Do I need to remove window sensors before the crew arrives?

No — alert your alarm company and tell your installer which windows have sensors. Don't touch the hardware yourself.

Do I need to be home for the permit inspection?

Usually no. Most LADBS inspections on single-family window jobs don't require the homeowner to be present — we'll tell you if yours is an exception.

What's the right plan if the crew finds rot on tear-out?

They stop, photograph it, write a change order with scope and price, and wait for your written authorization before proceeding. That's the only acceptable protocol.

How far in advance should I start preparing — the night before, or earlier?

The night before is sufficient for most prep. The exceptions are: scheduling childcare or pet care (which may need a few days), notifying your alarm monitoring company (a day ahead is fine), arranging street parking access (check your city's rules on coning — some require 24-hour notice), and flagging HOA restrictions on work trucks or dumpsters. The actual physical prep — moving furniture, removing window treatments, clearing the driveway — all takes under 2 hours and is best done the evening before rather than earlier, so the space stays clear overnight.

What if my HOA has restrictions on contractor parking or work hours?

Find out before the job is scheduled, not the morning of. Many HOAs in LA require contractor vehicle registration, restrict work hours to 8 a.m.–5 p.m. (some are 9 a.m.–4 p.m. on weekdays only), prohibit work on weekends entirely, or require advance notice to the HOA office. Pass those restrictions to your installer at the time of booking so we can schedule accordingly and brief the crew. If your HOA requires a certificate of insurance from the contractor, we supply that — just ask.

How-To & Process

Preparing Your Home for Window Replacement: The Night-Before Checklist

By Israel AquinoMarch 12, 20267 min read

TL;DR

Clear a 4-foot perimeter around every window, remove window treatments, move cars out of the driveway, unlock the gate, and secure your pets. That's 80% of it. Pre-1978 homes need to plan for lead-safe containment during tear-out. Most prep takes under 2 hours the evening before — and a 15-minute call with your installer the day before handles the rest.

A window job goes faster when the crew doesn't spend the first 30 minutes moving furniture, finding an unlocked gate, or waiting for a car to move out of the driveway. Most preparation takes under 2 hours the evening before. Here's what actually matters.

We've seen jobs delayed two hours because a homeowner assumed we had access to the backyard — we didn't. We've watched crews spend 45 minutes relocating a sectional sofa that could have been pushed aside the night before. None of these are catastrophes, but every one of them adds cost and friction to a job that should start clean and end on schedule.

This checklist is organized by when you do it and where it lives. Interior prep the night before, exterior prep the night before, and one short confirmation call with your installer the day before. Everything else on this page is noise you can ignore.

Interior prep — the night before

Eight things to do inside before the crew arrives.

1
Remove window treatments and store them
Blinds, curtains, drapes, roller shades, and shutters all need to come down before we start. We don't remove them — that's homeowner scope. Stack them in a bedroom or closet where they won't get dust on them. If you have motorized shades with brackets screwed into the frame, let us know in advance so we can assess whether the bracket interferes with the new unit.
2
Clear a 4-foot perimeter around every window being replaced
We need room to work, room to stage the new unit, and room to extract the old one without pivoting it into your furniture. Four feet of clear floor space on every interior side is the number. Couches, chairs, side tables, bookshelves — anything in that zone should move the night before, not the morning of.
3
Remove fragile items from windowsills and nearby shelves
Vibration during tear-out is real. A hammer driving a pry bar into a frame will rattle shelves within 6 feet of the opening. Anything breakable — ceramics, small sculptures, framed photos, potted plants — should come off the sill and off the adjacent shelves before the crew arrives. We're not responsible for items that fall due to demo vibration.
4
Protect flooring if you have irreplaceable hardwood
We cover the floor below every opening with our own drop cloths before we begin. If you have original hardwood, antique tile, or any flooring you consider irreplaceable, feel free to lay down your own protective layer first and let us work on top of it. Double coverage doesn't hurt anything and costs you nothing but a few minutes.
5
Have a sleeping plan for bedroom windows being replaced the same day
On a single-day job, your bedroom window will be out of the frame for a portion of the day before the new unit goes in. In most cases that's 45–90 minutes per opening. If the window faces a street and privacy matters, or if the nighttime temperature will be an issue, plan accordingly — either arrange to be out during that window or have a plan for the room.
6
Remove art from walls within 6 feet on both sides
Same principle as the shelves: vibration from demo travels through studs. A framed painting on the adjacent wall is at risk. Take it down the night before. Anything already securely bolted to blocking — like a mounted TV — is generally fine, but we'll tell you if we think otherwise when we walk the job.
7
Note which windows have alarm sensors
If any window on the replacement list has a contact sensor, glass-break detector, or motion sensor mounted in or near the frame, flag it before we start. We can work around every common alarm setup — we've seen them all — but we need to know where they are before we pull a frame and accidentally trip a silent alarm or break a sensor lead. A sticky note on the window is fine.
8
Identify the main water shutoff location
This one feels overprepared until you need it. If we pull a bathroom window and find rot that's traveled behind a wall — which happens in maybe 1 in 15 LA bath installs — we'll want to know where your main shutoff is before we go further. Know where it is and make sure it's accessible. You don't need to tag it, just know the location yourself.

Exterior prep — the night before

Six things to handle outside before the crew shows up.

1
Clear parking for a crew truck and trailer within 50 feet
A window crew typically arrives in one or two vehicles — a truck and a trailer or a van with a rack. We need to park close enough to hand-carry window units without a long haul. On a residential street, coning off two parking spaces the night before (check your city's rules on cones) is the smoothest approach. On jobs with long carries, we add time to the estimate — that's billable.
2
Move cars out of the driveway
If the windows we're replacing are accessible from the driveway side, we need that space clear for staging, leaning glass, and maneuvering units. A parked car in the driveway means an hour of workarounds. Move it to the street the night before so it's not the first thing anyone is dealing with at 7 a.m.
3
Trim landscaping within 18 inches of window openings
Overgrown shrubs, climbing vines, and low-hanging branches within 18 inches of an opening slow down the exterior side of every window we touch. If the landscaping is within that zone, trim it back the night before. We're not going to damage your plants getting to a window, but we will slow down — and a tight shrub against a frame can also hide rot we need to see during the assessment.
4
Secure dogs and cats for the day
Open windows and strange sounds stress pets. More practically, an anxious dog or a cat bolting through an open frame is a real event on installation day. Arrange for pets to be in a closed room away from the work zone, at a neighbor's house, or at daycare for the day. Let the crew know when they arrive where the animals are — the good ones ask.
5
Unlock gates or provide access codes
If the windows we're replacing require access through a side gate or backyard entry, we need that gate to be unlocked when we arrive — not unlocked sometime after we've been standing in the front yard for 20 minutes. Write the code on the work order or text it to the foreman the evening before. If the gate has a padlock, leave it unlocked.
6
If you have a Ring or security camera, notify your monitoring company
A crew of 3–4 people moving around the perimeter of your home for 6–8 hours will trigger every motion-sensitive alert you have. Give your monitoring company a heads-up the evening before so they're not calling you mid-install asking if there's a break-in. Also worth letting neighbors know if you're on a neighborhood watch group — nothing slows a job like a well-meaning neighbor calling the city.

Pre-1978 homes — lead paint protocol

What federal RRP rules require and what you should do.

Federal RRP (Renovation, Repair, and Painting) rules require certified lead-safe work practices on any home built before 1978. If we flagged this on your quote, here's what it actually means on install day.

What we do: The crew wears PPE — gloves, respirators, and disposable coveralls — during all tear-out activity. The work area is contained with 6-mil plastic sheeting on the interior floor and on the ground below the exterior opening. All window debris — old glazing, frame material, paint chips — is bagged in labeled poly bags and disposed of according to EPA requirements. We don't skip steps on this; our RRP certification covers every installer on our crew.

What you should do: Don't be in the work area during the removal phase. If possible, plan for children under 6 and pregnant household members to be elsewhere entirely during the demo portion of the day — not just out of the room, but out of the house while tear-out is active. Demo typically takes 20–45 minutes per opening; we'll tell you before we start. Once the new unit is in and the containment is down, the space is safe to re-enter.

Questions to confirm with your installer the day before

Five things to nail down before 8 a.m. on install day.

1
What time will the crew arrive?
Most LA window crews start between 7 and 8 a.m. Get a specific window — "7 to 7:30" is fine, "sometime in the morning" is not. If you need to arrange childcare, a dog sitter, or your own work schedule around the install, you need an actual arrival time the day before.
2
Who is the foreman's direct number?
Not the office number, not the sales rep's number — the foreman who will actually be on site. Traffic happens, crew size changes, materials run late. You want one person to text if something feels wrong on install day, and it should be the person running the job.
3
Where should they park?
Tell them exactly where to park and where not to park. If there's a neighbor's driveway they could accidentally block, say so. If the best spot is around the corner, say that too. Crews follow instructions when instructions exist — they improvise when they don't, and improvised parking decisions on a residential street can create problems you'll have to deal with.
4
Is there anything they need from you before the first opening?
A good foreman will have a pre-job walkthrough already planned, but ask the question anyway. Some crews want to see all the openings before they stage. Some want to confirm the alarm situation. Some need you to sign a work-start authorization if there are any change-order conditions from the quote. Know this before 7 a.m., not at 7 a.m.
5
What's the plan if they find rot or damage on tear-out?
This is the most important one, and you want the answer in writing — not a verbal agreement while someone is holding a pry bar. The correct answer is: they stop, photograph it, write up a change order with the scope and price, and wait for your authorization before proceeding. If your installer says 'we'll just handle it,' that's not acceptable. Know the protocol before it happens.

What you don't need to do

Save yourself the effort — these are not your job.

Don't pre-clean the windows. We're removing them. It doesn't matter how dirty the glass is — it's going in the dumpster. Save the Windex for the new ones after we leave.

Don't pre-remove the window trim. Interior and exterior casing, stop beads, and any wood trim around the frame is part of our scope. We remove it correctly — with attention to whether it can be re-used or needs to be replaced — and we do it as part of the job. Pre-removing it yourself usually means it gets damaged in the process and has to be replaced at an added cost.

Don't move exterior furniture unless it's directly blocking access. A patio chair 6 feet from a window opening doesn't need to move. If a large planter is sitting directly below the opening where we'll be working from a ladder, move that. Otherwise, leave it. Our crew stages around outdoor furniture as a matter of course.

Don't arrange for a dumpster. We haul everything away in the truck — old frames, old glass, packaging, all of it. Dumpster rental for a window job is one of those things homeowners arrange because they assume we won't take it, and then we both end up dealing with an unnecessary rental. We take it. It's in the quote.

Install day sequence

What happens hour by hour — and what we need from you at each stage.

15–20 min

Crew arrival and walk-through

The foreman walks every opening with you before a single tool comes off the truck. This is where we confirm the scope matches the order, check for anything that changed since the estimate, flag alarm sensors, and identify any access complications. Budget 15–20 minutes for this walkthrough. Don't skip it — it's where last-minute scope questions surface before they become mid-job change orders.

20–30 min

Staging and interior protection

The crew lays drop cloths on all interior floors below the work zone before the first frame comes out. If the job includes lead-safe containment (pre-1978 homes), plastic sheeting goes up around the opening on both sides before demo starts. This is also when any remaining window treatments that weren't removed the night before get taken down. If you see the crew skipping floor protection, say something — it's not optional on our jobs.

30–60 min per opening

Demo and frame removal

Old frames come out opening by opening — typically one at a time, not all at once. For retrofit installs, the exterior casing and interior stop beads come off, the old unit is cut free, and the opening is inspected for rot, moisture damage, or flashing failures before the new unit is staged. This is when change orders happen if rot is found. You'll be shown the damage, given a written scope and price, and asked to authorize in writing before we proceed. Don't let any crew continue past rot without this step.

45–90 min per opening

New unit installation

The new unit goes in shimmed, plumb, and level. Flashing tape is applied to the sill pan first, then the unit is set, shimmed, and screwed to the rough opening. For full-frame installs, a new sill pan liner goes in before the unit. The crew checks operation — open, close, lock — before moving to the next opening. If you want to watch this step on one window to understand how it works, ask the foreman; most are fine with it.

20–40 min per opening

Interior and exterior trim and seal

Interior casing or stop beads go back in — either reinstalled originals or new trim we supply. Exterior is caulked with a paintable siliconized acrylic at every seam between the new frame and the existing stucco or siding. On stucco homes, any stucco disturbed during removal is patched (retrofit installs disturb very little; full-frame installs may require a stucco patch on the exterior return). You'll be asked to check each opening before we move on — this is your quality-check moment.

30–45 min

Cleanup and final walkthrough

Old frames, old glass, packaging, and all debris are loaded into our truck. Drop cloths come up. The crew does a final sweep of the work area — interior and exterior. Then the foreman walks every new window with you: operates each unit, points out any paint touch-up areas on exterior trim, and answers questions. You sign off on completion. The permit inspection (if required) is scheduled separately; we handle that call and give you at least 24 hours' notice of the inspection date.

What people ask

Questions we get every week before install day.

01Do I need to remove window sensors from my alarm system?

No — don't touch the sensor hardware yourself. Alert your alarm company that you're having windows replaced and ask them whether sensors need to be deactivated for the day or whether they can be temporarily bypassed. Most systems can be put into a 'window open' mode that suppresses alerts on specific zones. Tell your installer which windows have sensors before work starts so they can work around the wiring carefully. Pulling a sensor without knowing what's behind it can trip a silent alarm or break a lead.

02Can the crew install while I'm at work?

Yes, if we've done a full walkthrough before the install day and there are no expected change-order conditions. You'll need to provide access — key lockbox, garage code, or a trusted adult on site — and we'll need the foreman's number to be your point of contact if something comes up. We do unattended installs regularly. What we won't do is make scope changes or sign off on a rot repair without homeowner authorization, so if we find something unexpected, we'll stop and wait for you to be reachable before proceeding.

03What if I have plantation shutters that are hard to remove?

Tell us before install day. Plantation shutters — especially full-frame bypass units — are sometimes mounted to the window frame itself, which means we may need to sequence the removal differently or have our installer assess whether they can be removed without damage. If the shutters are mounted to the wall framing and not the window frame, you can usually remove them yourself by backing out the hinge screws. If you're unsure, leave them and let us look at the situation when we walk the job the morning of.

04What should I do with plants on the windowsill?

Move them off the sill entirely and away from the work zone — at least 6 feet if possible. Vibration during frame removal can knock a potted plant off a nearby surface, and dust from demo will settle on soil and leaves. If you have large planters directly below an exterior window opening, move those too — we'll be working from a ladder directly above them and dropping old frame material.

05Do I need to be home when the permit inspector comes?

Usually no — the inspection is typically between us and the inspector, and it happens after the install is complete. In some jurisdictions (Pasadena, Santa Monica), the inspector may want to speak with the homeowner or review HOA approval documentation. We'll tell you on your specific job whether you need to be present. In most LADBS inspections on a standard single-family window replacement, the homeowner doesn't need to be there and often isn't.

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