Victorian Timber
Window RepairsMelbourne
About

Windows built to be repaired, repaired the way they were built.

VTWR exists because Melbourne's original timber windows are better than what replaces them — and because fixing them properly is a trade skill worth doing right.

The short version

I'm Josh — a qualified carpenter, based in Melbourne's north, working across the city. I started Victorian Timber Window Repairs because I kept seeing the same thing on period homes: hundred-year-old hardwood windows, better timber than you can buy today, either bogged over by whoever painted last or quoted for wholesale replacement at $30,000 and up.

Neither is right. These windows were designed to be taken apart, repaired and put back — that's the whole point of a sash window. Repairing one properly costs a fraction of replacing it, and keeps the character that made you buy the house.

The standard

Fixed properly, not bogged and painted over. In practice that means rot is cut back and rebuilt with structural epoxy or spliced with new seasoned timber — never filled and hidden. Every repair is sanded and primed before we leave, the primer product is recorded for your painter, and everything is photographed. If a repair isn't worth doing, we say so.

How we work

Send photos, get a triage the same day. Inspection, then a fixed quote from the published prices — before any work starts. If concealed rot turns up once a window is open, work pauses and nothing proceeds without your written approval. You will never be invoiced for work you haven't approved. And every structural repair leaves with a 10-year warranty certificate — my name is on it.

Local

Based in Bundoora, in the northern suburbs where the housing stock runs from Victorian terraces through Californian bungalows to interwar weatherboards — we know these windows because we live among them. And we work across all of Melbourne: if you're further out, send the photos anyway.

The craft case

Original hardwood outlasts new pine.

Most period windows are old-growth timber with growth rings packed tighter than anything milled today. Throwing that away to install aluminium or new pine isn't an upgrade — it's a downgrade with a $30,000 invoice. Repair keeps the better material and the better window.

The fastest way to a price

Send us photos of your window.

Attach a few photos of the rot or the draughty window with your details, and we'll come back with what it needs and what it costs — usually the same day.