throughly off topic....home repair and improvement (Page 1 of 2)

You coming down to ECR next month? One of my teamates owns a window company and can talk your ear off about them.

I had custom vinyl windows made specific to my measurements (to the 1/4") for my old house and they were a LOT less than $1000.  More like $150 - $200/ea.  They were argon filled, low-e coated, double pane double hung windows with screens.  I would think that you would have trouble beating that price just for replacement double pane glass much less adding in the new weather stripping and window weights.  Yes they're not authentic looking but they seal a hell of a lot better than even decent condition 80 year old wood windows.  They were American Craftsman, which you can order at Home Depot or a few other places.  (I think it's Anderson's vinyl line.)  They cut my utility bills by a lot and made the house a lot more comfortable to be in.

I think it would look great to refurb what you've got but you really need to assess the condition of everything - sash, frame, guides, etc,  - checking for dry and wet rot and excess wear.  You also need to weigh the amount of labor involved.  By the time I got done replacing all my old windows (22+!) I could go from start to finish in less than 2-3 hours including setup, tear-out, install, and cleanup. (keeping in mind I'm a slow, careful worker, not a rusher.)  I'm going to guess you would double or triple that in refurbing an old window.

I think you would be happy with the performance of either one, if the work was done well.

Ahh, I see, yes the $200/hole doesn't include labor, but neither does your wood windows.  My point was that the work to install vinyl WILL be less than the work to refurb the wood, and the materials cost will be comparable - if not more to refurb the wood.  So you're looking at a wash, cost-wise, between the two, but a lot more labor to refurb the wood.  You would also have NO warranty on the wood windows, as any cracked units / etc they would assume were installation problems.  Fogged units they might warranty.

Vinyl windows have a surprisingly long life.  The house I moved into has 25 year old vinyl windows and they are still in great shape, seal well, operate smoothly, and have no problems.  I would not complain about a 30+ year life for any building material.

The new glass is not the only efficiency benefit.  Weather stripping an 80 year old wood window will not result in it sealing as well as a brand new window of any material.  It's just not going to happen.  A new wood window would seal as well as a new vinyl window, but an 80 year old window will never be as sealed as a new window.  Air leaks around the edge only happen with poorly installed or damaged windows, and I assume that the installation quality will be comparable to the quality of the refurb job on the wood window.

I'm not trying to talk you out of it - it's something I would have jumped into with both feet years ago, but I've worn myself out on too many projects like that.  Again on my old house, I noticed that much of the wood window trim was dry-rotted.  Oh, no problem, when replacing the windows I decided to replace the wood trim with all new wood trim that I made myself to mimic the old stuff.  Easy, right?  Oh man I had sooo many hours into that job I don't even want to think about it.  What I thought would be a week long project (I took the week off work) took better than a year to finish.

I believe the weight pockets are a big source of air leaks.  IIRC, they fill those pockets with insulation and use a more compact method of providing a counterweight (springs?) when improving double hung window efficiency.  I have a rental that has a mix of weighted and spring counterweighted double hung windows.  Since it's in a hysterical district, I need to go in front of the Board of Biddies in order to get approval to do anything that alters the architecture as seen from the street.  After seeing the neighbor emerge eviserated from a year long battle with them, those windows are just fine thank you.

The house I live in needs the 60 yo aluminum windows replaced but I just haven't been willing to write the big check (I've got some 6' x 10' windows) to make it happen.  For that reason, this thread is of interest to me.  I've always wondered how hard it could be to order just the dual pane glass for fixed windows and make/modify your own enclosure.  I realize that there's no easy way around the opening type windows.

Oh, and wax paper is your friend when you need to close those windows at night after you have painted them.

My opinion is that work at home done to 80 year old wood windows, done in a reasonable time frame, would not equal the tolerances possible with new material working in a factory.  Yes you can plane the wood and work to achieve perfection but when you're looking at a pile of 20+ windows to do and a house with a thousand other things needing done, how accurately are you going to get every single one of them to seal?

I've made my own door frame from scratch to hang a beautiful solid wood door.  I routed out channels for weather stripping, made it just right, and it sealed perfectly - better than a prehung door sold at Lowe'sDepot.. but I had dozens of hours in that ONE door frame.  Dozens.  I don't imagine it will be any easier to get an old window to seal right.  If I had to face doing that 20 times, then $20,000 would quickly sound like a world class bargain.

If you get the house, I think you should try it, I really do.  But just get the materials for one window and do it to see how it goes.  Don't be afraid to change your mind, but if it works and is easy then awesome.  You might work a lot faster than I do, I know I'm slow as molasses at work like this.  It's rewarding but the demands of the rest of the house can really drag you down.

Oh, and like cheese says, if you do replace the windows rather than refurb, stuff the sash weight areas with insulation.  Since I replaced the wood trim I was able to do it easily and that made a good difference too.

I 100% agree with you that the old window look better and the wood is way nicer than even new wood windows.

I think it would be, if the air gap was small enough I think you might not even need to re-route the wood.  The windows I took out had a fair amount of reveal to them.  Re-using the original window grilles as decorative elements might be your biggest challenge, as far as the sashes and glass itself goes.

I would think you could get new wooden windows custom made to fit into the existing frames fairly easily and converting over to a spring loaded counterweight isn't hard either (think of a tape measure buried in the window frame). Just find a small local mill willing to make new ones based on the old ones but with double pained glass.

http://www.hardwaresource.com/hinges/SH … sh+Balance

These replace the pulley at the top, one side attaches to the upper sash, the other attaches to the lower.

http://www.hardwaresource.com/hinges/SH … sh+Balance

These have both sashes in one mechanism and are typically in the center (top to bottom wise)

I used to sell antique builders hardware, and have done quite a few repairs or installations, but never fitted new windows to old frames. That being said, I have been called in to sort out a stack of sashes that had been removed from an 8 unit apartment building and stripped of paint when it became apparent that they were no longer all the same size and had to be hand matched to their frames.

well, it seems as though i'm not the first guy to think of this:

http://www.bi-glass.com/index.php

on the other hand, this site is old, was featured on This Old House in the early 90s, and seems to be unwilling to accept correspondence, so either the plan is terrible, or the people implementing it weren't able to make it stick.

the grilles or dividers are the least of the worries. I can fake up anything to re-create the existing 6 over 1 style with two sashes of dual pane glass. i'm just trying to get a feel for if anyone has ever tired swapping their original old single pane glass for the newer dual pane greatness.

new windows and frames are quickly going to be out of my willing budget unless the seller buys them with the proceeds from the sale.

if i don't get a house full of new windows at the sale, then i have to update as budget and time allows. that gives me the decision of one at a time new or one at a time refurb. similar dollar investment, likely large labor difference, but also vastly different appearance.

yes, in most cases, the dual-pane glass can be built with inserted dividers.

i just made an offer on the house (for ~$60000/30% less than they are asking), so we'll see just how hard up they are to offload this albatross...

If they balk at buying the new windows but agree to a reasonable purchase price, i'm probably going to give it go. at worst, i blow one out and decide to go the replacement route.

sadly, there are 7 windows in the house that are already newish...so i get to start trolling ebay and craigslist and habitat for humanity looking for old wood pieces to make new windows from.

Good luck with the offer!!