A guide

Replacement windows for an older home

An older house is not a newer house with old windows in it. The openings have moved as the house settled. There are hollow pockets in the walls where the sash weights hang. The trim may be a hundred years old, and the paint on it may contain lead. In some towns, a review board has a say in what the front of the house looks like.

None of that makes replacement a bad idea. It makes the choices below matter more, and the first one more than any.

Choose the installer before the window

In an older house, the window is rarely what goes wrong. The opening is. A careless crew forces a square unit into an opening that is not square, foams over soft wood, and cracks the plaster getting the old frame out. The best window made, fitted that way, will leak, stick and let the cold in.

Our installers are Andersen-trained Certified Installers, with years of experience installing Andersen windows and doors. On every job they:

cover floors and furniture with plastic and tarps before anything comes out
work carefully around original trim and plaster
rebuild rotted framing before the new window goes in
haul away the old windows and all the debris
clean up and vacuum when they are done
walk through the finished work with you

Match the house, not the catalog

The windows are a large part of what makes an older house look its age in the good way. Replacements that keep the same lines disappear into the house. Ones that do not are the first thing anyone notices from the street. The details worth matching:

The way it opens. Where there were Double-Hung windows, Double-Hung windows nearly always look right.
Where the sashes meet. The rail between the upper and lower sash should sit where the old one did, so the window reads the same from outside.
The grille pattern in each sash. Count the panes in the upper sash and the lower sash, and keep the pattern.
Grilles on the outside of the glass. Grilles fixed to the outside as well as the inside cast the shadow lines that real divided panes did. Grilles sealed between the panes look flat from the street. It is a vintage touch.
Slim frames. Old windows have narrow frames and a lot of glass. A heavy frame makes a window look newer and smaller.

Not sure what suits your style of house? Home Styles goes through it house by house.

Wood inside, or not

We install three Andersen lines, and in an older house the trim inside usually decides between them:

Stained or natural wood trim: the 400 Series or the A-Series. Both are real wood on the inside.
No wood, inside or out: the 100 Series is 100% Fibrex® composite, inside and out, for the least upkeep. It suits a house where the trim is painted.

What is behind the trim

Taking an old window out opens up the wall around it. That is the moment to deal with what has been hiding there:

The sash weights and pulleys come out, and the hollow pockets they hung in are filled with foam insulation. Those pockets are often the coldest part of an old wall.
Soft or rotted wood in the sill and framing is rebuilt first.
The gap between the new frame and the old opening is insulated and sealed.
Water is given a way out, not trapped behind the new window.

Paint from before 1978

Federal rules treat paint in a house built before 1978 as possibly containing lead, and replacing a window disturbs exactly the painted wood those rules are about. The risk is the dust, above all for young children and anyone who is pregnant. In a house that age, the work is done lead-safe:

the work area is sealed off with plastic sheeting
dust is kept down and kept inside the work area
painted debris is bagged and hauled away
the area is cleaned before the plastic comes down

Historic districts and review boards

If your house is landmarked or sits in a historic district, someone else may need to approve the new windows before they are ordered:

In New York City, that is the Landmarks Preservation Commission, which issues a permit before windows on a designated building are replaced.
In New Jersey, a number of towns have their own historic preservation commission, with their own rules on what can change.

Boards usually care about what can be seen from the street: the shape of the frame, the grille pattern and how the window sits in the wall. Find out before anything is ordered. Separately from any review board, Window District files the building permits for the work itself.

Not every window has to go

Leaded and stained glass is usually worth keeping. A sound window that only sticks or rattles may need a repair rather than a replacement. The honest answer comes from looking at each window, and sometimes it is "these six, not all twenty".

Free · No pressure

An older house deserves a proper look

A Project Designer comes to you for a Free In-Home Inspection & Conversation, looks at every opening, and tells you which windows to replace, which to keep, and what it takes for the new ones to look like they belong.

Book a Free In-Home Consultation Or call (732) 479-7123

No obligation. No high-pressure sales. Just expert design advice.