Home

In the fall, we wrote about preservation being the up-and-coming green. Quoting the United Nations 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Report, we noted that, “Over the whole building stock the largest portion of carbon savings by 2030 is in retrofitting existing buildings.” This makes sense for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that any new structure we build, no matter how green, can at best be carbon neutral, which so far is mathematically impossible.

Even if they operate carbon neutrally from the first day, the greenest buildings will not actually begin to reduce carbon emissions for 30 to 50 years. That’s how long it takes to equalize the embodied energy in building the structure, factoring in manufacturing, transportation and construction.

Now, many of the myths about old versus new, repair versus replacement, are being exploded by basic economics. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, business makes strange bedfellows.

Windows have long been the most contentious issue in the business of historic preservation and historic building rehabilitation. Federal standards for historic buildings recommend repair; the building industry and American public have evolved an ethic that thinks replacement is always better.

This is changing. Energy Star, a division of the Environ­mental Protection Agency, has concluded from its research that “replacing windows is rarely cost-effective based solely on energy savings.” Window repair and retrofitting shops are a growing sector of the building industry.

The owner of the Empire State Building is repairing 6,500 windows, all of them operable, based upon a comparative analysis of replacement versus repair.

But there is a ways to go. The federal stimulus package includes a tax credit for as much as $1,500 for window replacement. There is no incentive to repair windows, which prompted Bob Yapp, host of a popular old house program on PBS, to send a pointed news release to national news organizations. “… Replacing old windows to create energy efficiency is The Big Lie,” Yapp wrote. “The media has been duped into believing that homeowners need to replace their perfectly fine, original windows. Doing this reduces the energy efficiency of a house and costs the homeowner far more than weatherizing or restoring original windows in virtually all homes built before 1945.

“Even if homeowners cannot get these (federal energy tax credits), window restoration can make their original windows as or more energy efficient than a replacement window, for less money. These restored windows have all the lead paint removed, new putty, complete weather stripping and one finger operation.”

He concluded his news release by saying, “The window industry spends tens of millions of dollars a year to convince (homeowners) to buy their inferior products. It will take a consumer about 40+ years to get any payback from replacement windows with insulated glass. The least ‘green’ thing you can do to an old house is replace the windows. The average life span of a replacement window is 12 to 15 years.”

Replacement windows are being peddled in much the same way vinyl siding has been during the past four decades. Fortunately, recycling the old and original is proving to be a wiser economic, as well as “green” decision.