New house, was built/finished just under two years ago. I live in a dry climate, have been in my house for two years and only now discovered this. After some recent storms led to water in my window track I found my rear sliding windows have weep holes in the bottom, but they weren’t draining.

After a lot of testing (filling the track with water, shop vac’ing it out, blower testing with air gun, suction with vacuum, etc.) I realized the weep holes in the interior of the window track and the weep holes on the exterior have no connection whatsoever. No water goes from inside to outside, and air blowing through exterior hole is felt through other exterior, and likewise with the interior, but nothing is going from interior to exterior. Water in the inside track will drain until the portion underneath fills and then pools up, and likewise, if I spray water in the exterior weep holes, nothing gets to the inside track, but it eventually comes out the exterior weep hole on the other side.

After some research, I found it’s not uncommon for this to happen, it’s a common defect with these sort of windows and I just drilled into the exterior weep hole with a 1/8 bit until it met the interior channel and sure enough, the water drains out as expected now. Put the window track back in, window back on, and tested pouring water in the track, it’s draining perfectly now.

My only questions are, do I have anything to be concerned about with this DIY fix? Since the climate here is normally very dry (high desert, Colorado) and moisture evaporates quickly, I’m not worried about mold, but is there anything to keep bugs from getting in through the weep holes? They’re not covered in any way. Also, will there be any winter concerns with the cold in sub-zero temperatures or snow/ice build up?

Apologies if these are dumb questions, but I’d literally never heard of weep holes until this week, with discovering the issue. So not sure what potential issues they might have, and honestly no way to know if I fixed this as intended.

  • @[email protected]English
    2•1 year ago

    your DIY fix is correct. The exterior weeps weren’t machined deep enough to clear the last internal wall. However a 1/8" bit is too small a weep hole, it will plug up with dirt. Go a little bigger if you can.

    Usually there would be a small clip in plastic flap that is pressed into the exterior weep hole that gravity holds shut, then water can dribble out. That would stop bugs from crawling in for the most part. (Can you get just those flaps alone as a part from the original mfg’er? Who the hell knows.)

    Extreme cold weather can and will make the weeps freeze up and stop draining, but it’s not usually harmful- the profiles are sealed on the ends so it won’t get in your wall. Soon as the sun comes back out they usually clear out again.

    • @tomkattOPEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      Thanks for the info, good to know winter won’t be any concern.

      I should clarify, I used a 1/8 bit but I drilled two holes side by side at each end of the window and then drilled/tapped out the middle to join them, rectangular and closer in size to the external holes. They’re horizontal notches probably between 1/4 and 3/8 wide (not exact, but nothing’s perfect), but 1/8 high.