Our house is 75 years old and has original windows, they are horrible. We are looking into replacing a few at a time but the few quotes we got are scary even just for a few windows at a time. I guess it needs to be done eventually though.
Have you replaced the windows in your house? Did you notice a difference in your heating/cooling bill?
coconut / 8079 posts
We haven't replaced windows but it's one of our goals for the next few years. DH is confident it will make a difference in our heating & cooling bill, but I'm interested to hear what others have to say!
pomegranate / 3921 posts
We used wedding money to replace the ones in the front half of the house! It was money well spent. My dad sells building products, though, so we got the windows (pretty nice ones, too) for under $300 a piece and my dad and a friend of his installed them for us.
bananas / 9899 posts
They were replaced shortly before we bought the house. However, we did have to replace one downstairs as our tenant smashed it (purposely).
Windows are like roofs on homes... they're expensive, but unfortunately it has to be done eventually.
blogger / watermelon / 14218 posts
We have a lot of single pane windows left in the house (the previous owner replaced about half of them, I think?) and I'm terrified because we have several HUGE bay windows. Eek.
watermelon / 14467 posts
We need to have it done, but I'm skurred. A few quotes have come in pretty high for our four large windows, but the rest should be more manageable.
persimmon / 1379 posts
We have original windows, I think. And our house is 100 years old. They are terrible!
My BIL is a structural eng who says that you will likely never see the $ back in your lifetime (if you stay in the house--not speaking in reselling terms) if you replace them, so my husband is being a real stick in the mud about replacements! Some of them are even cracked!
But we did just decide to put in new weeping tile, so that project wouldn't happen this year anyway...
pomelo / 5607 posts
We just bought a house, and new windows is next on the improvement list (though it'll probably be next year). It's about 60 years old, and they're original, so they're pretty rough. Ours will be around $4,000 all told, but it's a pretty small house so there aren't actually a ton of windows. We're doing it more for resale value than anything, since like @woodentulip said, just for heating and air you're not going to get your money back. But any improvement in the electric bill will be nice as well.
honeydew / 7091 posts
Yes - it was a huge PITA. The house was only 20 years old, which sucked because we weren't even expecting to have to replace them. We did it ourselves, so we saved on install costs. When we went to replace them, we just unscrewed the wood trim at the exterior, and they pushed right out - L could have pushed the windows out! Horrible... There was wood rot at almost every opening so we had to replace quite a bit of framing... SUCH a mess.
In the end we spent a ton of money (replaced 26 windows with pretty fancy full frame replacements), but we're saving about $60 a month on heating/cooling, and that's *with* us using more heat and air than we were before.
ETA: We were able to put them on our credit cards, and got sooooo much cash back that year!!!
honeydew / 7916 posts
Our house was built less than 20 years ago with double pane windows but many of them needed to be replaced because with the sun exposure the seal isn't working.
papaya / 10560 posts
The owners before us did thankfully, we have an older home and it has a ton of windows!!! We also have storm windows.
apricot / 452 posts
We replaced the windows about a month after we moved in. I don't know how much is has really saved us since this was also during the summer and we didn't have to run the heat, but it has totally reduced the noise level from outside. I am so glad that we did the windows.
pomegranate / 3533 posts
We need to do this. The house is ~35 years old and some of our windows are quite drafty
@mfa_lady: What kind of windows did you get?
pomegranate / 3921 posts
@FliegepilzHut: This kind! http://www.reverebuildingproducts.com/default/Windows/VinylReplacement/BerkshireElite.aspx
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
In our last house we replaced all the windows. Same as yours, all original wood Windows from when the house was built. Huge difference in heat bills!
We used standard Pella replacement Windows and shimmed it out.
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22276 posts
@locavore_mama: do you know an approximate percentage saved?
blogger / coconut / 8306 posts
We replaced all the windows, exterior doors & patio door. It made a HUGE difference & our bills reduced drastically.
We had replaced 30 year old single pane windows.
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
@Bao: well, we live in a very cold climate, long winters. That house was about 1200 sf with no basement and a ranch. Our bills in the dead of of winter that was ~$300. A month.
Between the windows and adding insulation to the crawl crawlspace our highest bills stayed under $200. Highest, if I remember correctly, stayed in the $150-180 range.
So around 30%?
The standard Pella double pane Windows were under $150 from Lowe's. If you're able to make a bulk purchase apply for 10% coupon on Lowe's moving. Com. If you have a Lowe's card it's 5% off on all purchases.
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22276 posts
@locavore_mama: We were thinking of hiring someone to do it but I'll look into other options!
GOLD / wonderful pomegranate / 28905 posts
@Bao: could you work out something where you buy it and they install? But a contractor usually gets a 10% discount too.
coconut / 8430 posts
Thankfully the previous owners did it. I know it is very expensive to do!
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