On the Level

The Tortoise Will Outlive the Hare

by Terry Meany

For more years than I care to recall, I had—well, I was—a small restoration business specializing in repairing old, originally installed wood windows. I worked on thousands of windows, mostly double-hung units, until the nightmares began. I figured it was time to do something else, such as be a human tester for potentially fatal, unproven vaccines. I chose writing instead, not that I can tell the difference some days.

Before the removal of lead-based paint came to be a contractor’s equivalent of disposing of nuclear waste—although with even more safeguards and restrictions—I sanded away years of accumulated paint with both abandon and too little containment. I replaced miles of sash rope, reglazed a city block or two of glass and polished enough brass hardware that, had it been melted down and turned into tubas, an entirely new spin-off of “American Idol” would now be gracing television screens everywhere.

I was reminded of my window-obsessed past while reading Stuart Matlow’s article on window replacement in the May issue of this magazine. Some building owners were unpleasantly surprised to discover their properties were architecturally significant, the equivalent of saying you had better check with the city before sweeping the sidewalk because the dirt could be historically important and a noteworthy component of your exterior building fabric. Conflicts pop up on many different levels that include an owner’s right to maintain a property in a chosen fashion versus preservation standards; the justification for those standards and the related issue of when does historic become hysteric; and the definition of landmark as opposed to just plain old. Buildings constructed decades earlier by individual owners with private funds suddenly take on new public partners, albeit ones that never have to pay property taxes, struggle with mortgage payments in a down market or spend a weekend cleaning vacant apartments. They can, however, influence certain repairs or remodeling you propose to do.

Windows are a big deal. On a strictly functional level, they allow in natural light, provide ventilation and offer egress in the case of a fire. On a decorative or design level, they very much affect a building’s exterior. Vintage 1950 aluminum sliders, when installed in an otherwise pin-perfect Victorian, simply do not work, even to the most historically unsentimental and ardent believer in property rights. So what do you do if you own a six-story, forty-unit masonry building with original wood windows in a variety of conditions that includes everything from acceptable to “watch out below?” And now these same windows need painting eight years after your last costly paint job?

You can repair and repaint, for one, but it will cost you today and well into the future—eight years or so until you repaint (again). Repair and restoration prices are all over the board, ranging from $40 or so for a handyperson type to replace the missing ropes in a double-hung window to hundreds of dollars for more extensive work. None of this includes painting, although that can be done for an additional cost at the time the window is restored. Local lead-paint abatement laws complicate the job by mandating enclosure and containment, since even removing a window can cause old paint to flake off and fall below, immediately lowering the IQ of anyone walking within ten feet of the paint chips’ path. I do think lead abatement is a good thing, by the way, but I also think some of the current regulations are arbitrary, if not capricious, and not uniformly enforced.

To repair an old wood window properly, the paint should be stripped (there’s that lead abatement again), the corners reinforced, epoxy work done as needed, loose glazing compound replaced, weather-stripping installed and two coats of paint applied over one coat of primer. Ideally, you would also strip down all the accumulated paint on the window sill and exterior molding. Eventually, after enough coatings of paint accumulate on an exterior, the paint simply rebels (technically known as intercoat adhesion problems) and fails. Full paint removal almost never gets done given its cost.

Even when a surface is stripped, there are no guarantees a fresh paint job will be problem-free long enough to justify the expense of the stripping. I can attest to this. On our last home, a 1920s bungalow, I meticulously stripped the windows and painted them out of direct sunlight, using a light color that would not absorb much heat. A year later, those on the weathered side showed slight cracking along the wood grain in the sills and at the bottom of the sashes. It is simply the nature of wood and weather.

This brings us to vinyl windows, one of a long line of products that makes life easier. Think back to the first linoleum floors of the 19th century. They replaced hard-to-clean wood planks and became a standard item in bathrooms and kitchens, the same way composition roofs replaced wood shakes, and furnaces replaced wood stoves. For a competitive price, you can install an acceptable (to the Planning Department) vinyl window and look forward to a painting-free exterior in the future. (Note this is true only if your vinyl window replacements include covering or otherwise wrapping the sills and molding them in vinyl as well. The interior woodwork will still need painting.) As a bonus, you will achieve energy savings, noise reduction and a decrease in mold. I say this as someone who made a living doing repairs. Restorations have their place, but I am increasingly hard pressed to recommend them except in the most historically noteworthy buildings when accompanied by tax credits.

Three Influential Factors Are:

the availability of replacement windows designed to resemble original wood windows;
the increased quality and longevity of vinyl windows; and
the cost and frequency of repainting.
I have seen the light.

Speaking of Painting...
My editor suggested I look into intumescent paint, something unfamiliar to both of us, although these paints have been around in various formulas since the 1980s. The term means to swell up. Intumescent paint acts as a fire retardant by expanding when exposed to high temperatures or direct flame. The paint then carmelizes and forms what is called a char barrier, preventing the painted surface from burning for up to roughly two hours depending on the product. These paints are expensive. One supplier quoted $89.95 per gallon from one manufacturer. Another, Contego, makes Passive Fire Barrier primer that covers a whopping 130 square feet, with two coats required for new wallboard and plywood. Since this is a primer only, a finish coat of paint is required for interior living spaces. A 10 x 13 foot room, with around 400 square feet of wall and ceiling space, would require more than six gallons of this stuff. Add in the cost of hiring a painter, and you could almost install a full-time, in-house fire department if you had a large enough building.

Compare this to installing fire sprinklers, which, unlike intumescent paint, will actually extinguish the fire. According to Tom McKinnon, president of AEGIS Fire Systems Inc. of Pleasanton, retrofitting existing units can “be expected to approach $5 a square foot depending on complexity and patch work requirements.” Some of these requirements include the building’s water pressure and pipe sizing, as well as jurisdictional requisites. This begs the question: why paint and wait for the fire department when you can put out the fire and probably lower your insurance rates at the same time?

As owners, you are regularly faced with evaluating competing ideas and costs to maintain your property. Do you keep patching the roof, hoping to stretch another year out of it or replace it during the summer before the rain returns, putting an end to late night phone calls from tenants who have water dripping inside their kitchens? Is it worth the cost of converting from landlord-paid steam heat to individual electric heating, metered to and paid for by tenants? Immediate costs contend with long-term savings. Americans are not known to be long-term planners, but time and time again I have observed this tortoise does well in most races.

And a tortoise will outlive the hare any day.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the SFAA or the San Francisco Apartment Magazine. Terry Meany is a former contractor and landlord. He is now a full-time writer and author of Working Windows: A Guide to the Repair and Restoration of Wood Windows, published by Lyons Press. He is cost conscious but not cheap, and he knows deferred maintenance always costs more in the end. He can be reached at tfmeany@msn.com. Copyright © 2004 by San Francisco Apartment Magazine. All Rights Reserved.