As I’ve mentioned in other threads, my house has the original 1928 vintage windows, and my power bill just gave me an unpleasant surprise. I have been very reluctant to replace the windows, because the current ones have historical character and also because of the expense, but it’s really seeming like replacement would be a very smart investment for this house.
Has anybody replaced a whole house’s worth of windows, particularly, sigh, custom ones? I’m sure not a one of these is a regular size, and plus they’ll need to match the current windows (four or five vertical panes in the top half) both for the Historical Commission and because they’re part of the character of the house.
When did you do it? How much did it cost you? (Labor?) What were your heating and air savings? Would you do anything differently?
I’m thinking this might be the time to do it, as I can use my home equity line of credit and pay it off at a very good rate, not to mention that with the recession it may be much cheaper than normal, considering I’ve heard Lowes and Home Depot are getting pretty desperate. So please advise.
Our house has, or had, 80 year old single-paned leaded glass all along the front and one side of the house, upstairs and down. There is a large bay window in the living room (really 5 different windows), a window in the bathroom, a large window (really 3 windows) in the master, and 2 windows on the side. 11 windows in all.
The comfort and energy efficiency were terrible. During the winter, we often had ice forming on the inside of the windows, and you could feel the icy drafts blowing through.
We decided to get them fixed up - but we did not want a total replacement, because the windows had historical character. We hired a firm that specializes in this sort of work, and they took out all the windowframes, fixed up the leaded glass, added clear glass panes on either side of the leaded glass (making the windows triple-paned), repaired and painted the frames, and replaced 'em.
The total cost for this was CAN $9000 including tax … in short, very expensive. But it kept the exact look of the originals, and made the place a lot more livable.
My recommendation is that you look into window restoration first. If you do go ahead and replace them be prepared to pay a lot, assuming that you’ll replace them with wood windows (possibly clad with aluminum on the outside if the historical commission allows that). I’m assuming that vinyl is out of the question. Nothing ruins the look of a nice house more than vinyl windows.
We replaced the windows in our 1961 Colonial with Pella Architect Series windows (wood inside, aluminum clad outside). It cost $725 per window, installed. The house is now significantly cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. We barely need the air conditioner now since the windows do such a good job of keeping the heat from the sun out of the house. We’re able to keep the thermostat 2 degrees lower in the heating season with the same comfort level. It takes a long time for good windows to pay for themselves in energy savings, but I still think it was worth every penny.
I decided to invest in high-quality wood and aluminum replacement windows (Pella) for my house. I paid a bit under $1000 per window including installation and painting.
Inexpensive vinyl windows would have been about half of the cost. My experience is that the inexpensive vinyl windows last seven to 10 years and the high end wood ones last at least 40 years. If you’re going to stay in the house awhile, good windows are an investment.
Our house is a serious antique as well. The first time we got a $1100 heating bill for one month, we knew we had to do something. Our windows are high quality and custom built. The project cost about $15,000 for roughly the same number of windows. The heating bill immediately dropped to $600 - $700 a month in the winter.
Our house is over 100 years old. We went with Feldco, which is an affordable local company. We paid $1800 for 5 windows. They’re the kind that tip in so you can wash them from inside the house (I actually thought that would mean I’d have clean windows! Silly me…they don’t wash themselves!!).
I forgot - did anybody who’s done this find that there were discounts involved in doing the whole house at once? Because I’m sure it would help if I just did the bedroom (and the kitchen, GOD do I wish the kitchen window opened.) The thing with the Historical Commission is that, unlike when I built my garage, they don’t have to approve my windows - but they do have to keep the “character” of the originals, which means just the general basic look.
The company I used won’t even send someone out to measure and quote if the job is fewer than four windows. They just quote the maximum price per window in that case. They start discounting at four windows, and the discount gets bigger the more windows you do. That’s just one company, but I’d guess that it’s typical.
House built in 1949, not historic at all, not even a particularly coherent design or style, just a typical blah row house. San Francisco, which means a very mild climate, and even on the “coldest” winter days the furnace doesn’t have to work very hard. I mean, does it ever get below 45 degrees around here? And no air conditioning needed at all in the summer, all we have to do is open a couple of the windows for a nice cross-draft.
We got a contractor/vendor of vinyl double-pane windows to replace 5 custom size picture windows with sliding panels for about $5K. These are good quality but plain white frames with no fancy extras. Wood frames would have been much more expensive, around twice as much if my memory serves.
The results have been fine, mostly though it saves condensation on the inside of the windows (a problem with the old aluminum ones). Due to the mildness of the climate our gas bill was never over $100 per month; now it is maybe $60 or $70 in the winter.
So even though at that rate it will take over 16 years to pay back the cost of the windows in furnace fuel savings, I still think it was worth it.
Roddy
Well, this is for an almost 3,000 square foot house built before 1760 in Massachusetts so you have to have realistic expectations when you get into these things. Most people reading this will have houses with none of these characteristics so the cost will be much lower. Almost everything about antique houses is more expensive than a new stick-built.
What exactly is the difference between full frame and inserts? My windows have sound wood, but the cords have been long-ago cut and everything is painted shut.
We had Pella Architect windows too … metal clad, special order (not custom) size. We got some special deal - they were having a sale. We ended up paying about 450 per window.
If you’re handy … windows are actually not a difficult install, in the grand scheme of things. The amount of money Pella wanted to install them (another 400 per window) was just insane.
Zsofia, check with your state and county housing offices, also. Here in Minnesota, we can get special low-interest loans and/or tax breaks for window replacement as it is an energy-saving home improvement. The difference in cost can be significant.
We’ll be replacing our entire house worth of windows next year, if the economy does not completely collapse, and I’m guessing it will be $10,000 or more for our small (1500 sf) place, but we’ll be replacing entire units with Marvin products and adding a couple of windows.
Full frame means that the entire window unit is removed. This involves dealing with siding, exterior and interior trim, and is much more labor intensive.
With inserts, you leave the original frame of the windows intact, only installing the sashes. This works when the sills and frame are still in good condition.
The sills and frame are in good condition (for that matter, you couldn’t even get the quality of wood anymore probably) but the actual window workings are semi-screwed (cords cut, paint paint paint paint, etc.) When you say they just install the sashes, is that just the “window part” (i.e., the panes of glass with the wood frames around them) or the “window part” plus weights and cords or whatever they use now? Is that self-contained?
I guess what I’m asking is, can my existing windows just be popped out and new ones put in, or are we talking a pain in the ass trim work extravaganza? I’ve got the guys who built my garage to put them in cheaply, but I want to make sure I’ll be happy with the result or start budgeting for installation.
When my ex-husband and I replaced wooden-frame windows in our ~90 year old house, we used vinyl replacements from a local company. They were custom-fit and looked quite nice. They cut the heating bills significantly and reduced outside noise by a ton as well (we lived on a busy street and prior to the window replacement, during rush hour, you couldn’t watch TV or talk on the phone with the windows closed).
I think we paid about $300 a window, and the contractor took away the old windows with him. Pella was nice, or restoring the windows to be “accurate” historically, but we were looking at paying as much for 2 windows as it wound up costing for the entire house, and the vinyl windows still look nice, 10 years later.
I got a quote from Pella before I decided on an independent installer. Pella’s quote was $250 more per window than the independent guy’s quote. The Pella guy insisted that the guy I was hiring was not going to make any money on the job. $275 to install a window sounds like money to me (especially since it takes about half an hour to install one). He had no good explanation of why Pella wanted $525 to install a window. That’s more than the window itself costs.
