We have a 1916 brick bungalow with original windows that need some serious love. Caulking on the outside helped, but they are still quite drafty and the wood is degrading from moisture in some places, and in the winter we get ice on the inside! Not just frost, but in some cases, actual ice. We have been managing the drafts with some serious insulated blackout curtains in the bedrooms, and this year, with some weatherstripping tape.
It seemed worse this year than normal, and trying to wipe up the moisture from the melted ice stripped a fair bit of the finish off the wood on the frames, as did pulling off the weatherstripping tape. I know either replacement or refurbishment is going to be expensive, and it’s not an emergency, but at some point we should do something. I’ve read some opinions on both sides, and all else being equal, would prefer to keep the original windows and get them restored, but is all else ever actually equal?
On one hand, even the highest-quality replacement windows won’t last 100+ years, but on the other hand, neither will I, and there would be energy savings from better windows.
On the other, the energy savings might not equal the difference between refurbishment and replacement for years.
And (as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof would say, “I have no other hands!”) it would be nice not to have such a drafty house in the winter!
Who has done this? Pros and cons of various approaches? What research should I be looking at? And if you’re in the Chicago area, any providers to recommend or stay away from?
Before you decide, you should make sure that there’s nothing which would prevent replacement. Being a registered historic property or some HOA rule, for example.
I had this discussion with inspectors when looking at Victorians in Port Townsend, WA (I eventually opted for something from the 1940s). The consensus was to always refurbish the old windows. If done by the right person, the energy efficiency will be quite close to modern replacements and the old wood will last a lot longer than the new vinyl.
You can buy new wood frame windows. They’re considerably more expensive than vinyl and therefore not as popular, but they are available.
I replaced my white vinyl with colored vinyl. Looks a little classier (to me) than the plain old white that most of the commoners on the street have.
Unless you have bags of money, I suspect it will come down to cost.
Not an issue. HOAs aren’t a thing in Chicago for single-family houses, and there are plenty of 100-year-old bungalows around here. Ours isn’t anything special.
Do you actually open the windows up? While 100 years ago people regularly opened windows up nowadays so many people just use air conditioning and never open them. And if you never open them you can just seal all openings.
I don’t know about 100 year old weathered wood lasting longer than new vinyl. Vinyl does get more brittle with age, I know that from replacing casing and seeing the brads punch chips out of the jamb. But I have also seen lots of old traditional wood windows that are done. Modern windows are usually replaced because the sealed units have failed, not because the jamb has failed. That being said modern wood windows (usually hemlock) jambs need a lot more maintenance than vinyl, and will shrink, crack, and even rot without it.
I have an associate that does historical restorations and they mill up traditional style windows with fir, glazing and finish with real linseed oil paint. I assume they glaze them with modern sealed units, but don’t recall. Done right they are durable and weatherproof, but honestly they are stupid expensive. The paint itself takes days or even weeks to cure. I highly doubt they are as efficient as modern windows. Good luck finding ones made with actual fir.
I would replace them with new vinyl units or inserts. I think its a no-brainer.
We’ve lived in several houses. Our 1927 Tudor’s single pane metal casement windows were the best. A house that had replacement thermopaned double hungs awful. Leakage was the issue. The metal casements sealed tight.
OP,
No storms for winter?
Anyway, look on the bright side - you had good ventilation during Covid!
Weather permitting, yes, we open windows often. 100-year-old houses were designed for natural air flow, and the bay windows in the living and dining rooms are fabulous at catching cross breezes.
I have a log cabin that is at 75 years old. The windows only hold in slightly more heat than when they are open. I’m looking for storm windows to keep the look of these windows but some custom work is needed. Either the storm windows need to be customized to fit the inconsistently sized window frames, or some additional framing is needed. I’d really like a single large double pane in each storm window so the original windows stay on the inside but can be fully seen outside. And ideally the storms are hinged to open during those two nice days of the year and during the crippling heat of summer. .
From what I see on tv (I’m a big fan of Nicole Curtis who restores old homes) you can definitely get them restored. And new windows will look really weird. But no doubt it’ll be a considerable cost.
Yeah, I think whatever we do will be expensive. But I believe in taking care of things.
In the meantime, a childhood friend who does theater tech (which is basically construction) at a local university, and who helped his mom restore her quite dilapidated house when we were in high school (and has been fixing up his own fixer-upper for years), offered to give me a bid for repair/restoration. He will be free all summer and is looking for side jobs. I will chat with him in greater detail, obviously, but another friend said she and her husband bought a how-to book and restored a bunch of their own windows quite successfully (and they are not particularly handy).
It’s a time-consuming job, to be sure, and my lungs are not fond of wood-stripping chemicals, for example, even the more eco-friendly ones. So I don’t think we want to DIY on top of our own full-time jobs, but I might be glad to pay a chunk of money to have an experienced friend do it, or even a pro if it comes to that.
We tried restoring some of ours, but the moisture on the inside and heat flowing out so that it’s uncomfortable to sit near them is still bothersome.
We are getting inserts put in later this month. We didn’t cheap out on them, though. They are wood frame, and custom made to have the same look as our late 40s originals:
Double-hung with a 2x1 pattern.
I don’t think we’re paying $900 per window, like that article says. Maybe that’s regional – the windows we are getting are made around here.
It will hopefully help with energy costs in more than one way. We don’t need to run the air conditioning except on the hottest days here if we can open all the windows at night. We’d have to spend a lot to rehab all the windows just to get that benefit. And then they’d still leak a ton of heat in the winter.
Your insulated window coverings may be causing the ice. They will make the windows colder so that any moisture in the air will condense on them. Before I replaced my windows with much larger ones I used to seal mine up every fall with strippable caulk. Zip Away or Seal n Peel make such a difference that you can even hear that the room sounds different because it’s so well sealed. Come spring you loosen up one corner and pull off a water clear rubber band that doesn’t bother the finish. The stuff works so well that I kind of miss using it.
Maybe for the ice, but the moisture happens all the time, coverings or no. And we have french doors installed in the last 15 years to compare. Never any moisture on those. It’s a constant battle against mildew for the original windows. This is in a region with wet winters. Maybe it is different in other regions.
I’m against taking out any original feature of an old house and replacing it with something cheap and crappy. That will likely be a bad investment, and make me unhappy as a homeowner. But at this point, I want windows that both look good and function better than the originals. We could not afford exact reproductions but with double pane glass, so we got the next best that we could afford.
I am very much looking forward to having windows that work and that I can stand to sit next to when it’s cold out.