Our house is 70 years old and showing its age. We have replaced the windows in our son’s bedroom & guest bath with Milgard which were SUPPOSED to be lifetime but then they said, oh, not HI—highly corrosive for entire state!
We are trying to figure out what to do for rest of the house. D’s bedroom would likely need 4 windows. Our bedroom would likely need 8. Bathroom would likely need one or two. Living room, dining room and kitchen would likely need 22. Right now, all are glass joulosies and operate amazingly well for 70 year old windows. They do leak some air and dust and the screens are in need of repair/replacement.
Any voices of experience? We do live a few blocks from the ocean and salt carries from there to everywhere in our neighborhood. Our neighbors installed Pella windows in 1985 and are pretty happy with them but said they did have to replace the windows by the kitchen because they get beaten by the elements. Our realtor also used Pella when she had her home built but says because our house is already 70 years old, she’d think about mid-priced windows instead of Pella (which is higher-priced).
We saw split A/C which we use pretty much 24/7, so ventilation is not as important as before we got the A/C. If we had better windows, they’d seal better and keep the cold IN the house better and heat out.
Anyway, I welcome thoughts, especially about windows in highly corrosive environments like Hawaii.
Because of the elements there, have you considered vinyl at least for the exterior? Anderson makes a nice replacement window. My sister in law had all of the windows in her house in northern New England replaced with Anderson…the drafts really decreased, and the house also is cooler in the summer. They look very nice, and really, unless you come and tap on them, you would have no idea they were vinyl clad.
Marvin makes a composite window that is rot and mildew resistant. They look like wood. We have them in our sunporch because of the preservation rules in our neighborhood and they are great.
Yes, our neighbors has vinyl or fiberglass windows. H and I are just starting to explore all of this because we were going to paint the exterior of our house and have been told to do windows 1st if we plan to replace any. They’re all aging, at 70 years old!
In a somewhat corrosive environment (right on the coast) we had three windows where we just added a storm window outside of the existing double-hung window. The windows had a non-standard size, but it is not all that bad to have custom size storm windows made. Measure carefully. This seems to be working out well (it has been about 10 years, if I recall correctly). Actually I did two first, and we liked the result so much that I did the third a few months later (I installed the storm windows, a well known hardware chain had the custom sized windows made).
Two other windows we had replaced with new windows. They were in bad shape and really needed to go. We hired someone to do the work (my contribution was largely limited to using a business card, a telephone, and a checkbook).
Dealing with 30 or 34 windows at the same time does seem like a significant expense, and would be way more than I would do myself.
Thanks—we do plan to hire someone to do whatever work needs to be done as I can’t do it and H shouldn’t as his stamina is unreliable and he is older than the windows!
It seems storm windows are not very popular in our state. People get impact-resistant glass windows instead or coverings that you can use before storms.
Our house will likely be bulldozed by a developer when we move. We still used Pella fiberglass windows on the south and west side of the house because we wanted headaches free windows. When glass is heated, it expands and the expansion rate is different from that of wood or vinyl. Hence the leaks and failed windows. Fiberglass expands at a rate similar to that of glass… so fewer issues.
Milgard now also makes fiberglass windows. We used them recently to replace a couple of rotted windows on the north side.
I have a house of similar age. We replaced our windows 20 years ago. That and upgraded insulation were the best home investments we ever made. The improvement in comfort in both summer and winter were immediately noticeable as well as the savings on heat. The window companies have really mastered the technology of this very well. There are a variety of choices. Do a little research and see which ones you prefer. Installation by professionals is easy and hassle free. Depending on the number of windows, the job will be done in a day or two.
all real estate is local. I would not recommend vinyl if no one else in your neighborhood has them.
Call around adn obtain ~5 quotes and recommendations. Your local realtor is a good sounding board for the type of window that will add value to your home. (or, the alternative, detract from the value..)
As other manufacturers, Anderson has several levels and price points. The Series that they advertise on TV is their base units, and someone in HI might need thier higher end product to protect against strong storms, which is installed only by private contractors.
I can’t speak to Hawaii or to jalousies, but I can speak to 70+ year old windows that operate amazingly well for their age. My in-laws just repaired all the wooden windows on their 1930s cape cod house in the upper Midwest. They really were in tough shape with multiple loose windowpanes that had lost their caulk, but otherwise functioned well (i.e. went up and down fine and only had a couple of sills that were rotten.) My in-laws priced out replacement windows and really were shocked by the price– many tens of thousands of dollars. But then the house painting crew they were also talking to mentioned that they had experience fixing windows and could do it at the same time as painting the house. The cost was less than 1/10th the price of replacements, and the windows now function perfectly, and of course look great because they are period appropriate (unlike replacement windows, which seldom are.) Only one window (one with a very rotten sill that was beyond repair by wood epoxy) had to be replaced. So maybe ask around and get a repair quote. Sure, jalousie windows may not be as energy efficient as new windows, but putting a bunch of windows into a landfill and manufacturing and shipping a bunch of windows to HI isn’t energy efficient either…
we just had all our downstairs windows — 12 of various sizes—- replaced. We got multiple quotes , which is what I recommend. The Pella dealer’s quote for their top grade (which he insisted wa the only reasonable choice) was 30K more than the quote for the mid-grade Pella from a contractor. The low bid was a bit less than that, but I read Better Business Bureau reviews that were not good.
Find out what a bid includes — repairs of any surprises? Or literally just pulling out the old and putting in new. What’s the timeline for HI? Do they have former clients you can talk to?
It took almost 6 months to get this done. But the windows are great and the contractor was a pleasure.
I live in a 150 year old house. We restored all of the original wood windows and front door ourselves. It was a labor of love. Our windows do have storms, and this makes them as energy efficenct as new windows. To me, you can’t beat the look of the wood windows.
Here is a resource we used for advice.
It was a long process for us to do on our time off, but conserving the windows and not adding to a landfill was important for us. I am not sure how much we spent on supplies, we completed this project 6 years ago. We had 19 windows to complete. The kitchen nook windows were the most time intensive to work on.
I like being able to paint the windows whatever color you want. I went with a sunflower color scheme went we painted. The husband was not down for yellow windows.
