Windows in Philadelphia are brick rowhouse openings: tall double-hung units, wood that has been painted for decades, sills and brickmold taking rain, and often a window unit in the sash from June through the humid end of summer. They stick. They rattle. They leak when wind drives water at the front or the rear. A coated masonry front can change how the trim meets the wall. The street is flat and close. The opening is part of a repeating facade, which matters if only one of them has failed.
Repair is still possible. Cords, balances, a fogged pane, a sash that is painted shut. Replacement is the soft sill, the frame loose in the brick, the plaster stain under the stool every time it rains. Insert work keeps the old frame. Full-frame work opens the masonry, which is the right mess when the wood is gone. Say how many, and which are on the front. A bedroom or a kitchen that must still open to a fire escape or a rear yard has to stay an operable window.
Look above the glass. Lintels and brick joints leak and blame the sash. Say if water appears only in wind-driven rain. Say if the glass sweats all winter because the heat is radiators and the unit is a single old pane. Basement windows under the stoop or at the sidewalk take splash. Rear windows on a light well take overflow from a neighbor's roof. Those are different openings from the parlor window on the street. Name the one that is actually failing.
Have a count and a material. Wood or a later unit, often both on the same row. Say if you own the facade. Ask how the sill is flashed and who repairs interior trim. Widths on these blocks are not a catalog's favorite. Describe the worst one honestly, including whether an air conditioner has to go back in it. Noise is real. The rotten sill is still the subject.
Do not picture a cottage window on a ridge. Windows in Philadelphia are row openings in brick, over a stoop or a yard. Call the number on this page.