounds like some of your windows were mixed and matched. This is no good. To be blunt, whoever installed these to begin with did it wrong. They probably had limited resources on hand and just installed whatever they had available. It happens all the time, but it means that these windows aren't operating properly.

This will make more work for you, however. You need to weigh each sash on a scale and refer to the charts shown on each channel balance store page. That will tell you exactly what stamp option to go with for each window.

Let me know if you have any questions!