Window Repair and Wood Stoves

[newfsmith]

There are epoxy/resin products available to treat small areas of wood rot. Because they are trapped in the window frame, sashs tend to have more extensive rot than these are meant to handle. If it is more than 2-3 inches, or involves a joint, you may have to have the sash rebuilt.

The big thing with older wood windows is getting them properly reglazed, good write-up here. http://www.rd.com/how-to-glaze-singl...icle45866.html If you have a lot of windows, many painters will do this for a fee (and listening to their sales pitch for a full house painting).

Is your house multi-story? If it is, changing full screens for full storms is a major spring and fall project. It also means you have to store all of the out of season storm/screens. That is best done by hanging them vertically, which takes up a lot of space. There is a reason combination storm windows became popular. If you have a single story house with easy access to the windows from outside, and the storage space, you might see if you can find some used storms and screens that fit at an architectural recycler. Then you could go directly to painting them and installing.

[tulip]

Thank you both so much for your insights and suggestions. Becky, that CSIA website is great and I have a couple of chimney folks that I will call. And I might just try to replace the cord and weights myself, being very careful to get the trim off.

Newfsmith, I have a 900 SF house, single story, with 11 windows. I also have plenty of room for storing out of season storms and screens in the basement. I think that most of the windows will be fine with some scraping and repainting. Two will need to be rebuilt, and I'll have a pro do that. I've arranged for a visit by a window person who specializes in historic windows. I think he'll be way over my budget for all of the windows, but I want to know what my options are. He might be able to do the two that need to be rebuilt.

We have several well-stocked architectural salvage places in Richmond full of windows, storm windows and screens. I've been there for other things and have perused the windows, but now that I'm in window-mode, I'll go back for a more serious look-see. Thanks for reminding me!

[tulip]

I had all of my windows repaired. Some needed new cords, two need additional work that will wait until spring. One needed a weight. Done! I don't have storm windows yet. That, too, will have to wait.

My Petit Godin wood stove is hooked up about a month ago and today is my first day actually using it! I tried to light it a few times, but the chimney draw was not good and I got alot of smoke in the house. The reason for this appears to be that it was simply not cold enough outside. Something to do with pressure inside and outside. There's a whole wood stove forum that I consulted and they are very thorough over there. It's certainly cold enough today and it lit right up and has been burning beautifully.

I'm so happy to be using it, and it heats my whole little house. Since I work from home, it's quite practical since I'm home alot. It's such a nice, soft heat, too. And it's a very cute stove!

[Zen]

It's not cute, it's a work of art.

If you've any experience with wood stove heat you know it's very dry. Put a pot of water on top.

It's cold, alright. My window repair is going to involve the stuffing of towels around the windowsills