You treat the short answer as a headline and follow it. “They're old” is not a dead end — it's the top of the answer, and the documented follow-up (“gotcha — what have you been noticing with them?”) is what turns it into the story. One-word answers are usually a question problem, not a homeowner problem.
The short answer
“They're old.” — “Gotcha. What have you been noticing with them?” — “They're drafty, a couple don't open anymore, and honestly we're just tired of looking at them.”
The documented exchange: the follow-up built from their word gets the real answer.
Notice the machinery: react first (“gotcha”), then ask about noticing — observations, not opinions. Homeowners who can't summarize their problem can always report what they've seen, heard, and dealt with, and the noticing answer contains the layers.
How it runs
Ask one question at a time. Stacked questions get answered at the shallowest point. Ask open, then narrow. Broad questions to a guarded homeowner produce monosyllables; a specific question about a specific symptom produces sentences. Use the inspection. Walking the actual problem together loosens talk that the table couldn't — people describe what they're looking at. Let silence work. After a short answer, a beat of quiet often lets the homeowner continue on their own; rushing to fill it teaches them you'll do the talking for both of you.
If brevity persists, check yourself against the interrogation list before you blame the room — most one-word appointments are questionnaire appointments.
Spar grades your probing against the documented system, round by round. Round 1 is free. Spar before you knock.