San Bernardino Window Replacement is San Bernardino County's trusted specialist for new window openings in San Bernardino, CA, specializing in cut-in openings for dark rooms, enlarged bedroom windows sized for egress and clerestory units high on a north wall. We offer header and stud framing for the new span and permit-ready opening plans.
Our team provides three-coat stucco patching and drywall repair around every cut, delivering a daylit room for homes and clean, inspected wall openings for both residential and commercial projects. We write a scope that names the header size, the frame, the glass package with its NFRC U-factor and SHGC, and how the outside wall is patched, and the installer who measures and lays out the cut is the one who sets the window in it.
From locating the studs, wiring and plumbing inside the wall to the finish coat of stucco and the last coat of paint inside, our team handles every detail. Serving San Bernardino, Redlands, Norco and Woodcrest, we add the window your floor plan should have had from the start.
Why San Bernardino Window Replacement
The installer who measures your openings is the one who sets the new windows, from the first visit to the final walk.
A new window opening in San Bernardino makes sense where a room is dark for most of the day, where a bedroom window is too small to meet today's escape rules, or where a wall faces a view the house ignores. Ranch houses built in the 1950s through the 1980s often put small windows high on side walls and nothing at all on hallways, dens and converted garages.
A window on the north side of a house in the Northern Hemisphere gives soft, diffuse light with little direct sun, so it brightens a room without adding much heat. A high clerestory on that wall brings light into a room that would otherwise be dark.
At this latitude in summer, east and west walls can take more direct sun than a south wall. A new opening there needs a low-SHGC glass package, and sometimes a smaller window than you first had in mind.
Every sleeping room needs an emergency escape and rescue opening. San Bernardino County's guidance sets the minimums: a net clear opening of at least 5.7 square feet, at least 24 inches high and 20 inches wide, with the bottom of the opening no more than 44 inches above the floor. Enlarging a small bedroom window is often how an older room gets there.
On a lot near the foothills, from Arrowhead Springs to the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, a solid wall facing the slope can be opened toward the view it currently hides.
A new opening is framing work first and window work second. A header is the horizontal member over the opening that carries the wall, ceiling and roof load above it to the studs on either side. It is usually two pieces of 2-inch lumber with a spacer, and its depth is set by the width of the opening and how much weight sits on it. A wider opening needs a larger header. The header rests on jack studs, also called trimmers, and studs are doubled at the opening so the load has a solid post to land on. Short cripple studs fill the space under the sill and above the header.
Exterior walls also hold a house square. Plywood sheathing nailed to the studs and headers gives the wall its shear resistance, and some walls are designed shear walls. Cutting a new hole in one of those is not a carpentry decision.
A new or enlarged opening needs a building permit, and it needs more paperwork than a straight replacement. San Bernardino County requires a permit for every window and exterior door replacement, and building departments across the region ask for a framing plan with header sizing whenever an opening changes size. For a new opening in an existing wall, they ask that the framing either follow conventional construction rules or come with an engineering analysis of the wall's lateral strength, and a new opening in a shear wall can call for structural calculations.
Energy rules follow the new window as well. On the prescriptive path, the county's guidance lists a U-factor of 0.30 and a solar heat gain coefficient of 0.23, the California Energy Code values under Title 24, Part 6, and the NFRC labels must still be on the glass at final inspection. In county areas inside the Fire Safety Overlay, new windows must be multipane with at least one tempered pane.
We prepare the plan set with you and list the permit on the written scope, so nothing about the opening is left for an inspector to discover.
Patching stucco to match is part of the scope, not an afterthought. Most San Bernardino houses carry portland cement stucco over galvanized wire lath, applied in three coats: scratch, brown and finish. Cement stucco is hard and brittle, and it cracks if the base under it moves or if a patch dries too fast in summer heat.
So the cut is planned like a repair from the start:
Inside, the drywall is cut back to the framing, new returns or casing are installed, and the patch is taped, textured and painted to match the room.
A new window should look like it was always there. That means matching the frame color and material of the windows around it, lining up head heights with the existing openings on that wall, and choosing an operating style that fits the elevation. If the rest of the house is due for replacement, the new opening is the right moment to set the specification for all of it, and HOA boards in master-planned communities will usually want the new unit to match an approved spec before they sign off.
A new or enlarged window opening in San Bernardino is typically estimated at roughly $1,500 to $5,000 per opening, and the wall itself, more than the window, decides where a job lands. The cost drivers:
Treat those figures as estimates: they are subject to change once the wall is opened and the plans are reviewed. The final price is set in the written quote after the free in-home measure. Several new openings on one house share the permit, the engineer and the stucco crew, which is why a whole-elevation plan usually prices better than one window at a time.
The process
Four steps, and nothing is ordered until you have signed off on the written quote.
We look at every opening with you, check the frames, the sills and the stucco around them, and measure each one for the unit that will go in it.
Frame material, glass package, label values, install method and the order date arrive in writing. For a community or a commercial building the work is split into phases, so every resident or tenant knows their day.
Old units come out, openings are checked for water damage, and each new window is set, flashed and sealed, with a water test at the sill before trim goes back.
We open and lock every window and door with you before calling it finished, and adjust anything you flag.
Also from our installers
Questions
Yes, in most walls. We find out what the wall carries and what runs through it, size a header for the new span, get the permit, and patch the stucco and drywall to match. A shear wall or a long span adds engineering.
Yes. Making an opening wider means a larger header; making it taller usually means lowering the sill. Both change the opening size, so a permit with a framing plan is required.
Not always. A modest opening in a non-bearing wall can follow conventional framing rules. A wide opening, a bearing wall or a shear wall usually needs an engineer's header and wall design, and we tell you which at the measure.
It should not, if it is done as three coats over tied-in lath, cured properly, textured to match and painted wall to wall. Painting only the patch is what makes a patch visible.
Usually. The county's minimum is a net clear opening of 5.7 square feet, at least 24 inches high and 20 inches wide, with the sill no higher than 44 inches. We measure the room and show what size gets you there.
Often, yes, and garage conversions are where new openings matter most for light and egress. The garage wall framing and any shear panels decide how large the opening can be.
Yes. A new window must meet the California Energy Code, and on the prescriptive path the county lists a U-factor of 0.30 and an SHGC of 0.23. The NFRC label values are written on your quote.
Homeowners get a free measure at the house. Boards, managers and contractors can send plans or an opening count for a bid.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
