Re-glaze & paint 60 y.o. windows--or replace?

If you think it may be a teardown when you sell I wouldnt buy new windows. I painted my windows about 5 years ago. They are just now needing it again. You should be able to get a good 5 more years out of the old ones...

I am definately not an authority on the subject, but we just faced a similar situation.  We sold a small cape cod home in the midwest this spring and the buyer's FHA required all the windows to be scraped, reglazed and painted.  We were living out of state, so our realtor hooked us up with a local part-time handyman (young guy who wanted to make some cash on the weekends).  We never replaced the windows ourselves because it was too expensive and we never tackled the project ourselves because it seemed like too much work.  To my delight the total cost was only around 275 on 8-10 windows and it ended up passing the second FHA walk-through!  Seems like it might have been less work than we were expecting, or the handyman was a steal of a deal.  Hope that helps some!   

Buddersmom: your handy man was steal of a deal!

Just my take... new windows will only decrease the value of that particular house, if it's a possible tear down.  The value is in the original charm, INCLUDING the original windows.  Recent studies show that reglazed windows with well fitting storms perform better than the new vinyl windows... without the toxic off-gassing and lead issues from the new vinyl.

I agree with most of what   swanson.jennifer said, except: "The value is in the original charm". This place HAS  almost no "original charm" :-(  If it  were an antique, or even from the 1920's or 30's, with really cool windows, I'd agree.

But this place needs so much work, including a chimney re-build (for the gas furnace & water heater), that I just got an estimate of $2700--$5200 for depending on what's needed. So new windows are out.

I got an estimate from a builder to scrape, paint, & re-glaze 6 windows, & patch or paint or fix a bunch of other things, for $3170. Nothing major on the list; like replacing the rotting garage door isn't included. I'm guessing it might take them 2-8 hr. days, at most. So like another person here mentioned, I'm going to seek out a young handyman-carpenter-painter type to pay by the hour. And probably do some of the work  myself.

PS-"to reglaze a window" means to  replace the caulking that seals the individual window panes around the edges, & actually holds the glass into the window frame. It tends to crack & fall off with age. No idea why it's called "glazing".

Hey woody...when was your place built??  And where are you?  Just curious, as I am in the process of reglazing all my windows in my circa 20's bungalow.  I give jennifer a thumbs up for commenting on the charm of older windows.  Especially if you have the wavy glass!!!! 

BungalowMo, My place wasbuilt in 1950. Like I said, a small "cape on a slab" that has all the charm of a rusted-out 20 y.o. Ford Escort. (I'm not dissing '50's capes, many are quite nice, & have lots of original charm. Just not this one.) Believe me, if it were a 20's-30's or earlier (or later) house with nice historical details I'd be very careful about trying to keep the orig. details.

I'm in Mass. I love 20's bungalows. You don't see too many here. Am I wrong, or were they mainly a West Coast/Chicago/Upper Mid-West Phenomenon?

If you put in new windows right before selling in this market, you will not increase the value sufficiently to recover your costs.  Paint?  Maybe; if it looks really bad you may not even find a buyer.  Still you may not have to discount the price as much as a good paint job costs if you sell "as is" with a painting allowance.

A new buyer may have a preference on colors, and may have a preference on wood verses vinal, verses aluminum frame windows, and may be partial to the energy savings of double or tripple pane windows.  So, you have the work done, and then the new buyer ends up doing it all over again anyway!  What have you saved?

If you are really planning on selling, talk to your local realtor to see what the market is like and what is selling, then price it to sell, doing only the work absolutely necessary.

If you are not planning on moving and plan to stay there several more years, than just choose what you like.

Is there something wrong with my math?

The house was built in 1950, it is 2008 now; that would make the house 58 years old.

Yet the windows are 60 years old?  Were the windows constructed two years before the house was built?

I've seen some beautiful 96 year old windows still in excellent condition.  A little weather protection from occasional painting works wonders.

Technically "glazing" is the glass, or installation of the glass.  Thus "re-glazing" is technically replacement of the glass.

But the term is also loosely used for re-securing the glass (replacing or adjust the points) and fresh window calking.

It takes about 2 to 5 minutes per pane with a little practice.  Any handiman should be able to give you a good rate on this; or most day labors are skilled in this labor and you pay about minimum wage when you provide the transportation, tools, supplies, and supervision.

Or you could call a glass shop that has professional glazers.

By the way, if you hire a good house painter, they are expected to do this work as part of the paint preparation.

Is there something wrong with my math? The house was built in 1950, it is 2008 now; that would make the house 58 years old. Yet the windows are 60 years old?  Were the windows constructed two years before the house was built? (Pasadenan)

Yeah right, the owners had the windows specially constructed 2 years before the house. (Sometimes people say, it's "around" 60 years old, when it's 58, or 62, whatever.......??)

But your comment will be helpful to me when getting the work done, tho, as every painter/handyman has seemed very concerned with whether the house & windows are 55, 57, 58, or 62 years old.....heck, if I researched the records more, the house  could be 59 now, & the  windows could have been made 8 months earlier, sooo..........(this throws my whole plan off.......:-(  ........

You have to consider heat loss with old, single pane windows. With new windows, the insert is between two panes of glass. You get the effect of the divided windows, but a solid surface is easy to clean. If you are not staying in this house for a long time, calculate the lost of repair versus new windows.

Or you could use the single pane glass for solar heating and use thermal lined drapes to minimise heat loss at night in the winter and to keep the house cooler during mid-day during the summer.

Sure, on average, insulated windows should save energy, but not if you don't get the correct U value for what you need, and not necessarily if you haven't factored in other natural heating and cooling options, and not if you have no insulation in the ceiling or roof.

But it is one reason to sell "as is" if you really are not planning on staying and you have no idea what a potential buyer wants.

If it were me, I would just have the windows calked and trim painted to make it look maintained if I were selling, and I would consider double pane windows on the west face if I had difficulty with too much solar gain in the mid afternoons and was planning on staying.  If noise was an issue, I might even consider tripple pane windows if someone stocked them.

Still, the subfloor on the room addition would be a much larger concern for addressing.

Laborers don't even care if the windows are only 2 year old!!!!!   If they need calking, it is the same labor no matter how old they are!  So why make so big a deal of the age?  300 year old windows are much better quality and worth 500 times as much money.

My home was built in 1930. It has 6 over 1 double hung windows with brass weatherstripping in every sash. We are in the process of stripping and re-glazing them. Glazing is time consuming and very boring, but we won't end up with white vinyl windows or destroy the home's integrity. We debated long and hard, but we have 53 windows in our house. It would cost a fortune to do a replacement window properly. Keep them if you can. We estimated the time it would take for replacements to pay us back in savings, and determined it would take a very long time to save $25K in heating costs.

Well, I've started doing the work myself: the scraping of flaking paint on & around the windows, digging out some wood rot on a couple of the windows & patching, & have started priming. It's very tedious, but being out there in beautiful summer weather is not so bad.(Re-caulking is not the biggest issue, but I'll be doing that too).

The only windows that are in really bad shape are the ones w/o storm windows: 2 in the single car garage, & 2 giant 48" x 76" single pane picture windows in the back room addition with the collapsing  subfloor. (Those windows & the collapsing  subfloor have been issues for many years. The collapsing  subfloor over a dirt crawlspace hasn't seemed to get worse, the windows have as they are exposed to weather. The room is also uninsulated, & almost impossible to heat).

As Pasadenan alluded to, as the house may be a tear down when I sell, or will need major rennovation, I'm doing basically "triage"--doing enough repairs to stop exterior deterioration, on a budget. So I've taken all the advice here to repaint, repair, etc. the existing windows.......

I'm a firm believer in the power of paint to solve sales issues.   I am just finishing work on a cute little house that wasn't maintained.  Lots of mold and water damage but nothing that couldn't be fixed in a weeks time.  For 3k in rehab costs (paint and a little flooring) the realtor has decided to list it 20k higher instead of listing it as a 'major fixer'.   What is the return on that investment 10 for every dollar invested?

Update: 5-6 weeks into it, I'm still working on the 2 48" x 76" single pane picture windows in the back room addition (I lost time due to 2 solid weeks of rain). It's hard to  describe all the work of scraping old paint & glazing, priming, patching wood rot, re-glazing, priming the dried glazing, hauling ladders around, putting everything away when it rains, etc. etc. (I've also completed work on an exterior door to that room, patching, scraping, painting, etc.).

One thing I didn't mention: Each picture window has 2 attached"side windows" that are 48" H. x 10" W. They have these criss-cross--I don't know the terms--pattern with the wood & glass, so the glass is in diamond shapes, like some ersatz Tudor style. So that scraping, painting, & glazing those is almost worse than the actual picture windows, & probably doubles the work.

The storms are the major defense against weather and drafts and if they are in good shape then your efforts will be rewarded and the job should be worth the effort.

Yeah, that's why these windows are in such bad shape: 50+ years w/o storms. Do they make 48" x 76" storm windows?

Keep at it!!!  I have just in the last year learned the tricks & whatnot to reglazing.  If I can turn this:

Into this:

Anyone can.  Just takes time & patience.  Also...these with storms will last for another 100 years.  Can any vinyl window say that??  No.

very nice!

Thanks Metro...while it is somewhat time consuming, I feel like I'm doing the right thing for this place.  Greg1231 mentioned that single pane windows aren't efficient.  That isn't true.  How efficient is it to spend thousands of dollars on replacements that fall apart in 10 to 15 years?  These have lasted 90 with (now) just some attention & love.  As long as I'm here this place will never have vinyl anything attached to it.

Owning a nearly 100 year old home is much different than something fairly new.  Nothing in this place was "mass produced" whatsoever.  I feel a sort of duty to be the caretaker of sorts. 

I guess this is just a subject I am very passionate about.  I learned the glazing techniques from a woman that lives up in Mass.  It's what she does for a living, so I'm learning from one of the best.

 You can glaze over the spots that are bad as a repair without completely regalzing the entire window. If woodrot has begun in areas that are bad there are compounds that will dry that out and repair the damage. Repair the woodrot before and prime before glazing so the glaze will adhere well. For $275 I assure you this is what a cheap handyman will do. Don't make the job bigger than necessary. Good luck.