St. Louis County, Missouri

Window and siding replacement in Creve Coeur

What the code and the permit desk actually require here — and what the houses in Creve Coeur tend to be hiding behind the siding.

People: 18,643
Homes: 8,821
Size: 10.3 square miles
From downtown: About 13 miles west
ZIP codes: 63141
Founded or incorporated: 1949

Incorporated in 1949, Creve Coeur grew rapidly after Interstate 270 and U.S. Route 40 were built through it; a handful of cabins more than 200 years old still stand in Conway Park alongside the mid-century subdivisions that make up most of the city's housing stock.

Creve Coeur

The housing here is predominantly 1960s-70s construction, with the single largest building wave in the 1970s (about 2,026 units).

What that vintage turns up

First-generation vinyl replacements went in across this whole period and they are now hitting both of the ages that matter at once: the frames are inside the twenty-to-forty-year band and the sealed glass units are well past the eight-to-twenty-year band. That combination produces the most common call we get on houses this age — fogged glass in a frame that is still perfectly sound. The honest first answer there is replacing the glass unit, not the window.

Hardboard and wood-composite lap siding from this era is the one with the paperwork. Masonite's hardboard covered product installed between 1980 and 1998 and reached roughly four million homeowners; Louisiana-Pacific's Inner-Seal siding had its own national settlement in the mid-1990s. Both claim programmes closed years ago, so the relevance now is diagnostic rather than financial: swelling, delamination and mushrooming along the bottom edges of the boards on a house of this age is a known product history, not necessarily the owner having neglected it.

The one to watch on a house of this age

Synthetic stucco applied before about 1997 is the high-risk cohort. Roughly ninety-five per cent of American applications were the face-sealed kind, which has no way to drain what gets past it, and the failures traced back overwhelmingly to flashing that was left out. Drainable systems are a different animal and are not the problem.

Lead paint. No, for anything built after 1978 — but confirm the build year before assuming it. 69.2% of the homes in St. Louis County were built before 1980, and on anything pre-1978 the EPA renovation rule applies to both of these trades. Window replacement is never exempt from it, at any size — a single window triggers it. A whole-house re-side clears the twenty square foot exterior threshold on the first wall. What the rule actually requires of a contractor.

Next door

Creve Coeur shares a boundary with Town and Country and Maryland Heights. Where we have a page for a neighbour it is linked; where we do not, the rules there are still different from the rules here.

The rules in Creve Coeur

Siding replacement Not published

The City publishes no statement about re-siding.

Window replacement, same opening No permit Enlarging or cutting an opening Permit required

Section R105.2 as amended by the City exempts 'Repair or replacement of existing windows and doors when the rough opening is not altered.' Like-for-like replacement in the same opening therefore needs no permit. The exemption is expressly conditioned on the rough opening being unaltered, so enlarging an opening or cutting a new one falls outside the exemption and requires a permit. The same section adds: 'Exemptions from permit requirements of this code shall not be deemed to grant authorization for any work to be done in any manner in violation of the provisions of this code or any other laws or ordinances of this jurisdiction.'.

A replacement window here has to be U-0.35 or lower

City Code Chapter 500, Article X (Energy Conservation Code), Section 500.1010: 'the International Energy Conservation Code, 2015, Seventh Edition, is hereby adopted as the Energy Conservation Code' of the municipality for regulating residential and commercial building design and construction for energy efficiency. Adopted by Ordinance No. 5692, April 13, 2020. The codified ordinances are newer than that page on every count.

That figure comes from the 2015 edition this jurisdiction has adopted.

A window fitted here must also carry an SHGC of 0.40 or lower.

For comparison, ENERGY STAR asks for U-0.25 or lower with an SHGC of 0.40 or lower everywhere in this metro, which is stricter than every code edition in force here. And the code only bites when the sash and the glazing are replaced together — replace the glass alone in an existing sash, or add a storm window over the top, and it does not apply.

Contractor registration Not published

The table of contents of City Code Chapter 500 (Building Code Regulations) contains twelve articles and none is a contractor licensing or registration article. The Building Division webpage lists no contractor registration page. No siding- or window-contractor registration, bond or insurance requirement was found in any City-published source.

What the permit costs

Residential and Commercial Permits Fee Schedule: 'Seven dollars ($7.00) per one thousand dollars ($1,000.00) of construction valuation as set by the Chief Building Official,' minimum fee '$80.00'. No line item specific to siding or window replacement. Separately, the Fee Schedule & Escrow page sets escrow deposits including $5,000 for a single family residence and $2,000 for a room addition.

Local quirks

Creve Coeur also adopts St. Louis County Mechanical, Plumbing and Electrical Codes rather than the I-Codes for those trades. Permitting runs through an outside portal at crevecoeur.onlama.com.

Who to call

Building dept: 314-872-2500
Official: Gregory B. Tate, Chief Building Official (314-872-2513)
Permits: Department page

How Creve Coeur compares with the rest of St. Louis County

Same county, same climate, same houses. Not the same rules.

Place	Permit to re-side	Permit for a window	Window must meet
Creve Coeur	Not published	No	U-0.35
Affton	Depends	Depends	U-0.34
Ballwin	Yes	Yes	—
Brentwood	Yes	Not published	U-0.28
Chesterfield	Depends	Depends	U-0.34
Clayton	Yes	Yes	U-0.30
Des Peres	Yes	Yes	U-0.32
Ellisville	Not published	Not published	—
Eureka	Depends	Depends	—
Florissant	Depends	Yes	U-0.30
Kirkwood	Not published	Not published	U-0.30
Manchester	Depends	Depends	U-0.34
Maryland Heights	Not published	Yes	U-0.35
Mehlville	Depends	Depends	U-0.34
Oakville	Depends	Depends	U-0.34
Richmond Heights	Not published	Not published	U-0.28
Town and Country	Depends	No	—
Unincorporated St. Louis County	Depends	Depends	U-0.34
University City	Depends	Yes	U-0.32
Webster Groves	Yes	Yes	U-0.35
Wildwood	Depends	Depends	U-0.34

Work we have done in Creve Coeur

None logged in Creve Coeur yet. When there is one it goes here, with the address block and what was actually done to it. An empty section is better than a number you cannot check.

Where these facts came from

Everything on this page about Creve Coeur was read off a published source. Where a question has no published answer we have said so rather than filling the gap.

Sources: crevecoeurmo.gov · crevecoeurmo.gov · crevecoeurmo.gov · crevecoeurmo.gov · ecode360.com · ecode360.com · ecode360.com · ecode360.com

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