Custer is the quiet stretch of north Whatcom County most people know from the I-5 exit sign between Ferndale and Blaine — but the people who live here know it as farm country: dairy land and berry fields along Custer School Road, older farmhouses that have watched a century of weather roll through, and newer homes on acreage within a few minutes of Birch Bay's shoreline. Alpine Exteriors replaces windows throughout this corner of the county, and rural windows up here face a combination the city ones do not.
Between the Salt Water and the Fraser Wind
Custer sits in a pocket of competing exposures. Birch Bay lies close enough to the west that salt-tinged marine air drifts across the flats, working on window hardware and finishes over the years. From the northeast, winter outflow wind pours out of the Fraser Valley across open fields with nothing to slow it — and a farmhouse standing alone on flat ground takes that wind on every window at once. Add the region's nine damp months, and old single-pane sashes and 1970s aluminum sliders never stood a fair chance.
The symptoms show up indoors: rooms on the northeast side nobody sits in from December through February, condensation pooling on sills, blinds that sway when the wind gets serious. Replacement windows fix all of it when they are specified and installed for the exposure:
- Low air-infiltration units — casements and awnings that compress shut against gaskets rather than sliding past them
- Double- or triple-pane low-E glass with argon fill to keep interior glass warm through cold snaps
- Corrosion-resistant hardware and finishes chosen with the marine air off Birch Bay in mind
- Full-frame installation where century-old farmhouse openings need their framing rebuilt square and sound