Spiral Balances - Builders windows with plastic sleeves

Most of the spiral balances in my house in South Carolina are broken at the top, which looks to be made of plastic rather than metal. I am very familiar with old spiral balances installed on house built in the '40's and refurbished most of the ones in my house that had wooden double hung windows. Those, of course, were attached to the bottom of the window.

I would like to replace quite a few of mine, which are almost impossible to lift. I'm concerned about the bottom part, which the window clip fits into. I don't see any in your on line catalog that look like mine. I have the yellow tip and I think they are 28 inches, but with the plastic hanger broken off, they are just under 28".

I would appreciate any help. As I say, I'm pretty familiar with the installation of these balances. I had a bottom section completely out of one window yesterday and discovered the moveable metal piece that fits into the pivot lock shoe although mine doesn't look like any of yours.

I'm going to be selling my house and probably wouldn't have to make these upgrades, but the previous seller got dinged on inspection for all the windows that had broken balances.

Sincerely,

Pam 

The pictures show a 3/8" tube, 28 inches long with yellow for sash weight. I'm going to have to make a cut as suggested in one of your videos to remove the pivot shoe. As you can see, I messed up the track trying to get it out before I watched the video. As far as I can tell before I remove the pivot shoe, it is 2" tall. 1/2" deep, and 15/16ths wide. I have 8 windows that need spiral balances, 2 each, bottom window only can be removed.

I hope with this information, you can tell me the next step.

Sincerely, Pam 

Thanks so much for that information. Yes, I bent the track before watching the video about the cutout method, which I watched and will do for the rest.

I will be ordering in the near future. The pivot shoes seem to be in working order, do you think I will need new ones for the new balances?

Pam

Trouble Installing Spiral Balance S900-28

I have successfully installed both balances on a second window. But it did not want to close all the way. From my experience with my first window, I discovered if I slammed it down, the balances would split in the middle. The same thing happened on the second window that it wouldnt closed far enough to lock so I decided to give it a good hard shove. Both balances broke. Is it possible I need longer balances. I measured very carefully and Paul helped my pick a size and weight. I just remeasured one of the tubes and it's 28.5, not 28 that I had told Paul in an email. The tips on my old ones are yellow but I weighed my window and it weighs 19.5 lbs.

I now have ruined half of my order and don't want to install anymore in case I have gotten the wrong size. Considering the amount of space that my window won't go down is about a half inch, I imagine that is the problem,

What should I do next? If I do have the wrong size, can I return the 8 I have left and order another size if you think that is the problem?

As matter of fact, there are 2 holes in the track, one is about a half lower. I'll try that first.

Thank you, Paul for your suggestion of using the lower hole in the track. I successfully installed a pair of balances for the window in which they broke yesterday. So far, I've been able to keep the charging tool from slipping away from me. So I will install the rest of the balances I have and see if I need a couple more or not.

If necessary I will order a couple more and will check the window tracks to see if they are drilled for that second hole, if not I will drill one.

You don't know what a relief this is to know everything is not my fault.

Sincerely,

Pam