I knew when I bought the house that it would need new windows. The existing windows appeared to be from when the house was built, and windows have come a long way since then, both in the glass itself and the way they’re set in the house. New windows – I’m fairly sure they’re all double-paned now – would provide better insulation against the cold and allow less heat in through the glass. In fact, part of the sales demonstration was plugging in a heat lamp in front of a normal window sample and then a new window sample. (The next part was removing a cat from the sample bag so the samples could go back in.) There was also evidence of moisture settling into some of the window frames, which is never good.
All of the bedrooms had casement windows, which were a bit of a pain. In order to open the window, I had to open the screen on the inside, then unlatch and push the window open, and finish by clicking the screen shut again. The window by the kitchen sink was similar, but inexplicably, had no screen or anywhere to attach one, so that one never got opened. (I don’t want to let insects in or cats out.) The living room and large kitchen windows were floor to ceiling, with a casement window at the top of each. While planning the new windows, one of the company’s representatives noted that the kitchen sink and the guest bedroom windows were actually the same casement windows, just turned on their side. Apparently somebody had spare windows in that particular style when the house was built.
The biggest decision when replacing windows seems to be whether to do it room-by-room or all at once. Since my reason for wanting new windows was for better temperature control (among other things, I don’t have A/C), it made sense to do them all at once and finance the change, knowing that the company I chose could almost certainly complete the change in a single day. That meant spending only one of my elusive vacation days, rather than needing to spread it out over several. As with any big purchase, I had estimates from multiple companies. The deciding factor was really that this company, Power Home Remodeling, could replace my three living room windows with one huge bay window.
My timing was just about perfect – the installation was on what had been the hottest day so far this year, the Friday before Memorial Day. Last weekend beat that day with temperatures in the mid- to high-90s all weekend, and I was delighted to have the new windows filtering out some of that heat.