Painted wood replacement windows versus vinyl?

Hi everyone. I've recently started educating myself about replacement windows.

I could use advice about whether to go with new wood or wood clad windows versus vinyl. The existing wood windows and trim are painted white on the interior, and are covered by white Hunter Douglas venetian blinds. I'm trying to decide whether white vinyl windows would look different enough that it would drastically change the look of the house.

I own a 100 year old house in northern California. It is a terrific house with high ceilings, beautiful wood trim around the windows and doors. The roof overhangs the windows by about 2-3 ft, so rain is not much of a problem. The previous owners took very good care of the house. For some reason though, they never replaced the seven double hung, single pane windows in the house. My primary concern is to minimize any changes in the appearance of the house itself.

I'm considering whether to replace these windows. I want to do this primarily for energy efficiency, but also to cut down on noise from a major street close to the property. The master bedroom is on a corner of the house and has a window on each side. It gets quite cold at night in that bedroom and the rest of the house. During the winter, we keep it at 68 degrees during the evening, but it is common for it to be 50 degrees when we get up the next morning.

I like the idea of having modern wood windows. I think having new wood windows will minimize the impact, but will that really make a difference if the interior will be painted white anyway?

Already I have talked to one rep about Anlin vinyl windows. Anlin is a local company. I can't find much information about them in the newsgroups, although they do have a website. The price was quite reasonable, at less than $5000 for 7 large windows, including one bathroom window with tempered glass.

I just met with a sales person who was representing Renewal by Andersen. They have their Fibrex product which was 2-3 times the price of the vinyl product we had looked at.

I've also gone to a showroom to look at Milguard, Marvin and Andersen windows. I don't have prices on those yet. I'm also thinking to look at Pella windows.

I'm leaning towards Marvin, because of their good reputation and wood products. I don't want to go with aluminum clad exterior on the outside. It does look nice, but I'm concerned it will change the character of the house.

Any advice about whether to go with vinyl versus wood? Also, would adding storm windows to the exterior be a better choice than replacing the existing windows? I understand you get some these days which can be opened for ventilation.

Thanks for any advice and suggestions!

--Mark

 

As far as asteics are concerned, we've had customers with beautiful oak/cherry interior moulding and have ordered our vinyl windows just white, and the installs looked great after completion. We've done about every combination imaginable from just the standard white/int. white/ext. vinyl window to wood laminates on the int. and custom colored on the exterior. With either window as you said you'll first notice a HUGE difference in noise reduction, as far as the maintainence free part, vinyl wins hands down-never needs painting/staining-just the occasional wipe down with a dish cloth. Wood windows are nice also and can add warm to a home as far as appearances. If the wood is just going to be painted white anyways-any "wood warmth" is going to be gone since the grain is covered in paint. Some vinyl window manufacturers offer many different interior/exterior options so it might be worth talking to some friends and see what they've had or who installed them and what products and options they can offer. A good website for reference is www.heartwin.com these are the windows I sell and have had great luck with them to date. I think once you decide to do either the wood or the vinyl you'll be pleased either way.

 

Only a couple of things to add to what IHI said. Vinyls come in white or almond. Wood can be any color you choose to paint it.

Forget the storm window idea. Too little efficiency gain and too little noise reduction to justify the cost.

Low-E or Low-E squared glass for sure. Air or argon filled -- not a lot of difference in the efficiency, so weigh the added cost of the gas fill carefully.

 

Hi Zitsky,
I am in the same boat as you. I have a 1909 farm house in Seattle. Most of the windows are completely rotten. I have been researching different avenues and have come up with the following conclusion: I want wood windows! The vinyl looks, well, like vinyl. And you can't paint it so you're stuck with which ever color you choose. The mullions look fake and you loose quite a bit of window space when doing a retrofit, because of the thick frame and sash of vinyl.
I have had the great experience of installing 9 of the Marvin tilt-pacs into a friends (1906) house. They were a snap! By the time I was done it took about 20 minutes per window. What takes the longest is good preperation of the window openings. The price was hard to beat, 8 windows ~2'6"X5'0" and a smaller bathroom window totalled ~$3500. Since he lived near a train depot/repair yard, the noise before was quite loud. We were completely amazed at how much the noise was eliminated by the new windows with insulated glass.
My own decisions thus far have concluded that the Marvins are not much more in cost than vinyl, in some cases cheaper! I submitted the following bid of dbl hung with single glazed glass and a single, 1 3/8" wide, verticle mullion, primed and it came out cheaper than the vinyl special order and will look like the original windows. The reason I chose single glaze is this: Seattle, like NorCal, has farily mild winters and the house doesn't have any insulation anyway, so buying insulated glass is fruitless. It won't help with heat retention! But in your case, insulated glass will help with sound proofing.
A lot of window companies are coming out with retrofit type of wood windows lately but I really haven't found any that are better price or quality of the Marvins. This is my $0.02. Good luck!
Duane

 

Hey lefty, I just want to clear up 1 thing-you can get vinyl windows with different interior and exterior colors. I will say that most manufactuers only offer the white or almond exterior, but my supplier has many. What's always hard, especially with home improvement forums, is that so many things vary from region to region and like what was stated what works in one area does'nt work in another. Here in IA., we need the double paned glass and argon gas for the winters we get, and the Low-E, IMO, helps anywhere in the country because it does'nt allow the UV rays to ruin the sills, drapes, furniture, etc... Yes the storms windows as a whole are a joke. They'd help somewhat with a single pane original early 1900's windows, but are a PITA to keep clean and use. I don't know about some of the new wood retro-fits, but I've had to tell many farmers that they CANNOT reinstall storm windows over the new windows as it will void all warranties because of the excess heat build-up between the storm and the window, and depending on the region can sometimes warp the vinyl windows, which is no good because of the high price of the unit plus installation. They just find it hard to believe because they grew up with storm windows and have no idea how much materials and technology has changed things for the better. REplacement/retro-fits do cut down actual glass area in an opening, that's to be expected. And it's one of these deals where it's 6 to one and half dozen to the other. By retro-fitting you cut out a tremedious amount of labor/materials by not redoing the interior/exterior trim or what ever else you run into with a 1 size fits all home center window. I've worked on waaay to many homes that somebody had been into something at one time or another and screwed something up, so by assuming that most older homes had a RO size of this by this and ordering the windows, you could end up shooting yourself in the foot so to speak. I just did an old farm house today, there was a 6" space on either side of the jamb before the first stud-the old lathe and plaster, so if a person would have pulled the interior trim off to measure the RO like a person usually does, it would have been waay to small when it came time to replace. Whoa, too long a post, I'm sorry. Just wanteed to say vinyls come in other colors

 

Hi Duane. You bring up an important point. I'm not entirely sure that my current home has insulation on the outside walls. There is plaster on the inside, and wood siding on the outside. It's difficult to tell, but I'm not sure whether any insulation was ever added to the house. The siding looks original. Is there some way I could tell whether or not there is insulation underneath the siding or perhaps even in the walls?

How did you prepare the window openings? It looks like mine could use some sanding, repainting. Do the Marvin tilt pacs use some kind of vinyl track? If so, what happens to the space where the pulleys and weights used to be? Does that need to be insulated, or will it not be a problem if it's covered up completely by any replacement tracks (?).

Can someone with very little do-it-yourself experience handle the Marvin's by themself? I've worked on small projects around the house, but never tried to tackle something as complicated as a window. I imagine it would be a two person job?

 

If your wood windows are in good shape and only need painting. I would paint the windows and install interior storm windows for sound and weather insulation. Shop around, not everyone carries interior storm windows and some are chunky and some are sleek and will blend better.

 

If you go to the Marvin website, it explains how simple the installation is and all the options available (like removeable storm panels). It tells you how to prepare the finished window opening. Of course there will be some sanding and primering and painting for protection against the weather. Once you take your interior trim off (carefully!), you can insulate the empty spaces around the window and remove the counter-weights. You will remove all the stops and trim down to the finished window jam out to the outside trim (leave this). You simply install clips onto the vertical jam, connect the vinyl vertical track, and pop in the window sashes as directed. You would probably have to do the same prep for vinyl windows as well.
As far as how to tell if your house is insulated, I'm not sure. I can go into my side attics upstairs and look down into the stud wall. No insulation (and no fire-block either!). I've put blow-in insulation in the attic but I won't worry about the walls and windows on the main level. As long as there is no place for the wind to come through, then our house stays pretty warm. And right now our windows are the only place for wind to get through. Currently I use roll putty on all of our windows but it's kind of messy to remove and you can't open your windows when it's on. Like I said, the west side of the Cascade range really doesn't get that cold, just windy and wet. My father-in-law from Saskatchewan Canada can't believe we don't have insulation but then it doesn't get down to 40 below zero, we're suprised when it gets down to freezing!

 

BTW, I saw a great trick on 'This Old House' last night for measuring finshed openings for retro fit windows. You take two sticks (something like one by ones) a little shorter than the opening (finished). Lay one horizontally at the bottom of the opening butted to one side all the way to the jamb. Lay the other on top of the first, butted to the other side jamb. Put a vertical mark somewhere across both sticks. Now do the same at the middle of the window opening and again at the top. Take the shortest length of all three marks and that will be your net window opening. Do the same for the vertical from the top jamb down to the top of the sill (not the stool). Since older window openings can shift around over time you probably won't find one that's perfectly square or plumb. Neat trick!