New construction vinyl windows do have a flange.
Unfortunately, you can't usually get them in custom sizes...you build the hole to fit the window. Replacement windows are generally built to fit the hole.....you give them the size of your opening, and they build the window to fit it.
When retrofitting newer windows to mobile homes, you run into a couple of problems.
1. Removing the old window is often a real pain. Lot of them are what you have...a thin aluminum frame with a ton of screws in the flange screwed to the siding on the outside with a generous helping of "dumb-dumb" caulk for a sealant. I suggest you remove the glass FIRST, because it's real easy to get the frame in a twist when removing and the glass explode in your face. Been there, done that.
Also, if you're
extremely unlucky, they put the windows in first with all those screws, then sided the home with vinyl siding, running it right up to the frame, COVERING over all the screws.....meaning it's nearly impossible to remove the old window unless you remove the siding first. How's THAT for a fix ?
2. Once you do get the old window out, you have a thickness problem. New windows are built for standard house window replacement. Most of them (every vinyl window I ever saw) are 3 1/4" thick, or deep, on the frames. That is the depth of space on two standard wood sashes (1 5/8" each). Replacement windows are 'normally' used in wood framed windows....you remove the sashes, leaving the wood frame in place, and the new window sits in the space where the sashes used to go.
SO, in a mobile home, you'll most likely run into walls that are 3" thick (or less) instead of the normal 3 1/2" thickness of a standard home...plus once you take the old window out, it's gone, frame and all (unlike wood windows in a standard home).
Mobile home builders have cheap down to an art form, and shave every nickel they can off production. Most of them use no sheathing on the outside, the metal skin is merely applied directly to the outside studs (with some horizontal strips set into the studs)...so IF you're lucky, (meaning they didn't use walls thinner than 3", which some did) the new window will work out almost exactly flush with the inside wall and the outside wall (when you add the amount for the metal siding).
To trim them out, I'd install new casing right over the frame of the window inside.
On the outside, I would take a strip of 1x3, and make a casing on the outside, lapping it over the frame of the new window slightly. Then, I'd bend aluminum metal coil in the color to match the windows, in a "U" shape to cover the 1x3, caulking it with a good silicone caulk where it meets the siding and the window. You'd need to rent a sheet metal brake to bend the aluminum trim coil.
I put windows in for a living for many years, and always dreaded mobile homes....they took twice as much work as any standard house window. But you're correct....they DO need replacing (hey, they did the day they rolled off the assembly line ! ), because they are the absolute low end of windows...leaky, drafty, sweat, etc.
New aluminum windows often have a 'thermal' break in them....a piece of plastic between the inside and outside of the frame....so the cold outside doesn't move directly thru the frame to the inside....which is what causes condensation, warmer moist air hitting a cold surface. Vinyl windows are much less prone to that problem from the start.
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