There’s some rot on the garage doors that we have been patching and painting. I don’t think it’s a high priority because they function fine.
Hadn’t thought of the tax deductions. What can I claim?
Even thinking about picking windows stresses me out.
I should not call the windows and Hardi plank pre painted. The color/tint is mixed into the composite materials so it does not fade or chip.
For 2016 purchases and installations.
What kind of windows do you like? I have a fondness for casement. I like the little cranks and having the screen on the inside. Maybe look around at Home Depot. Once you visit a specific showroom or call for an in-house consultation they will hit you with incentives and a hard sale and it will be harder to shop around.
I also love casement windows and wish this house had them-so easy to open and close, so easy to clean, and great at catching fresh air and directing it into the house. Jeldwen makes very good, solid windows and doors. When MIL redid her lake house, I had her do huge sliders along the entire wall that were Jeldwens. Even though they’re huge, they glide effortlessly and feel very solid and secure. The ones that were there were literally falling out of their frame.
Pella windows used to be good 20 years ago, and when MIL redid her kitchen in 1995 I had her do a Pella with the screen inside the window, and it still works and she still loves it. However, the Pella windows I see today are not nearly the quality they used to be.
OP, if your garage doors are rotting and you’re having to patch them, you have a bigger issue-water should not be hitting those doors or puddling in the spot where the doors close-that will kill new doors fast, as well. Take a look at what’s going on with water and your house-it may be that you have to solve that problem with gutters, ground grading, and other water removal techniques before you replace stuff.
The nice thing about casements is you can get 100% openings and by angling the windows you can actually increase the breeze coming in. But even high quality windows tend to get broken cranks sooner or later. So I only use them where I have to. (Often in bedrooms that need an egress window and a double hung that’s big enough would feel oversized for the space.)
We got Pella Architect series double hung windows in our current house and they’re pretty amazing. The tops come down as well, the way double hung windows were designed to work before everyone started painting the top half shut.
I would have preferred casements but we wanted to match the rest of the house.
Pella windows are decent, but you have to get the ones they sell through contractors, not the crap at Home Depot and such, the lower cost ones are not very good, same with Anderson. There are a lot of good windows out there, Marvin is one of the better ones (though expensive). If you are doing a lot of windows, you generally can bargain the price more than if you are doing a few, get estimates from local contractors after figuring out what kind of windows you like. Make sure that when you do, specify the brand and model you want.
The garage door is a concern because of the water damage, others are right, that indicates that water is pooling up against it. If the driveway is sloped down towards the door, rather than it being a dip in front of the door, you may need to get a drain of some sort put in there (if the driveway sloped down, you would likely have puddles there). With garage doors these days, many of them are moulded vinyl, so they won’t rot as easily, but if there is water problem there I would try and fix that.
With the deck, if you use it a lot, the big concern I have is what kind of rot do you have? If it is structural, you could have it collapse, if it is cosmetic you likely can wait with it.
I have to disagree re the Andersen windows. The 100 series made of the composite Fibrex are fantastic, regularly get great reviews and are available at Home Depot(not off the shelf but through a custom order). Though it was our experience that Home Depot did not have the best price in our area—we went direct to a local distributor used by contractors.
100-series are the cheapest Andersen - I only use them in basements, but that’s because I hate the look of anything but wood inside my house. Not because they won’t hold up. Haven’t noticed any issues with the brand-name versions of windows from Home Depot vs the window store.
I’d do the windows first.
@Youdon’tsay can you swing doing the windows and Hardi plank at the same time? Trimming the windows with Hardi-plank is worthwhile and you will ultimately save money this way. We had an architect design our house 25 years ago and we still had the original prints. Though we had 28 windows to replace, they were all standard sizes and it was easy to quote by taking our prints to the distributor. We also got contractor referrals from this distributor. We specifically asked for reputable guys who had lots of experience with Hardy plank and these specific windows. It worked out quite well.
MOfD, agree with not painting brick - painted brick is ick. Not sure I follow the logic on repainting HardiPlank. To me, repainting is only needed if the paint starts to peel. If it becomes a shade lighter than the original color, who cares. I have better uses for that $2k 
Have you tried Duron Weathershield Acrylic paints? They are supposed to be very resistant to sun etc.
HardiPlank is a major pain to cut, so a guy who knows how to deal with it and has the right tools will curse much less. 
I thought the “color” was IN Hardiplank…not painted on it.
Yes–I clarified that. It is actually baked on the product. But you can get it w/o the “paint”.Does not peel or fade. Contractors will try to sell you on the later since it’s easier for them to install. Paint and caulk can cover up a multitude of mistakes that they frequently make when cutting. Always go with someone whose work you have seen.
We replaced all of our wood windows with the Fibrex. Tired of painting, dealing with termite damage, and just the general wear.
Ours was pre-primed and needed paint. I guess it is now available pre-finished.
I’d say, as a generality, fix the things first that have the potential to cause damage, if left alone. Cosmetic things, last. We have so many things to fix at our house, but I am very focused on what could turn into an expensive disaster. We do a lot of little fixes, but when we have enough money to start doing serious work, we’ll probably do things like the roof and some safety measures, before working on making things look better.
And God knows, it’s gonna take a lot of money to make things look better!
We really lucked out with our contractor/carpenter. He lived a few blocks away, showed up everyday at 8 AM on the dot and left at 5PM. Every day he told us exactly what was to be done and he did it. I loved it. Such good work and I tease my H that he has a “man crush” on the guy. We over ordered on the Hardi plank since it’s so hard to cut that there is frequently lots of waste. Not with this guy. I had an extra pallet of the stuff. I easily sold all the overage on Craigslist.
oh I wish it were only a shade! In five years the south side of the house went from Griffin Brown to, um, biscuit colored? Southern sun is ghastly strong on dark colors. My neighbor has a house that was a gorgeous aubergine-it went lavender in about 2 years and she’s deeply peeved. She’s going with a neutral this year.
If I could, I’d paint the house white, but it wouldn’t work design-wise.
Next house is going to be white (or in the white family). And smaller. Some things just cost so much more to fix or maintain when you have more of them, like windows.
Great thread with good ideas. We are also doing major work to our house this year-finally have some extra money now that our 4th is almost done with college-yay!!! We just did our roof, and now are doing all windows, a balcony, a bathroom, kitchen remodel, re-texturing the outside, and new front door, as well as some minor repairs in other rooms. I’m really interested in the window recommendations here as it is pretty overwhelming. We are meeting with 3 different contractors this weekend, so will be figuring out in more detail what we want to do. I will be following this thread in the meantiime!
You need to consider style in window choice as well. Our house is modern. The architect wanted us to get industrial grade metal windows. Like everything that architects love they were un godly expensive. So we initially went with high grade expensive Pella wood windows. Painting them every five years and they still got eaten by termites. So when we went to look for new modern casement windows, we looked at composite materials. We did not like the look of white vinyl, and finally it was between fiberglass and the Fibrex. We liked the colors offered, loved the clean lines and they fit perfectly in the architectural scheme. And no more painting.