Window Repair and Maintenance Service
Shoes
Shoes are plastic blocks that ride in the side tracks of single or double hung windows.
Shoes connect the sash to the balancing system. Each shoe is designed to fit a particular balancer, which hooks to the top of the shoe.
The rotating cylinder within the shoe is called the cam. The sash's pivot pins fit inside the cam. When a sash is fully tilted in, the cam turns to lock the shoe in place. This holds the tension on the balancers so they do not shoot upwards when the sash is removed.
This page will inform you on the types of shoes, what can go wrong with them and how to identify a broken shoe.
Signs of a broken shoe
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The sash falls at one side of the window
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Balancers have disengaged
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The sash will not stay up
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Visible rust or broken plastic when tilting in sash
Why do shoes break?
Brittle Shoe Broken Apart
Shoes connect the sash to the balancing system and have force pulling on each side constantly. They typically have plastic bodies and steel fixtures can be present; the plastic becomes brittle and the steel rusts. Debris accelerates the decay of the material and the force breaks them.
Types of Shoes
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like pivot pins, shoes are incredibly varied and each window needs the particular shoe designed for it. Your window tech can identify and record the model of shoe required and order any non-stock shoes.
Pivot locking shoes
Pivot locking shoes are in most tilt-in single or double-hung windows. The pivot pins in the window fit into a rotating cam that locks the shoe into place when the window is tilted in. This holds the the force on the balancing system the window uses. Pivot locking shoes include standard shoe & break assemblies, knife latch shoes and extended cam shoes.
Jamb liner shoes
Jamb-liners are a window rigging system that can be built-in during the original construction or installed after-market along the vertical sides of a window opening for tilt-in sashes. They contain tracks in which specialty jamb-liner shoes ride and connect to a spring that holds the window's weight. Note that these shoes do not have a rotating cam; these shoes do not lock when pivoting, so they shoot back up when the sash is removed. Because of this, jamb liners usually take a round pivot pin that can turn freely when tilting.
Extended Cam Pivot Locking Shoe
Jamb Liner Shoe with Sash Tilted In
