The ongoing adventures of insulating a 273 year old stone wind tunnel

I'm no expert, but the windows are not as old as the home.

The framework around the windows are awful. It's like a pack of dunken six year olds installed the damm things. All of the storm windows need to be redone also. Would we throw them out? Of course not. At the very least, they will be used in the garage.

But, I'll worry about that when I get the urge to dump $20 grand into new/refurbished windows...

 

That is a huge project. However, I can think of no better compliment to the original craftsmen who build some of these older home by making the current and comfortable which was their goal when the homes were first built. Updated doors, windows, insulation, electrical sevice as just as important as having indoor plumbing. All lacking when those homes were first built.

 

Apparently working on this house makes me think of drinking.... Not surprising.

 

When we took out all of the drafty single glaze windows at the old farm, and replaced them with those gawd awful vinyl replacement windows... ... we kept every one of them stored in a rack I'd made in the barn, just to hang on to them. They were covered and kept in the exact condition they were in when we pulled them. 8 years later, when we had decided to sell the farm, we had a few antique dealers come and go thru every nook and cranny of the place. My bro was also a big help as he and his honey had been in the antique biz for a couple decades. Old beds, furniture, a 2 up cutter (sleigh) and a 4 up carriage, a HD wagon, etc. Over a year's time, we estimated we sold, gave away or tossed out 3 tractor trailer loads. Quite a year. This conversation about windows, and their antique value got my attention. When the antique folks looked everything all over and all was gone... there those old windows were, still in the rack I'd made for em. While I'd been hoping they would be worth something, turned out no one wanted them. Couldn't give them away. The new owners of the place spent a few hundred thousand going thru the entire place and replaced our replacement windows with nice triple glaze Andersons. I wasn't surprised.

Back to the old windows... I grew up looking out thru those old distorted glass windows, every summer and Thanksgiving. They had a nostalgic value to me and when we moved to the place, that first winter was, well... interesting. After 4 years of watching whatever I did to heat the entire place (old colonial) go right out those windows, I knew we had to do something. The replacement windows made an incredible difference, but they weren't the same exact sash layout. I get the whole nostalgic thing, for sure. But, I'd never spend the kind of money the new owners did on the place, and then put single glaze windows in, even after being refurbished. Unless I did all the refurbishing. Then it's a labor of love and doesn't have much to do with value or heat loss. Then, they're priceless...

 

I dont want to hijack Brownings thread, so I'll just give my perspective, and leave it alone. In Brownings situation he might already be dealing with bad replacements and not havea choice. But for old buildings in general I have very strong feelings about maintaining the original whenever possible.

Saving the windows in old homes, sadly, is a loosing battle. The marketing of window replacement companies is just too good. The thing is, when you are talking about an old home (and here I'm thinking anything from pre-WWII going all the way back to the early colonial era, what makes the home unique. Its character.

In a Victorian era house its all the the decorative woodwork, moldings, trim interior paneling. Lots of varnished wood and sometimes hand carved moldings inside. Lots of complex moldings, trim, window detail and many colorful paint jobs outside. When I see a grand old Queen Anne for example have its interior completely painted white and all the exterior trim chopped off to cover it in monochrome vinyl you loose the character that made it unique.

Same thing goes for even older homes, liek the age of my place and Brownings. We dont have lots of fancy woodwork and detailed trim on the exterior. Colonial houses where very simple in design. What gives them character is all the handmade elements and the old windows. Rip out the 6over6 old wood windows in my place or the 12over12 that BB house probabyl had when built and replace them with modern units (even worse if you do one over ones) and what little character it has left at this point is gone. It no longer looks like an old house. In the same vein, misguided owners already tore out too much of the interior woodwork and character here in my house thinking that modern sheetrock and home depot trim was better. The result ins that if you walk in a lot of the rooms you couldn't tell you are in an antique house. Its taking me a lot of effort and cost to put back the character and charm that could have been inexpensively saved if a prior owner had forethought.

Old buildings where built to be maintainable and last the test of time. 100 year, even 200 year old windows where made to be repairable and basically live forever. So long as you paint them every 20 years and fix the glazing when needed (could be 50+ years if you use the good stuff) they can pretty much last forever. Any window more than 60-70 years old or so is made out of old growth lumber far superior to what is used in even modern wood windows, and the joinery and construction process was better to boot. If a sash cord breaks its a $2 piece of rope. When a vinyl window track unit fails it can be expensive, if its even worth fixing.

People choose vinyl because they think its a way to get away from this maintenance. There is no such thing as zero maintenance. What you are doing is exchanging a few hundred dollars and effort to paint every 20-30 years with a cycle of paying many thousands of $ to rip them out and replace every 20-30 years when the IGUs fail and the vinyl frames get brittle or the tracks break. Where is the economy in paying thousands on new windows to save a hundred bucks in fuel?

There have also been a lot of studies done showing that maintained and weatherstripped old wood windows, combined with good storms can achieve close to the performance of a double pane window at a fraction of the cost. MOst every historic commission and the national park service preservation guidelines for historic homes all strongly recommend against window replacements unless there are no alternatives.


You might say (to me) but why not repalce with a modern wood window then if I dont like vinyl. That too is not the same. For one, no modern element can ever match that handmade character of the original. For another like I said my original windows are made with better quality wood and joinery than anythign but expensive custom windows made today).


There is a lot more reading on the web that says it better than I can, but here is a pretty good summary
http://www.eastrow.org/articles/vinylwindows.html

 

Old houses can make us a little nuts sometimes... I know... I was head over heals in love with our old fam farm. When it became possible to move our family there in 1994, I was sure I'd died and gone to heaven. No insulation, old windows and ext doors, clapboard siding was getting bad, but I didn't care because we were "home". The romanticism of simpler times and the amazing men who designed and built all things to last, including homes... had me mesmerized 24/7. I hit the ground running and did all kinds of utility type stuff first. Winters were gonna be a challenge. We burned 8 cords of ash each year, always burning it slightly green... I found a used wood/coal hot air furnace and installed it, along with some ductwork. We burned 5 tons of coal every year too. The blower on that furnace ran 24/7. After 4 years, the allure of the old place was starting to fade, tho we still loved being there. Kids were involved with sports in HS and all was good. I painted all of the old interior doors that were original 4 panel doors. Over the years, my folks had put in newer doors too. The entire place was full of newish stuff, old stuff and very old stuff. The barns were my passion. The old silver boards, post & beams... I spent plenty of time in them listening to them creak and moan when the winds howled... wondering how it was possible to have built them in the late 1800s and they were still here. Loved it. But time took it's toll.

After 12 years of taking care of the enormous place, I realized I had neither the desire, ability or $ to keep the place going for much longer. There were some tough decisions that had to be made. We knew it was time. It was on the market for over a year and that turned out to be a gooder thing as I said above... tons of stuff had to go. But, if we were ever going to get it done, I had to shed my passion for the place... or nothing would be touched. It was much more emotional than I thought it was going to be. But, we got it done and today, we're very glad we had those years there... and very glad that it was bought by folks who could fix it all up. That means it'll prolly always be there now, and not just fade away. A very good thing.

So J... IMO it's pointless to try and explain why we love these old places. We just do. For the rest of time, there will be folks who love them too, and would do anything to own one... and folks who're into other things. All good. Whether we like it or not... change is always happening. Good that you're putting the effort you are into your home. A hundred years from now, someone may appreciate it... A lot of work and it sure is perty!

 

Unfortunately I don't saves. Most all that happened before I joined any forums. For some reason we didn't take pictures. Probably were glad to forget about the old stuff. So I guess it didn't happen. Hey, wait a minute. I have the Mortgage payment and taxes to prove it!

 

I remember a home one of my many brothers had. He went through over a period of years and gutted, rewired, re plumbed, insulated, and rocked and painted everything. He stripped every piece of molding down to the original hardwood and re-stained it all. Talk about beautiful. Years later they sold the house to move into something bigger for their growing family. They found out a few weeks after the new owners moved in that they painted all the molding over. Didn't want the wood look.

 

It happens. Different strokes, different folks. Buddy of ours is a master plumber and has been in just about every crawl space/basement of every old house in western Maine. He said once, that fixing up all of these older homes was great... only problem was they were still old. I guess in the end, it's all what you want it to be. While very rare, someone somewhere has prolly restored an old home exactly as it was originally built... 100%... no plumbing, electrical, insulation, chimney liners, EPA woodstoves, modern paint, etc... More as an historical site.

 

And the empty bank account.

 

Yup. I use to like old trucks too. And still do. As long as they aren't mine. Maybe someday when and if I have enough money, I will own a nice old one and can afford to pay someone to do any required maintenance.

 

Hehehe... Ayuh.

 

Yeah, the house we lived in was one of the reasons for the divorce. A constant money pit and anchor on the relationship. I have to say the experience was a big life lesson for me. I learned a lot.

 

Yes, where are the pics for this thread?

 

Sorry to hear that DB. My wife and I had some moments, but all in all we were able to get beyond them and just stay focused on the mountain in front of us. It had to be moved. We too learned many things. Patience is gooder ... might have been one of em...

 

The insulation project is taking way longer than it should as we also decided to remove the plaster from the stone walls in the kitchen.

 

That just doesn't sound like much fun at all...

 

It looks awesome, though.