Bob from SWISCO responded:
May 21, 2019
Thanks for writing in. Don't worry, there's absolutely no reason to think you'll have to replace your windows! I am confident we can identify the problem for you and offer replacement hardware. Let's briefly define all the components you're working with here. The part displayed in your pictures is called a pivot shoe. The pivot shoe is quite literally the pivot from which the window sash tilts inward. The clip and cord it connects to is part of your window balances. Window balances are spring-loaded mechanisms that sit in the jamb track on each side of the sash, above the pivot shoe. They enable the opening and closing of the window. At this point, I don't think we should assume either your pivot shoes or balances are damaged. Instead, I think one of your pivot bars may be broken. The pivot bars are die-cast pins that connect the bottom of the window sash to the 'cam' of the pivot shoe. This is the lifeline between the pivot shoes and your window sash. The fact one of your pivot shoes became uneven suggests to me that one of your pivot bars is broken, which would cause your sash to fall out of the window track. Let's check to see if one of these pivot bars is broken before we assume anything is wrong with the rest of your window hardware. If you do have a broken pivot bar, we have a lot of replacement options, as you can see here. We can identify the right one for you, but we'll need to see the undamaged pivot bar out of the window. If you could also measure out the distance between the tip of the pivot bar that fits into the pivot shoe and the holes on the bar that mount it to the window sash, that would be most helpful. From there, we'll try and identify the right replacement. For pivot bar removal and replacement details, see the video below. |