What Does Window Replacement Cost?

Win­dows are often one of the most over­looked design fea­tures of a house. But old and dat­ed-look­ing win­dows can quick­ly hurt your prop­er­ty val­ue and dam­aged or dete­ri­o­rat­ing win­dows can hurt your ener­gy effi­cien­cy and result in issues like con­den­sa­tion and mold growth.

As a result, home­own­ers may replace their win­dows for a num­ber of dif­fer­ent rea­sons. These can include: 

• Replace­ment or repair after damage
• Updat­ing the look of your home
• Improv­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy and reduc­ing util­i­ty costs

While there are poten­tial cost sav­ings, or an oppor­tu­ni­ty to make more mon­ey through increased prop­er­ty val­ue, under­tak­ing a win­dow replace­ment can be expen­sive, par­tic­u­lar­ly if you’re deal­ing with a whole room or a whole house.

How much win­dow replace­ment costs will depend on a num­ber of fac­tors, such as:

• Are you replac­ing the glass, sash, frame or the whole unit?
• What mate­ri­als will you use?
• How old are your win­dows and are replace­ment parts available?

Depend­ing on the age of your win­dows and how long you’ve been in your home, it’s pos­si­ble that you may not have all of this infor­ma­tion avail­able. Because well-man­u­fac­tured and prop­er­ly installed win­dows can last for decades, they may have been in your home longer than you’ve owned it, mak­ing it hard to iden­ti­fy impor­tant details like the win­dow make and model.

As a result, it’s often easy for many con­trac­tors to tell you that the full win­dow needs to be replaced, and that replace­ment parts aren’t avail­able for old­er win­dows, par­tic­u­lar­ly wood ones. Or else they might say the cost of wood win­dow replace­ment is too high. 

It’s true that, on paper any­way, the start­ing cost of a new wood win­dow may be more expen­sive than a vinyl one. But wood win­dow repair may be a more avail­able option that you’d ini­tial­ly think, and there’s more to win­dow replace­ment cost than what the frame is made of.

Here are some fac­tors to con­sid­er when cal­cu­lat­ing the cost of replacement:

• Replace­ment glass: If you’re replac­ing your win­dows for ener­gy effi­cien­cy pur­pos­es, not because they’re dam­aged, then you may need to only replace the glass. A sin­gle pane win­dow could cost as lit­tle as $47, but isn’t very ener­gy effi­cient. A low‑E or triple pane win­dow will cost $110 to $128 dol­lars, while a dou­ble pane win­dow is about $96.
• Win­dow style: A big bay win­dow may be a great fea­ture, but bay win­dow replace­ment costs can be as high as $3,500. By com­par­i­son, a clas­sic wood sash win­dow can be as lit­tle as $300.
• Mate­ri­als: Yes, wood is more expen­sive than vinyl, but it’s still gen­er­al­ly less expen­sive than steel or fiber­glass. And replace­ment wood win­dow sash­es can come in a vari­ety of col­ors and can be paint­ed or stained to match exist­ing fix­tures, shelves or cab­i­nets in your home, giv­ing you greater design flexibility.
• Labor: Labor rates vary across the Unit­ed States and can add $100 to $200 or more per win­dow. When you’re speak­ing with con­trac­tors, ask them about which sup­pli­ers they use for win­dow replace­ment, what expe­ri­ence they have with wood win­dow repair and how they source parts to repair and replace old­er wood windows.

So which win­dow man­u­fac­tur­er should you choose when look­ing for wood replace­ment windows?

Pel­la and Ander­sen are the lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­ers of replace­ment win­dows in the Unit­ed States. When talk­ing to con­trac­tors about win­dow replace­ments and costs, many will rec­om­mend either Pel­la or Ander­sen products. 

Both com­pa­nies offer four dif­fer­ent lines of wood win­dows. Prices for Pel­la range from $170 for a 450 Series/​ProLine wood win­dow to $1,800 for the Archi­tect Series Reserve line. 

For Ander­sen, the base price for a 200 Series wood win­dow is $265 and can extend to $1,650 for their Archi­tec­tur­al Col­lec­tion A‑Series windows.

By com­par­i­son, Fenster’s wood win­dow repair and replace­ment sash­es are priced afford­ably and are com­pat­i­ble with a num­ber of old­er win­dow man­u­fac­tur­ers including:

• BiltBest
• Carad­co
• Craft­line
• Hurd
• Kolbe
• MW
• Mal­ta
• Noran­dex
• Nor­co
• Pozzi
• Rock­well
• Seal­rite
• Sem­co
• SNE
• Weath­er­vane
• Wind­sor

If you’re not sure what type of win­dow you have, tips for iden­ti­fy­ing indi­vid­ual mod­els can be found here.

Fenster’s Quik­sash Clad/​Wood Case­ment Sash­es are guar­an­teed to work and per­form at a much high­er lev­el than the orig­i­nal win­dow by delet­ing engi­neer­ing flaws like boot glaz­ing and exte­ri­or glaz­ing stops. And with a start­ing price of $345, these sash­es are priced com­pa­ra­bly to the lead­ing brands. Sim­i­lar­ly, our Dou­ble Hung Sash Kits start at $399, mak­ing them com­pet­i­tive­ly priced.

And since all Fen­ster sash­es come stan­dard with low‑E glass and weath­er­strip­ping, your home will ben­e­fit from added ener­gy savings.

To order replace­ment sash­es, you’ll need a few measurements:

1. From out­side the win­dow, mea­sure the width of the sash from out­side edge to out­side edge, and the height of the sash from the top edge to the bot­tom edge.
2. Do not mea­sure the glass open­ing or weatherstripping.
3. Some wood sash­es may bow over time. You should mea­sure in dif­fer­ent places and use the most com­mon mea­sure­ment you get.
4. On cladded sash­es, it is okay to mea­sure from edge to edge of the cladding. We will size the wood frame to accept the cladding.
5. To mea­sure dou­ble hung sash­es, it is some­times eas­i­er to tilt the sash toward you inside the house to get a bet­ter mea­sure­ment of the exte­ri­or side.
6. Enter your width and height in the cor­re­spond­ing size ranges on the sash quote sec­tion to get your quote. These exact mea­sure­ments will be required at the order stage.

You’ll also need to know what kind of win­dow you have:

• Sta­tion­ary win­dows are the sim­plest. A sin­gle fixed pane of glass in a sash.
• Sin­gle hung win­dows fea­ture two panes of glass in sep­a­rate sash­es, where one pane is fixed and oth­er is on a track so it can be slid up and down.
• A dou­ble hung win­dow is sim­i­lar to a sin­gle hung, but both panes are able to slide.
• Case­ment and tilt win­dows don’t slide like hung win­dows but open on a hinge or with a crank.
• Awning win­dows hinge hor­i­zon­tal­ly, usu­al­ly from the top, to let in air. 
• Pic­ture win­dows are fixed, but typ­i­cal­ly larg­er than a stan­dard sta­tion­ary win­dow, to let in more light.
• Slid­ing win­dows, like slid­ing doors, slide on a hor­i­zon­tal track, rather than hung win­dows which slide vertically.

Once you’ve col­lect­ed this infor­ma­tion, reach out to ReWin­dow to dis­cuss a quote for you qual­i­ty replace­ment win­dows at a com­pet­i­tive cost.