Can wood windows be repaired? Yes! A replacement window contradiction.

I recent­ly had a lengthy con­ver­sa­tion with a con­cerned (or rather con­fused) con­sumer about her win­dow issues. Ear­ly on in the con­ver­sa­tion I real­ized she had enough win­dow knowl­edge to under­stand what exact­ly her win­dow prob­lems were, but did­n’t know the best way to address them. Like most home­own­ers, her ini­tial thought was to call a cou­ple vinyl replace­ment com­pa­nies. After daz­zling her with terms like ​‘U’ val­ue, solar coef­fi­cient and ener­gy sav­ings, they had to pick her up off the floor after suf­fer­ing the stick­er shock. Still, kudos to the replace­ment win­dow sales peo­ple who left her with more ques­tions than answers.

Which brings me to her call to us. She found us in a web search for Carad­co win­dows (our most pop­u­lar repli­ca) because a local handy­man told her he could prob­a­bly fix her win­dow issues if he just had the right parts. She explained her prob­lems to me in enough detail for me to think we could help her. With some replace­ment sash­es with high­er effi­cient glass, she could get bet­ter ther­mal per­for­mance and still match her orig­i­nal wood win­dows that she loved so much. I also offered some sim­ple hard­ware repair advice to fix her falling sash prob­lem. I did­n’t think she need­ed to replace any­thing to resolve that issue.

That real­ly con­fused her. Now she does­n’t know who to believe! She just had two sales­men from rep­utable win­dow com­pa­nies tell her that win­dows COULD­N’T be fixed and new win­dows were her only option. You’re right, Mr. Sales­man – ReWin­dow has sent out tens of thou­sands of win­dow com­po­nents over the last 14 years, and win­dows can’t be fixed! Can you sense the sar­casm there? Here’s the hint, folks– they are try­ing to sell you a new win­dow at a 300 – 400% mark up! Of course they’re going to tell you win­dows can’t be fixed.

But, real­ly — can wood win­dows be repaired? The answer is an unequiv­o­cal, straight-on yes.

At ReWin­dow, we have a gen­uine desire to help peo­ple and offer them anoth­er option for their win­dows. I’m not entire­ly against vinyl replace­ment win­dows. Heck, we have our own line of vinyl win­dow avail­able for those times when repair isn’t the best option. What I am against is the mis­lead­ing sales pitch. I’m a wood win­dow guy. That’s what I know. I have strong opin­ions in favor of why wood win­dows are bet­ter, but I’m straight­for­ward enough with my cus­tomers to know when repair is their best option or new win­dows would bet­ter suit them. Here’s a few tips to guide you in your decision.

1. If your house was built after 1980, the win­dows already have the ther­mal tech­nol­o­gy built into them, they were just made out of crap­py parts. ReWin­dow replace­ment sash­es and wood frame com­po­nents can return those win­dows to their orig­i­nal glo­ry, avoid­ing a major remod­el­ing project or chang­ing the curb appeal of your home.
2. If your house pre-dates the 1960s, you’re a good can­di­date for replace­ment win­dows. Although you might lose the beau­ty of the wood win­dow, those sin­gle pane win­dows with poor (or no) weath­er strip­ping don’t have the ther­mal qual­i­ty to meet today’s standards.
3. Repairs are the per­fect option when you have two or three win­dows that are prob­lem­at­ic but the rest are fine. Have you ever seen a dark brown house with one bright white vinyl win­dow on the front of it? Who in the world talked them into that?! Oh, yeah, one of those new win­dow salesman…but I digress. Although it may seem like, win­dow for win­dow, the repair is more expen­sive than the replace­ment win­dow, but when you com­pare that to an entire home replace­ment project it is a huge sav­ings! ReWin­dow parts are repli­cat­ed to match the orig­i­nal near­ly per­fect­ly. Side by side, you would nev­er tell which win­dows had been repaired and which ones were the original.
4. Despite my sup­port of repairs in #3, the oppo­site can be in favor of replace­ment. Maybe you just want new win­dows … and that’s fine. Maybe so many of your win­dows are old and weath­er-beat­en you’re tired of main­tain­ing them. You want a fresh white plas­tic look for your home no mat­ter what the cost and incon­ve­nience is to you. Ok, that might still be a lit­tle dig, but I’m try­ing to stay diplomatic.

If you are con­sid­er­ing a win­dow project and hap­pened across this blog, I hope it got you think­ing a lit­tle bit about your options. Yes, your wood win­dows can be repaired (and don’t let a vinyl guy tell you dif­fer­ent!). Vis­it our web­site, https://​www​.rewin​dowre​place​ment​.com and com­plete a quote form to see how ReWin­dow can save your wood win­dows and, bet­ter yet, save you some money!