Thursday, March 22, 2018

Window Replacement Finished

And we already notice a difference!

Monday the two guys installed all 10 of the new windows and most of the interior finish work. Today they're finishing up all the exterior "foaming and flashing", and they also finished the interior trim for the two new swing-out casement windows in the Family Room/Den.

That night we noticed that all the rooms were warmer by the windows. With the old aluminum framed windows, as soon as you got near a window, you could get a pretty good idea how cold it was outside because the aluminum frame was almost the same temperature as it was outside. You could quite literally feel the heat in the room being conducted away.

And on the South side of the house, the window frames in my wife's future office and our grandson's room no longer blast heat into the rooms, they're pretty much about the same temperature as the walls and rest of the room.


This is the bare frame for the dining room window, the first one they did.




And here's Chris, one of the installers, pulling the old frame out.


Sunday afternoon my stepson came over and helped me remove the curtains and blinds from the windows so the installers could have unfettered access to the windows.

And here's the new dining room windows installed.



They look much nicer than the old aluminum framed windows.

On to the living room, which is a pretty big window. "List Price" on this one window was over $5k!

Here's the old one from the outside before removal. This shot was cropped and enlarged from the one I posted of a snowfall we had before Christmas, so it might look a little wonky compared to the others.



And from the inside.



Several hours later, the new window was installed. This exterior shot is from Wednesday after all the "Final Foaming and Flashing" had been done.



New inside....



And of course it's "Pebbles Approved"!



I forgot to get a picture of the old window in the den, but it was basically a smaller version of the front window. The new one looks much nicer.


The old swing-out casement windows in the den had never been maintained, and as a result the crank mechanisms suffered the fate of anything greased with 40 year old grease....they wore out! This makes the windows difficult to get open and/or shut, so they were replaced also.



Here's the new after it had the "returns" and other trim installed, but before we stained the new oak trim. The screen is in the photo, and is new stuff that Andersen calls "TrueScene", and is made from very small diameter coated stainless steel wire. The "weave" of the wire screen achieves a good balance between hole size and strength, and they have increased light transmission compared to aluminum, fiberglass, or plastic screens.



After the staining and urethane application is finished we'll pull the blue tape and I'll get a picture of the finished trim. It looks nice in the photo, but now that it's stained, it looks gorgeous. The stain really made the grain stand out, and I'm anxious to see what a couple of coats of semi-gloss urethane do to it.

And I totally forgot to take pix of the window in the laundry room, but it's pretty much the same, so let's go upstairs (from the outside) and see what's next....

These two windows are for the two of the upstairs bedrooms. Pretty ugly, eh?



As we used to say at Boeing, "In Work.....".



And after all the trim work was finished.....



These, as well as all the others, are "Double Glider" windows, which means each glass pane can slide independently. I'm going to have to check out how the screens go in on these, as I don't remember......

Meanwhile, around back.......



Hiding behind the bush is the new laundry room window, and directly above it is an original window of the same size. You can get an idea of how much bigger the new frame is compared to the old frame. You lose some glass area, but you stop the horrendous heat loss caused by having large areas of uninsulated aluminum acting as heat pipes in and out of the house.

And a little further around back......



The two second story windows are for the guest room on your left, and the grandson's room over to the right, directly above the laundry room. This room would turn into a furnace on warm, sunny days. You could feel the heat from two feet away, and the frame was almost too hot to touch. Tuesday the weather was nice again, so we dialed all the thermostats to 60*, which is pretty much OFF, and we'll bring them up as we need them. Besides the fact that the frames no longer conduct heat like crazy, the new glass is better quality "Low e" glass, and I can definitely notice a difference when I stand in front of a window in full sunlight. With the old windows, you'd get a feeling of "warmth", even on very cold days. With these windows, you're standing in full sunlight, but the Sun doesn't feel as "warm" as it did.

Anyway...we're both pretty happy with the new windows, and hopefully we'll save a noticeable amount on out heating bills.

17 comments:

  1. That looks very nice, and it will end up saving money in the long run.

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    1. I haven't bothered to do any numbers on payback time as we don't have enough history in here to accurately predict heating costs, but so far we've only had to turn up the heat a bit in the den.

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  2. Good selections and the installers seem to know what they are doing.

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    1. The 'old guy' has been doing windows for 40 years. He really knew his stuff, and it was very rewarding watching him train the 'young guy'. They thought they'd be done in two days, but wound up back here for about 6 hours on the third day to finish it all.

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  3. Looking pretty darn sharp there. Love the look of those new windows.

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  4. Looks nice, performs better, saves money. Well done!

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  5. Windows look great! You can never go wrong with replacing older windows, especially aluminum clad ones. The payback on investment begins immediately in both money and comfort

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    1. I'm not sure if I'd call them "aluminum clad", as the frames were solid aluminum, but the house is noticeably warmer inside, even with the moderate weather the last week or so.

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  6. You remember that old Charlton Heston movie where he plays Michelangelo? He's painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The Pope keeps coming in and saying "When will you make an end!" because Michelangelo never seems to finish.

    I'm beginning to think you and Michelangelo have a lot in common! ;-)

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    Replies
    1. I haven't seen that one. The whole process of getting this place "into shape" and repairing/upgrading the bits and pieces of the house that need it is turning into a full-time job.

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    2. The movie is called "The Agony and the Ecstacy" and is really an excellent flick.

      Rex Harrison does a great job as Pope Julius II.

      Well scripted, well acted, great costuming (nothing glaringly out of place) and shows a lot about the politics of the time. I highly recommend you and yours rent it or catch it next time it shows on your local channels.

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    3. Thanks, Andrew!

      I've heard of the movie, but can't recall seeing it. I'll look for it online.

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  7. The raucous din of nighttime noise from my field of frogs makes me appreciate my new and quiet windows very much!
    Staying at my parents house with the old steel-frames and single panes, you could hear people in conversations going by, out on the suburban sidewalk.

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    Replies
    1. I was surprised that the sound level in the house dropped significantly. I was worried when we had the new roof put on with that new-fangled synthetic "underlayment" that the house would get noisier because the new roof wouldn't have the damping qualities of two layers of felt (the tar paper) under the new shingles. It either doesn't matter, or the new synthetic stuff was designed to have good damping properties, as I didn't notice either a change in the volume of outside sounds, or any change in the character of the outside sounds.

      The new windows cut down on the amount of outside noise that makes it into the house.

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  8. Looking good! And hope they do save a bunch!

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Keep it civil, please....

Annnnd.....We Got Zip.....

 Total snow was about 6~8", but half o0f it melted as soon as it hit, and we never had more than 3" on the ground at any one time....