Gold Coast, Chicago

Gold Coast Window Replacement and Door Installation for Landmark Homes and Lakefront Towers

Two entirely different buildings share this neighborhood. There are the greystones and mansions on and around Astor Street, where the Commission on Chicago Landmarks reviews your permit before the Building Commissioner ever sees it. And there are the towers along the lake, where the real obstacles are a board, a management company, a freight elevator schedule and forty storeys of wind. Both are our work. Forde has installed Marvin windows and doors since 1987 using crews on our own payroll, which matters more here than in most places, because neither a landmark reviewer nor a condo board has patience for a subcontractor nobody can reach.

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Marvin Windows & Doors

Gold Coast Window Replacement Answers to a Commission or a Board

Inside a Chicago Landmark district, the Historic Preservation Division reviews every permit application touching the building, and no permit is issued without the Commission’s written approval. There is no separate landmark permit to chase, which surprises people. The review simply happens inside the ordinary permit process, guided by the Landmarks Ordinance, the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and the Commission’s own alteration guidelines. A pre-permit submission is available and, on a window job with any complexity, worth doing.

In a tower, the constraint changes completely. Access, staging and protection of everything below you become the project. Work is phased by tier or stack so the building stays occupied, materials move on the schedule the building gives you rather than the one you would prefer, and the association wants documentation before it wants a start date.

Marvin fits both because units are manufactured to the opening we record. On Astor Street that means sightline, muntin layout and exterior finish specified against what the Commission actually approves. In a high-rise unit it means a window built for an opening that has moved with the building, glazed for wind and solar load on an exposed lake elevation rather than for a suburban living room.

The Forde Difference

Why Gold Coast Owners and Boards Call Us

Four things that decide whether this goes smoothly in a landmark house or a lakefront building.

Reason 1

Landmark Review Handled Inside the Permit

There is no extra landmark permit, only a review that can stop the ordinary one. We prepare the drawings, photographs and material samples the Historic Preservation Division expects, and use pre-permit review where it will save weeks.

Reason 2

Board Documentation Before Board Meetings

Associations approve on their own calendar. We assemble the specification, insurance certificates, protection plan and schedule in the format your management company already uses, so it goes to one meeting rather than three.

Reason 3

Occupied Buildings, Phased Properly

Nobody moves out. Work runs by tier or stack, common areas are protected, the freight elevator is booked rather than assumed, and each unit is closed up before the crew leaves for the day.

Reason 4

Glazed for the Elevation It Faces

An east-facing opening thirty floors above the lake is a different specification from a rear window on a side street. We choose glazing for wind and solar exposure rather than applying one package to the whole building.

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Gold Coast Exterior Services

Eleven Gold Coast Services, From One Sash to an Entire Elevation

Whether this is a single unit or a whole building, it runs through our own installers and one point of contact.

Window Replacement in Gold Coast

Clouded sealed units, sash immovable under a century of paint, single glazing on a lake elevation. Double hung, casement and vinyl replacement windows in Gold Coast, manufactured to measured openings and finished so a landmark facade reads unchanged.

Price my openings

Window Repair in Gold Coast

Failed balances, spent hardware, one blown seal, a rotted sill nose. Window repair in Gold Coast is often the better answer, and inside a landmark district repairing original sash is very frequently the easier approval.

Have it examined

Window Installation in Gold Coast

Full-frame window installation in Gold Coast taken back to sound structure, plus bay, picture and oversized units in tower elevations. Set, shimmed, flashed and sealed by the crew that measured them.

Arrange the survey

Skylight Installation in Gold Coast

Skylight installation in Gold Coast lights stair halls in tall narrow houses and top-floor rooms under flat roofs. Curb, counterflashing and shaft insulation detailed for a roof that also carries mechanical plant.

Discuss daylight

Skylight Replacement in Gold Coast

Skylight replacement in Gold Coast covers the whole assembly rather than the glazing. New unit, curb rebuilt where it has decayed, flashing properly reintegrated with the roof covering, shaft reinsulated before closing.

Replace the assembly

Door Replacement in Gold Coast

Entrances that have dropped on their hinges, balcony and terrace doors that never sealed, patio units grinding on worn hardware. Gold Coast door replacement works when entry and patio doors are made to the opening as it now stands.

Quote the entrance

Door Fitting and Door Repair in Gold Coast

French doors, sliding glass units and balcony doors set true and sealed against pressure differences a tall building creates. Where a slab is sound and a hinge or threshold has gone, door repair in Gold Coast is the proportionate fix.

Compare the options

Siding and Exterior Cladding in Gold Coast

Rear elevations, coach houses and low-rise flanks where cladding meets masonry. Installed to the clearances and flashing schedule the manufacturer publishes, because the wall behind it has nowhere to dry out.

Look at cladding

Exterior Repair in Gold Coast

Water staining below a lintel, soft trim at a parapet, sealant that failed two winters ago. Exterior repair in Gold Coast begins with establishing the path water is taking before anything is ordered or replaced.

Investigate the leak

Gutter and Drainage Work in Gold Coast

Flat roofs, tight lot lines and a neighbor’s wall a few feet away leave roof water almost nowhere to go. We size, pitch and discharge it so it leaves your building rather than someone else’s.

Sort the drainage

Whole-Building Exterior Projects in Gold Coast

Openings, cladding and drainage sequenced by one manager across an entire elevation or an entire association, with the phasing agreed before the first unit is ordered.

Scope the building

Landmark District, Condo Board, or Neither? We Will Confirm Free.

Why Gold Coast Owners Choose Forde

Our Installers, Our Warranty, Our Name on the Application

We have been fitting windows and doors across Chicago and the North Shore since 1987, more than 20,000 projects, and the Better Business Bureau grades the firm A+. On a landmark permit or a board submission it is our name that goes on the paperwork, which is the part that tends to concentrate the mind.

For homeowners it means the specification suits a nineteenth-century facade rather than a current promotion, landmark review is prepared and pursued for you, and where repairing original sash beats replacing it we will say so before you have spent anything.

For associations and property managers along the lakefront, it means phased replacement in occupied buildings, insurance and protection documentation in the format your board already expects, and water testing before anyone commits to a full-building order.

The standard does not change with the postcode. Whether it is a greystone off Astor or a twenty-eight-storey association on the lake, the same installers arrive, one project manager answers, and the same foreman opens up each morning.

1987Working Chicago since

20,000+Projects completed

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Gold Coast Window and Door FAQs

What Gold Coast Owners and Boards Ask First

Five that come up on nearly every call here.

1. My building is in a Chicago Landmark district. Do I need a separate landmark permit?

No, and this trips up a lot of owners. There is no additional City permit for landmark property. The Commission on Chicago Landmarks reviews your application as part of the normal building permit process, through the Historic Preservation Division, and the Building Commissioner cannot issue the permit without the Commission’s written approval. The practical effect is the same as needing approval, but there is only one application. We prepare and file it.

2. Will the Commission accept replacement windows on a landmark facade?

It depends entirely on the specification. Review is guided by the Landmarks Ordinance, the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and the Commission’s own alteration guidelines, which means profile, sightline, material and operation all matter. Repair of original sash is generally the easiest path. Where replacement is warranted, a unit matched properly to the original stands a far better chance than an off-the-shelf insert. A pre-permit submission is worth using on anything complicated.

3. How does a window project work in an occupied high-rise?

By tier or stack, on the building’s schedule rather than ours. Freight elevator time is booked in advance, common areas and corridors are protected, and each unit is closed and weathertight before the crew leaves that day. Your board or manager receives the specification, certificates and protection plan up front, since associations approve on their own meeting calendar and nobody benefits from that taking three rounds.

4. What does window replacement cost in the Gold Coast?

It turns on the number of openings, their size, the access method a tall building requires, whether the property carries landmark review, and what a hundred-year-old wall is concealing behind the casing. Anyone quoting per window before seeing the building is guessing. We survey, then price opening by opening in writing so an owner can do one unit or a board can phase an entire elevation.

5. Do you work with property managers and condo associations directly?

Regularly, and it is a good deal of what we do in this neighborhood. We are used to board packets, reserve study timelines, phased budgets across fiscal years, and buildings where twelve units want it done now and forty would rather wait. We will tell a board honestly when a partial phase is the sensible move rather than selling the whole elevation at once.