On A Clear Day…….

Author:  Spring (Jordan)

When we were house hunting last fall, we had an excellent realtor who gave us lots of information new homeowners need to know. He knew we wanted an older home with charm, but we also wanted an energy efficient home.  He pointed out that charming old windows often leak a lot of air and are not practical for the long, cold Syracuse windows.  We would have to relinquish some of the charm to get the efficiency.  Our house had all new windows except the front of the house in the Florida room.  You can read about our Florida room here.

Here is a picture of some of the old windows.  I think they are pretty, but last winter those windows leaked so much cold air that we could put our hands next to them and just feel the breeze.  It was so bad that we even had to plastic wrap the windows.  (I thought it would be very tacky, but you couldn’t even tell unless you were right beside the windows.)  We knew these windows needed to be replaced in the summer.  We saved our money and started getting quotes.  For some reason we thought the skill level needed for this project was out of our league.

Building a patio and redoing a back yard was not a big deal to us, but this one was.  We got some quotes, and I was shocked that the price for seven windows and installation was a little over $4,000.  We talked to our neighbors who said they had installed some of their windows, and that we could do it.  That gave us the incentive we needed, and we went to Home Depot and ordered seven windows to install ourselves.  The savings was over $3,00o.

 I give all of the credit to Mr. Spring on this project.  I was there if he needed a hand, and to do the touch up, fill in holes, and paint the trim, but he was the one who actually installed the windows.

The first step was to remove the old windows.  While I will miss how pretty these windows looked, I plan to use the old panes in a variety of projects.

The rope in the picture above is what is holding the window weights.

Once Mr. Spring removed the window, he cut the weights that made the windows actually go up and down.

Here are two of the weights that were in one window.  They are pretty heavy.

Now you can see the area where the weight use to go up and down to make the window work.  A lot of outside air came in through this area, so we insulated it to make the window more energy efficient.

This is the same area as above except filled with insulation.  Hopefully this will help with the winter draft.

Mr. Spring caulked before inserting the window and did so again after the window was inserted.  He caulked both inside and outside.

We have one of the new windows in and you can see the glass size is smaller than the original window.  Plus you can see the UV blocker film that came on the new window.  You can really tell by looking at the bottom section of the window.

On the left is the new window and we still have the right one to replace.

The finished product!  I went around after Mr. Spring was finished and filled in the nail holes. I also repainted the trim. We are thrilled with the end result and the savings of doing it ourselves.  The next project in this room is removing the tile floor and replacing it with hardwood to match the floors in the rest of our house.

Cheers!

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