Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Living Room Breezes and Dining Room Ice, I Needed New Windows

The wind chill was minus 17 degrees (F). My furnace was going full blast. Auxiliary stoves were on in each room and yet the breeze I felt while sitting in the living room was about 5 MPH and there was ice inside the windows in the dining room. Global warming, that so claimed tooth fairy by the Republicans, had created so much moisture at high latitudes that the Northern Jet Stream had been disrupted and had disappeared for the first time in an . . . ever (?). The upper atmosphere system great wall of air flow was no longer blocking the Arctic air from falling down into middle America. It was damn cold. I was damn cold. Wife was damn cold. Even the cats who couldn't stand each other were huddled together. This was unacceptable. New windows came yesterday. There are seventeen double hung windows and four picture windows. They have 7/8" space between panes. The panes are covered in special stuff and there is inert argon gas between the panes. There are air pockets and air space and this and that and they fold in and fold out for cleaning and are made in America to boot. It is cold in Oklahoma today, 38 degrees with a breeze. Walked out into my dining room from my bedroom this morning and it was quiet and warm. Warm! It was warm. First thing you got to know is that I have 14 windows and two doors on the front of my house that faces south. The house was designed in 1916 to allow maximum sunshine into the home during the sun's low angle months of winter and to allow air flow and no sun into the house during the summer. Trouble is there are only three windows that would still open, so there was no summer air flow. In the winter if the sun doesn't shine then it doesn't heat the house through the windows. This design was great in 1916, and was great these days too, on sunny winter days. But now, with the new Acrtic Invasions, it was not so great. When it gets cold, things shrink. The old windows were caulked and such but the extreme cold this year caused them to actually pull apart in places. Just enough to let air through which made them colder and so they shrank even more and then they pulled. . . well, you get the cause and effect. My heating bills and body were casualties of global warming. So we went window shopping. Holy shit Sherlock. To replace the 21 windows on my front and SE and SW corners was going to cost my first born and all her children to the third generation be sold into bondage to pay for it. OK, the replacement windows were going to cost between 1/4th to 2/3rds the original cost of my house when I bought it 33 years ago. Yes, they would save me money on heating and cooling. It would only take between 11 to 25 years for me to break even. After the sticker shock wore off we vowed to go ahead with it. It would cost not less than $8,000 and as much as $22,000. So I delved into the pros, cons, lies, and claims of several estimates and a whole lot of web research. Lesson one, make them vinyl. Lesson two, put some sort of solar shield covering on the window panes. Lesson three, they must be at least double paned. Lesson four, one inch between panes is more than twice as good as one half inch between panes. Lesson five, inert gases between the panes is much better than dead air. Lesson six, weld bonded frames are better than any other kind. Lesson seven, do not let water get behind, under, or around them. Lesson eight, the installer is 80% of the success of a good window. Lesson nine, put no (or very little) money up front. Lesson ten, a large chunk of all the window companies have gone bankrupt or have been absorbed into other companies since the 2008 economic meltdown, so there is really damn little history on a lot of this stuff these days. So, go with the survivors who do have a history. Over all lesson: a good window is needed but a good installer is crucial. First thing I did was blow off the box store/mega store's highest estimate. Second thing I did was try to balance cost to quality to energy savings to good installation. Finally after I figured out I did not really know shit about any of this I went with the very good windows and the installer with the best record and lots and lots of traceable references. Final cost only equalled one third of my house's original cost to me or about 11% of its current evaluation. Did I mention how quiet it is? Did I note how warm it is? Am I happy with it all? I don't do happy. I like my new windows however. One can hope that during the next Arctic blast they won't fall out onto the lawn. We shall see.

4 comments:

BB-Idaho said...

Replaced the windows in my 30 year old home two years back. At the time, the area power company offered
quite a rebate, and the amount was deductable off
income for both state and federal taxes. So, it was a good deal, with the actual window cost reduced to almost zero. Since the power company was on some sort of campaign, decided to double the attic insulation as well, paying only about 40% of cost.
...and yes, heating and AC
bills dropped significantly. (My wife
noted that it would have been even cheaper had I not spent hours chatting with the installers)

drlobojo said...

Three
more lessons learn:
1. Make sure your installer has done OLD houses. That is houses over 50 years old. If they haven't don't use them. Even if they have, supervise them closely anyway. Seriously, building techniques have changed,and not every window taken out will be the same as all the others were. Olser how will not have "modern standard sized lumber" used in the windows.
2. If you can't speak their language fluently don't let them work on your older home.
The trend is to hire Mexican workers and tern them lose on your house. NO, don't do it.
Not being racist here, it is a matter of not being able to communicate when things aren't going correctly. (Although speaking English is no guarantee you can communicate them anyway regardless of nationality) If you can't ask them why they are splitting that 100 year old 5"X 1.25" irreplaceable board in your window frame with a hatchet and make yourself understood then ask your installer for people you can communicate with, like hisself, to be there as they work.

3. Get a level and square and check for the following problems:
A: Have they overtightened the new windows in the middle of their frame. This will make the top window on double hung window drop slightly making it a three handed trick to close and lock it. Not to mention over time as it wears it will leak air at that point.(especially at minus 20 when the whole house shrinks and shifts)
B. Use the level to make certain they haven't twisted a window when they put it in.
In older homes you can not just have it fit in the window hole. It is unlikely the old structure will be square, level, straight, or anything else it supposed to be.
Finally, if you have PTSD, Adjustment Disorder, or have a really bad disposition either just put some plastic over the windows or move to a
new home and forget doing this shit.

BB-Idaho said...

Sounds like each and every
window opening was a unique
construction project. Like
maybe the carpenters from the Smithsonian might be up to it!

drlobojo said...

Pretty much like that.