RESTORING HERITAGE WINDOWS

When it comes time for a window upgrade, many commercial building and home owners believe that there is just no use in replacing their old wooden windows. Even if they are painted shut, have broken ropes,  inoperable hardware, or just look tired, you may not have to replace the whole unit.

Please don’t throw these old historical treasures away!  There are many options available that allow you the opportunity to bring your wood windows back to life and even increase their energy efficiency. At Vintage Woodworks, we specialize in the restoration and manufacturing of replica wood windows and doors. We are faced with repairing, restoring or replicating windows ranging from 10 to 150 years of age.

The majority of British Columbia’s old window units are built with First Growth Fir; never would they have used products such as pine or hemlock or trees in this area. Typically, these old windows have not lived half their lifetime and with little maintenance, they can be brought back to life and re-hung to stand another century.

Any old windows that were once painted will require lead abatement as paint used prior to 1978 often contained lead.  If you don’t have time or don’t want to tackle this portion of the restoration yourself, you can bring your old sash to our shop and we will restore them in our lead abatement unit.  If you are in Vancouver, we can arrange to pick them up and return them fully restored.

Sash can be re-glazed with the original old wavy glass that we remove or re-glazed with new glass.  Many commercial buildings ask us to

re-glaze their old units with laminate glass to reduce sound, block UV and enhance security and safety of each window.

So before you decide to replace your whole window unit, take a moment to truly look at your options and you could save a piece of history and hundreds of dollars!