Your Old Windows: Restore or Replace?

Where an old wood window is restored and equipped with a good storm window, it has been repeatedly shown in field studies to perform at least as well as a typical thermal replacement window — and at a lower cost to the environment as well as to your wallet.

If the craftsmanship and charm of your old windows are quickly being eroded by cold drafts and frost on the panes, it may be time to consider doing something about them. There are two options: restore or replace.

We replace a lot of windows. We probably replace nine old windows for every old window we restore and save.

Unfortunately, many windows cannot be saved.

Windows made in the past 70 years or so are not traditional wood windows.

The post-war push to build a lot of affordable housing as quickly as possible virtually eliminated the traditional wood window. It took too much time to build, even more time to install, and required a level of craftsmanship that just was not available at the scale needed to build over 5,000 houses a day. ^[1]

Builders opted for steel and aluminum windows, and fac­tory-made, self-con­tained wood window units that did not need a lot of site preparation and wall modification. Just put them in the opening and nail them up. It was faster, it was cheaper, and builders then, as now, were for anything faster and cheaper.

But, the sad consequence is that most of the windows installed since the World War are not worth saving even if they could be saved.

Manufacturers that are not out of business don't make those windows any longer, so parts just are not available. If these windows were installed in your house, the only option to fixing your window problems may be to replace the windows.

But, most pre-war housing and some of the better housing built since the World War have shop-crafted wood windows. These most often can be saved, and as for parts — if you have a glass company, hardware store, and lumber yard in your town, then you have all the parts you will ever need.

The short answer is "yes".

As much as replacement window manufacturers tout the energy-saving features of modern windows, research has shown that they are no more energy-efficient than properly restored old windows.

Energy Efficiency

While old wood windows cannot be upgraded to rival the finest (and incredibly expensive) Ger­man or Can­a­di­an super-windows, they can be restored to rival the performance of a more typical (and more affordable) dual-pane thermal replacement window, and usually at a fraction of the cost.

Other important benefits also flow from restoring rather than replacing ^[2] your old windows.

You not only save on your own heating and cooling costs, which reduces waste and your carbon footprint on the planet, but you also save the resources and energy cost required to manufacture new windows — which considering what new windows are made out of, is not an inconsiderable savings.

The environmental carbon cost of your old windows has already been paid, many decades ago and does not have to be paid again.

You also preserve, not just wonderful old-time workmanship, but the superb old-growth wood from which your windows were made.

We can't build windows like that anymore.

It's not that our craftsmen do not have the skill and experience. Any of our master carpenters or cabinetmakers could build a traditional window. But, we can rarely find that dense, heavy old-growth, straight-grained wood. The new wood is … well, we're pretty sure it's wood, but it's not very good window wood.

If you own a home with old wood windows, then you are one of those fortunate folks who live in one of the 20 million Amer­i­can houses that do.

You are one lucky soul. You have a choice of what to do about your windows that most homeowners do not have. You can restore them or you can replace them with a factory-made window.

Those who live in houses with steel, aluminum, or vinyl windows don't have the choice. These windows cannot be restored. They can only be replaced. Sorry.

Are Replacement Windows a Good Investment

This article takes a look at the case for restoring rather than replacing heritage wood windows.

We know you have been bombarded by window manufacturers with advertising suggesting that not only are replacement windows more energy efficient, but due to the climate crisis, it's almost un-American not to replace your old windows with their new super-duper high-efficiency dual pane, argon-filled, low-E coated windows.

For years we never even thought to look into the idea that the propaganda might not be true. When we did, we discovered that the claims were largely baseless.

We had been fooled. But, in our defense, so was nearly everyone else.

We are going to lay out the evidence for restoring rather than replacing old wood windows. You can accept it or not. It's entirely up to you.

But, we ask you to consider, just consider, the possibility that your old wood windows can be saved and restored to as good as new and even better than new condition for less money and at a much lower cost to the environment than replacing them.

There are advantages to doing so, but also some disadvantages. We look at both and leave it up to you to make up your mind.

The Army-Vermont Study

But, in 1996 the State of Vermont and the U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory (CRREL) joined together to actually test the performance of restored heritage wood windows, not by using computer simulations and a laboratory model, but with a field test during actual winter weather conditions ^[3] Somethat that had never been done before.

The researchers repaired and restored 150 old wood windows all over Vermont, then tested them against replacement windows in similar homes. What they discovered was completely unexpected.

They found that …

• The energy savings difference between a restored old single pane window and a modern double pane thermal window amounted to just a few dollars a year, and
• When a storm window was added to a restored single pane wood window, the window/storm-window combination performed better than the new thermal double-pane window.

Not the result anyone expected.

Everyone had assumed that the thermal replacement windows would be much more efficient than restored windows. The question to be answered by the study was "how much more efficient".

The last thing anyone expected to find was that restored old wood windows could be just as efficient, and even more efficient than new thermal windows.

The study concluded that the best outcome resulted from replacing a restored wood window and storm window combination with a low-E coated dual-glazed window. But, even this option resulted in only a slight heating cost savings of $4.45 per window per year.

Given that any improvement in thermal performance obtained by replacing your old windows with a new double-panel wood window would be very small, if any, is the energy saving worth the $1,200 average cost ofa replacement window?

The Haberern Hypothesis

This is precisely the question that researcher, architect, and engineer Keith Haberern set out to answer in his study of heating costs in New Jersey.

His study results were published in the October 2007 Old House Journal ^[4]. The study caused quite a stir at the time, and its results are quoted (and misquoted) widely even today.

Mr. Haberern concluded that the difference in energy savings between a modern double-pane thermal window and a restored old wood window was insignificant.

In fact,

[A]n old wood window with a new storm window outperformed a new double-pane window, and was a lot cheaper, with a short 4.5-year payback period.

The modern window outperformed the restored old window only if a low-E coating was used in the modern window. And, even then, the difference was very small with such meager energy savings that the payback period was 240 years.

These results almost precisely duplicate the findings of the Army-Vermont study which also found that a restored old wood window with storm outperforms a new double-glazed thermal window and that only when low-E is added to the thermal window does it very slightly outperform the wood window/storm-window combination.

The Blasnik Verdict

Energy consultant Mich­ael Blasnik found similar results in his field study of window performance in New York State using a methodology that could not have been simpler or more elegant.

He simply checked building permits in his upstate New York community to see which houses had installed replacement thermal windows, then examined utility bills both before and after replacement looking for any change in energy consumption.

He found the actual average annual savings from reduced energy consumption per household was $40.00 — not per window — per house. ^[5]

Based on these findings, Blasnik calculated that it would take, on average, 250 years to recoup the cost of the replacement windows from energy cost savings.

The Hill Study

An earlier study by William Hill at Indiana State University, which attracted little notice at the time, ^[6]. found much the same result.

His 1990 study looked at actual window performance in the field rather than in the laboratory and concluded that merely replacing old windows, without any other energy improvement in the home, results in an annual savings in energy costs of just 1.4% per year.

He did not bother to translate this into dollars, but we did.

In our town, Lincoln, Nebraska, the annual savings would be $33.12 for a typical home.

You save more by replacing 10 incandescent light bulbs with LED bulbs at a cost of less than $8.00 per bulb, whereas a replacement window with installation would cost an average of $1,200 to produce the same savings.

It would take about 362 years to repay the costs of the window from energy savings alone.

Of, course, this is using our local rates for electricity and natural gas — some of the lowest in the country. So, it might take as little as 200 years where you live.

National Trust for Historic Preservation

A national study published in October 2012, funded by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, looked at various retrofit measures used to restore and enhance old windows and compared them to new replacement windows in five cities, representing distinct climate conditions across the U.S.

The study concluded that old windows restored using commonly available materials and processes easily exceed the energy performance of typical replacement windows and can be nearly as effective as very expensive high-performance replacement windows, at a fraction of the cost of new windows.

The study's authors concluded that …

[O]ptions that retain and retrofit existing windows are the most cost-effective way to achieve these energy savings and to lower a home's carbon footprint…

Almost every [window] retrofit option offers a better return on investment than replacement windows…

In cold climates, all retrofit measures … offer a higher average return on investment when compared to new, efficient replacement windows.

In hot climates, all of the study's retrofit measures offer a better average return on investment than new windows…

To read the full National Trust study report, download "Sav­ing Wind­ows, Sav­ing Mon­ey: Eval­uat­ing the En­er­gy Per­forma­nce of Win­dow Re­tro­fit and Re­place­ment".

Lies, Damn Lies & Computer Models

All of these studies have something in common:

• They were done by researchers who have no connection to the window industry and have, therefore, no interest in selling you any replacement windows.
• Not a single one of these independent studies found any evidence of substantial energy savings from replacing old wood windows — especially restored wood windows — with modern thermal windows.
• The studies in which the payback period was calculated found a striking similarity. They found a payback of well over 200 years, which is more than five lifetimes of even the best replacement windows. In other words, by the time the first set of replacement windows paid for themselves, you would already have bought four more sets.

So, where is the big savings on my heating bill everybody keeps talking about? We've all seen the ads in magazines and on television:

"Save 35%, 40%, even more on your heating bill. Replace your old, tired wood windows with our new Magnifico windows!"

How can replacement window manufacturers claim such huge energy savings? Are they just lying?

Not really (well, maybe just a little).

First, in defense of window manufacturers, no reputable manufacturer makes such statements. It is now illegal to do so.

They may hint at substantial energy savings, but no longer make outright claims since the Fed­er­al Trade Comm­mis­sion challenged such "exaggerated and unsupported" claims in a lawsuit against five window companies for "deceptive trade practives" in 2012. The FTC has warned of additional lawsuits for energy savings claims not backed by scientific evidence.

Unfortunately, however, it took a while for some window sellers to get the word. As late as 215, for example, Home De­pot was still advertising grossly exaggerated energy savings of its very average replacement windows.

Second, window manufacturers don't do actual field testing of their windows. They rely almost entirely on computer models or simulations and laboratory testing.

Computer analysis is used to build mathematical models of the various window components and then calculate the window's resistance to heat transfer. Then, a physical test is carried out in a laboratory to confirm the model.

The laboratory testing environment, the "hotbox", is very artificial. It bears almost no resemblance to the actual environment of your house. This artificiality skews the computer models, making them inaccurate. Heat is not actually lost the way the computer simulations assume it is.