By Nick Diamantides, Staff Writer
Thinking about replacing those old, worn-out windows in your house? Wait. You could save thousands of dollars and end up with better windows if you pay to have them restored instead. That advice was given to about 18 people who attended the California Heights Neighborhood Association (CHNA) meeting last Thursday.
The featured speaker was Ed Sanchez, who, with his partner Scott Goldfarb, owns a company called “Window Restoration and Repair.” Sanchez explained why more and more knowledgeable people are opting to keep what they already have.
Sanchez worked in the window replacement business from the early 1980s until 2000 when he opened the company. Goldfarb came on as a partner about a year later. Sanchez began by replacing wooden windows with their aluminum counterparts before vinyl windows came on the scene. At first, he didn’t trust vinyl windows thinking they would begin cracking in a few years, like most plastic does. Eventually, however, vinyl salesmen convinced him that the product was good and he began installing vinyl windows as well.
Sanchez, however, always had misgivings about the vinyl windows. “It got to the point where I had less faith in them than in the windows we were pulling out,” he said. “There are good points about vinyl windows and there are some really good ones, but they do not compare in longevity to wood windows.”
During the years that he was removing and replacing wood windows, Sanchez noticed that most of them could have been restored to a good-as-new condition at a lower cost than the purchase price of the vinyl windows. Then, many people who had vinyl windows installed were dismayed to find them cracking 10 or 15 years later. “A lot of those people decided to go back to wood windows and kicked themselves for getting rid of their home’s original windows,” he said.
“There was only one company that I knew of that was restoring old windows and it went out of business,” Sanchez noted. “So I decided to start doing it and it turned out to be a good decision for me.”
Sanchez explained that, according to the terms of the trade, a “window” is the entire opening in the wall and a “sash” is the moveable frame containing the pane of glass. Most houses have windows containing an upper sash and a lower sash. Many homeowners decide to refurbish their windows when the sashes show signs of deterioration or become difficult to move.
According to Sanchez, people often opt to replace their windows with vinyl without even looking at the possibility of restoring the old ones, and this is often a mistake. He noted that for a typical window in a 1920s-era home (common in California Heights), the cheapest vinyl replacement will cost about $400 and, for better quality, the homeowner could expect to pay up to $1,000 per window. Sanchez warned, however, that the $400 versions usually need to be replaced due to cracking within 10 years of installation.
“But we can restore that same wood window for about $225 and when we are done, you can slide the sashes up and down with one finger,” he noted, explaining that his employees will adjust the window frame and replace parts in the window’s counterbalance system (hidden in the wall) to make the window work as well as it did when the house was built.
Sanchez added that homeowners often think they need to replace windows that contain dry rot, but most of it can be scraped off and deeper dry rot incursions can be carved out and filled in with epoxy, which does not show after being painted.
He added that for additional cost, homeowners can have the old glass in their wood windows replaced with laminated glass that muffles noise, reduces UV rays, and provides insulation.
John Royce, CHNA president, noted that with the current trend to make homes more energy efficient, building codes require that new windows contain double-pane glass. Restoring old windows allows homeowners to avoid that requirement and keep their original single panes or replace them with laminated glass, which can provide insulation equal to the double panes.
“Keep in mind that Southern California has one of the mildest climates on Earth,” Royce said. “Installing double panes is not going to make a noticeable difference.”
Sanchez agreed, adding that double-pane vinyl windows will not pay for themselves in energy savings during the homeowner’s lifetime. (Homes in historic districts are exempt from the double-pane requirement.)
Sanchez and Goldfarb also restore wood casement windows, steel casement windows and diamond grid windows. Almost always, the restoration is far less expensive than the cost of replacement.
“A lot of people have their windows restored before they sell their house and they tell us they wish they would have done it 20 years ago so that they could have benefited from it while they were living in their home,” Sanchez said.
Window Restoration & Repair is located at 3371 Cerritos Avenue in Los Alamitos. They can be reached by calling (562) 493-1590.
