Window replacement costs in Jackson

The ground under Jackson moves. Mississippi's Department of Environmental Quality calls the Yazoo Clay a geohazard. It swells a lot when it's wet and shrinks a lot when it's dry, and MDEQ says it's infamous among people in central Mississippi, especially in and around Jackson, for its potential to damage buildings and homes.

That movement can show up in your windows. When a foundation heaves and settles, the framing around an opening can twist out of square, and a sash that slid fine last year starts to bind. Before you replace a window that sticks, find out whether the window failed or the house moved. A new unit set into a racked opening will bind too.

Mississippi also has no statewide residential energy code. The U.S. Department of Energy lists it as applied county by county or jurisdiction by jurisdiction. What a new window has to meet on paper depends on where your house sits, so the code may not settle the glass choice for you.

Heat should steer that choice. The Jackson airport averages about 85 days of 90-degree heat a year. On south and west walls, glass that keeps out solar heat earns its keep.