Window Replacement in Ham Lake, MN

Convenient Country Living, and the windows that come with it

Ham Lake's tagline is Convenient Country Living, and the city's comprehensive plan backs it up. The minimum lot size is one acre. Most single-family lots run from one acre to two and a half acres. There is no municipal sewer, so homes are on septic systems. Just over 86 percent of the housing is single-family detached, and the 2020 Census split the population almost evenly between urban and rural residents. It is a city of 16,464 people spread out over big lots along Highway 65.

The comp plan also says something that matters for windows: Ham Lake has a large stock of houses built in the 1960s and 1970s alongside its newer construction. The Census numbers agree. The 1970s account for 21.1 percent of all housing units in the city, nearly tied with the 2000s at 23.1 percent and the 1990s at 21.6 percent. The 1980s were quieter at 11.1 percent. The median home was built in 1994, and 31.1 percent of homes predate 1980.

That mix, roughly a third of the city built before 1980 and nearly half built in the 1990s and 2000s, is why we do not walk into a Ham Lake house assuming anything. The 1970s home two driveways down from a 2005 build has completely different windows and needs a completely different plan.

The 1990s and 2000s Ham Lake house

Nearly 45 percent of Ham Lake was built in the 1990s and 2000s, and those homes are now 15 to 35 years old. The windows are builder-grade vinyl or wood, and they fail the way builder-grade windows fail: fog between the panes when the seal gives out, sashes that will not stay up when a balance breaks, and on wood units, rot along the bottom of the sash where condensation sits every winter.

Here the frame is often still solid, so insert replacement is frequently the right answer. A new window goes inside the existing frame, the siding and exterior trim stay untouched, and the job moves fast. We still open up and inspect each frame before we commit to inserts, because a house on open acreage takes more weather on its exposed sides than a house in a tight subdivision does. One pattern we see on acreage: the north and west elevations fail years before the south and east, so a house can reasonably get full-frame on two sides and inserts on the other two. That is not a compromise, it is matching the fix to the damage.

Permits in Ham Lake

Most Twin Cities cities require a permit for window replacement; we confirm Ham Lake's current rule with the city before work starts. Ham Lake's building permit application includes a checkbox for windows alongside reroofing and residing, and the city's Building Department is the office that answers permit questions. The city's fee schedule lists windows alongside roofing and siding as permitted work and describes the window category as covering structural or mechanism changes, which is one reason we confirm how the city treats a same-size insert before we start. Our office handles that contact, files whatever the city requires, and schedules the inspection. You do not deal with paperwork.