casement windows suck. their hardware is crappy and prone to breakage, which renders them completely useless, they block 1/2 the breeze if you only have them open a little bit, oh and did i mention this? they break a lot. oh, yeah, i did mention that.
ever since i was a kid, i've noticed that perfectly good homes that have casement windows, usually had 1 or 2 windows that were broken. no, not the glass but broken and unusable. i knew then, i never wanted them in my house. that was for sure...
then, we built a home. i never wanted them in my house but didn't put up a fight when our builder said, "that's what I use." there were enough other crappy things going on while we built the house, and i let this issue slide. anyway, in our 6 years, here, I've had to replace 1 crank and 2 latches. the latches are crappy construction and are prone to breakage, i foresee more problems with this.
this latest latch, pictured here, was broken while it was in the locked position. as such, i had no way to get at any of the fasteners to take it apart as they are all neatly hidden. well, thank god for dremel tools. i had to hack through the case of the latch and expose the mechanism that moves the locking bar in the frame. i was able to get a screwdriver in there and whack it with a mallet until the latch moved the bar to the unlocked position. phew, finally. i have the latch out and, now, i just need to order a replacement part before winter. sure... it's unlocked but it's also a 2nd story window on a 2 story house over a look-out basement. if someone gets up there, they were getting in my house no matter what.
