Trusted Wood Window Replacement | Bangor Window Replacement

An old wood sash is worth keeping when the wood is sound and only a few parts need attention. The National Park Service's Preservation Brief 9 cautions that peeling paint is no proof the wood is beyond repair, names an awl or ice pick as the test for soundness, and finds repair cost effective where few parts per window, or few windows, need the work.

Brief 9 also treats exterior storm windows as a reversible way to keep an original sash, and the Department of Energy's profile of Building Science Corporation's guides reserves storms for openings free of rot, broken parts and water intrusion into the wall.

We do not install anything and we do not restore sash. We pass the project to an independent contractor who can arrange repair on the sound units and replace the failed ones, so you hear a straight answer on each opening.

A wood-clad window has wood on the inside with a weather skin on the outside. Andersen calls the Perma-Shield skin on its 400 Series a vinyl formed around the wood, Marvin names extruded aluminum as the most-ordered Ultimate exterior, and Pella markets its Lifestyle Series as aluminum-clad wood.

Preservation Brief 9 says the replacement should start with the old windows themselves: opening size, proportions, pane layout, muntin profiles (the bars between the panes) and type of wood. On Broadway's lumber-baron Victorians and the Greek Revivals rebuilt in the Great Fire of 1911 district, the six over six or two over two pattern sets the face of the house, and a careful installer copies that in simulated divided lites rather than snap-in grilles.

Bangor runs a Historic Preservation Commission that meets the second Thursday of every month at seven in the evening, and reviews changes to buildings in districts like Broadway, the Tree Streets, Whitney Park, Thomas Hill and the Great Fire of 1911 area. If your house sits in one, ask the Bangor Code Enforcement office at 73 Harlow Street whether your window scope needs a certificate from the commission before any building permit is pulled.

The wood on the inside of a clad window has to be stained or painted. Andersen's insert guide warns that unfinished wood will discolor and can bow or split, and Marvin's warranty excludes untreated exposed wood.

Plan that finish into the weeks after the install.

On a plaster-walled house, an insert leaves the existing interior casing in place, while a full-frame unit comes out to the rough opening and leaves a plaster edge for the trim carpenter to patch. That trim work is the line most window budgets forget.

About 41 percent of Bangor's housing units were built in 1939 or earlier (ACS 2020-2024), so most of these houses sit well before 1978. The EPA lead-safe renovation rule requires any paid firm disturbing painted surfaces on those homes to be lead-safe certified.

Ask the contractor to show the certification, and expect EPA's Renovate Right pamphlet before the first sash comes out.