Windows in Minneapolis sit on the same north walls that freeze supply lines. A whistling meeting rail is a draft and a warning. Frost on a single pane is cold glass. Fog between panes is a dead seal. A storm that will not latch pulls heat all season. If the sash is in the kitchen or the bath on an exterior wall, say that, because the pipe is often in that bay. Rot at the stool means water stayed, not just cold.
Wind finds the casing of an old bungalow opening before it finds the glass. Plaster below the stool that bubbles after snow blows sideways is a leak. Nightly beads on the glass are condensation. Do not mix them. A painted-shut sash in a sleeping room is urgent. Cords and weights still repair a sound wood unit. A new unit that ignores a thick, out-of-square opening will leak at the brick or the siding joint on the next blow.
Say which wall faces north and whether a faucet on that wall has already frozen. That fact belongs in a window call in this city. Count the openings that fail, not the whole house. Hardware can wait. A gap you feel with your hand cannot. Divided lites you mean to keep should be named before the scope becomes a blank white frame. Interior stool and exterior trim are part of the work on these bungalows.
Replacement is not the only sentence, and it is the right one when the frame is soft or the seal is dead. Ask what stays. A rambler with flange windows is a different opening from a plaster bungalow with weight pockets. Either way the seal has to survive a winter that uses the gap against you. Screens are a warm-season detail. The heating plant is already fighting this hole.
Lead with draft, frost, fog, or a sash that will not move. Name the room and whether a pipe shares the wall. Minneapolis cold will use that gap every night. Call the number on this page.