Phasing a Window Replacement Across an Occupied Building

We have written about phasing multifamily siding work, and much of the logic carries over. But windows differ in one decisive way: the work happens inside people’s homes. Siding is disruptive at the perimeter of a resident’s life. Windows are disruptive in the middle of it, and the plan has to reflect that.

Access is the constraint, not crew speed

On almost every occupied window project, the limiting factor is how many units the team can actually get into on a given day — not how many windows a crew can install. That inverts the usual scheduling logic. You do not size the phases to the crew; you size the crew to the access rate your notification process can sustain.

A practical consequence: a bid that promises an aggressive unit-per-day rate without describing how access will be achieved is describing a crew capacity, not a schedule.

Three ways to sequence it

By building or stack

Work one building through completely, then move. Simplest to notify, easiest for residents to understand, and it gives you a visibly finished building early — which matters when a board is watching. The drawback is that the last building waits a long time, and residents there know it.

By elevation across the community

All west-facing units first, then south, and so on. This suits projects driven by a specific failure pattern — if the west elevation is the one failing, this addresses the problem soonest. It is harder to notify, because affected units are scattered.

By unit type

Rarely used alone, but useful in combination: doing all of one floor plan at once means the crew repeats an identical set of openings, which is genuinely faster and reduces measurement error. Works best as a sub-sequence within a building.

What the plan has to work around

• Turnover. Vacant units are free access. A phase plan that ignores the turnover calendar throws away the easiest units in the community.
• Residents who work from home. A far larger share than it was, and they need real notice rather than a door hanger the night before.
• Pets. The most common cause of a refused entry on the day. Ask about it in the notification, not at the door.
• Accessibility and medical needs. Some units need scheduling rather than a slot, and finding that out on the day costs you the slot anyway.
• Ground-floor security. An open ground-floor opening is a different risk from a third-floor one, and the plan should say how openings are secured if anything is left overnight.

Notification, on a timeline that works

The pattern that holds up on large communities is layered: a project-wide announcement early, a building or phase notice one to two weeks out, and a unit-level notice with the date two to three days ahead. The last one is the one that determines whether the crew gets in.

Two details are worth insisting on. First, the notice should say how long the crew will be in the unit and whether the resident needs to be present — vagueness here produces refusals. Second, there needs to be a way to reschedule that does not require calling an office during working hours, because the residents most likely to be missed are the ones least able to do that.

What belongs in the bid, not in a conversation later

• Units per day assumed, and the access rate that assumes.
• The no-access procedure — how many attempts, what notice, and who pays for the re-visit.
• Who notifies, with the lead time the contractor will provide the schedule.
• Interior protection — floor covering, furniture moving, and what is expected of the resident.
• Daily close-out — every opening closed and weathertight at end of day, stated as a requirement.
• Interior finish restoration and to what standard.
• A catch-up phase, budgeted, because there will be one.

The same discipline applied to cladding is in our multifamily scope-of-work guide, and the cost build-up is in what multifamily window replacement costs per unit.

One sequencing decision worth making early

If the building is also due for cladding, decide now whether these are one project or two. Windows and siding share a weather barrier — the flashing at the head and sill is installed with the cladding — so doing them together means the detail is built once, in the right order, and residents are disturbed once. Doing them separately, windows first and siding later, means new cladding detailed around window flashing that was installed before it. Where both are within a few years of each other, combining them is usually the better outcome even though it is the harder project to fund.

Working with Heritage Exteriors

We work on occupied apartment communities and condominium associations across Sacramento, the Bay Area and Northern California with our own crews — CSLB #1055919. We will give you a phase plan with the access assumptions and the no-access procedure written into it, so the schedule you approve is the schedule that gets run. Call (916) 546-2991.