Skilled Wood Window Replacement | Augusta Window Replacement

An old wood sash is worth keeping when the wood is sound and only a few parts need work. In Preservation Brief 9, the National Park Service warns that failed paint is no proof the wood is beyond repair, names an ice pick or awl as the test for soundness, and finds repair cost effective when few parts per window, or few windows, need it.

Brief 9 also counts exterior storm windows as an efficient, reversible way to keep an original sash, and a Department of Energy profile of Building Science Corporation's guides reserves them for windows free of rot, broken parts and leaks into the wall.

We do not restore sash, so when yours pass that test we tell you to have them repaired. When the wood crumbles under the awl, a new wood-clad window is the better buy.

A wood-clad window is wood on the inside with a weather skin outside. Andersen calls the Perma-Shield skin on its 400 Series a high-grade vinyl formed or extruded around the wood, Marvin names extruded aluminum as the most common exterior on its Ultimate windows, and Pella sells its Lifestyle Series as aluminum-clad wood.

Brief 9 says the choice of a replacement should start with the old windows: their openings, proportions, pane layout, muntin profiles (the shape of the bars between panes) and type of wood. On a Greek Revival or Federal front with six-over-six sash, we copy that layout in simulated divided lites, with muntin bars fixed to the outside and inside of the glass, never in snap-in grilles.

Being on the National Register does not, by itself, limit what a private owner may do, according to the National Park Service, but a local district can. Augusta's Land Use Ordinance requires a historic preservation certificate for a change in a contributing building's exterior appearance seen from the street in its four local districts, and it exempts repairs that keep the design and materials, storm windows and work not visible from the street.

The wood inside a clad window has to be stained or painted: Andersen's insert guide warns that unfinished wood will discolor and can bow or split, and Marvin's warranty leaves out exposed wood that was never treated and sealed. Plan that finish for the weeks after the install.

On a plastered house, an insert leaves the old interior casing in place, as Andersen notes, while a full-frame unit takes the casing off and leaves a plaster edge to patch and trim. That trim is skilled work, and the line most window budgets forget.

On a house built before 1978, EPA's lead rule covers window replacement whatever its size, and in Maine EPA runs the rule itself. Ask the firm you hire to show its EPA certification, and expect EPA's Renovate Right pamphlet ahead of the first day of work.