How Much Does It Cost To Repair Antique Wood Window

<p>This Sometime Firm Goggle box'south Watertown project</p> — This Old Firm Television set's Watertown project

Unlike, say, its rotted porches or crumbling chimneys, the windows on Christian Nolen and Susan Denny's 1886 Victorian were in pretty darn adept shape. Large double-hungs, with those on the rear bay graced with curved sash and panes, they probably dated from around 1915, when the firm underwent an extensive expansion and renovation. "We thought about the energy savings we might have gotten from replacing them," recalls Christian, "but for u.s.a., in that location actually was no question. They were too beautiful to only tear out."

Their dazzler was obscured by aged triple-track storms, and so down those came—and in came David Freedom, whose company specializes in rehabilitating old wood windows. David is one of the many people, including show friend and wood repair expert John Stahl, who believe that the stiff, tight-grained wood found in old structure makes preserving it a ameliorate investment than replacement with today's softer wood. Properly repaired, claimed David, the Watertown windows would last another hundred years.

As David and his crew inspected each window, they constitute the skillful old woods, without exception, yet solid and sound. The joints were still strong. The main problem was rattles and air leaks. The solution: weatherstripping. First they carefully pried off the stops—vertical strips of wood that keep the sash in the window. Setting them aside, they removed the lower sash. At the same fourth dimension they opened upwardly the sash weight ports to remove the weight and cut off the rot-decumbent cotton weight cords, which they would replace with indestructible copper chain. The frail departing beads, which separate the two sash, came out next, followed past the upper sash.

Each sash was sanded to remove any paint ridges that might be impeding their smooth sliding. David cut a groove in the meeting runway of the lower sash and slipped in a nylon weatherstrip (supplied by John Stahl). Into the upper half of the window frame went leap bronze weatherstripping which, when nailed in identify and scored with a putty pocketknife, kicked out its unattached border to provide a positive pressure seal for the upper sash to ride against. The upper sash went back into the frame, followed by the parting beads, some other fix of statuary weatherstripping for the lower sash, the lower sash fastened to its new copper chains, and finally the stops, positioned carefully to allow the sash to slide but not to rattle. New locks at the meeting rails sucked the two sashes tightly together, and the erstwhile windows were ready for a new life. Cost: $175 per window.

In dear with the historic await of their restored windows, Christian and Sue decided to skip new storms and their obscuring effect. They had heard that only well-nigh 10% of a window'southward heat loss is through its glass, and so with the new weatherstripping and properly caulked window casings, they figured they might be OK. And, for the first winter, they were. No rattles, no drafts, beautiful sunlight streaming unobstructed through wavy one-time glass.

The following wintertime, bothered past the drying issue of the hot-air heating, they added a humidifier to the arrangement. Good for their skin, bad for their windows, whose unmarried-thickness panes immediately frosted upwards, some with up to a one-half-inch of the stuff, melting during the day and threatening to ruin the paint and even the underlying wood. And then much for romance and history—storm windows have been ordered and will be installed this spring. Christian and Sue found a manufacturer whose units come with depression-eastward glass, rounded edges on their aluminum frames, and baked-on custom color. Per unit cost: $250.

Had they tossed their former windows and used modern replacement units that slip into the existing frame, Tom Silva estimates they would take spent around $650 an opening. The new units would have been mechanically smoothen, but so are the reconditioned old ones. The new would have provided the insulation of double-pane drinking glass, but and so do the onetime windows with their new storms. Aesthetically, the new would take looked, well, new. By taking the road they took, even with its unexpected bump, Christian and Sue got what they needed and even saved some money. But more importantly, they saved some of the best things about their old house.