SIGNIFICANT ELEMENTS NON PROFIT ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE

  
The Significant Elements warehouse is overflowing with donated windows, replaced by homeowners.

We can't keep up with the offered windows, so they are getting thrown away. We have over 1,000 window
sashes in stock, but we get offered 200-300 per week. Please read the article below and learn how you can help reduce waste, and save money!

Fix up Those Older Windows to Enhance the Beauty of Your Home And Save Money

By Mark Pierce
(Mark Pierce is an Extension Associate for the Cornell Cooperative Extension)

Those beautiful single glazed wood windows in your older home are not nearly as inefficient as you have been led to believe by the advertising industry. Nor will window replacement necessarily be in your financial best interest. How do I know this? I investigated how much it would cost to replace the existing single-glazed wood windows (R-1) in my older home with new, highly energy efficient double-glazed, low-E, argon-filled vinyl replacement windows (R-3). Here is what I found out:

· My existing 19 windows lose about 17.4 million BTU's of heat each heating season

· The annual cost of this lost heat is about $130

· New highly efficient ENERGY STAR* rated vinyl replacement windows would lose about 2 million BTU's of heat annually. The annual cost of this lost heat would be about $16.

· If I install the vinyl replacement windows the total annual savings on my heating bill would be about $114.

· To realize this annual $114 savings I would need to invest $8000 in vinyl replacement windows.

 

Spending $8,000 to save a little over $100 per year is not a good method for saving lots of money on heating bills. And vinyl windows will subtract from the beauty of my older home, rather than add to it as my older windows do. In addition, there are other less expensive options available to me for reducing loss of heat through my older windows.

 

Follow these guidelines to maintain your older windows and increase their energy efficiency

· Replace broken window panes

· Remove and replace deteriorating glazing compound

· Make certain that sash locks are present and in good working order. A proper fitting sash lock has significant impact on the air-tightness of a double hung window. The lock should pull the upper and lower window sash tightly together, and at the same time push the bottom sash down and the top sash up.

· Adding a thin piece of foam weather stripping to the sill and head jamb to improve the seal when the windows are closed and locked will further increase efficiency.

· Replacing worn parting bead (the narrow vertical piece of wood that separates the upper sash from the lower sash) will also tighten the window and improve energy efficiency.

 

*ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the United States EPA and The U.S. Department of Energy. The ENERGY STAR label helps consumers identify the most energy efficient products on the market. Only windows with an R-value of 2.8 or higher can carry the ENERGY STAR label.