Taking the sash out properly
We cut the paint along the stop and parting bead, work each strip loose without splitting it, tie off the cords so they stay out of the weight pocket, and close the opening while the sash is out.
Historic Window Restoration in Austin, Keeping the Sash
Austin Quality Windows offers historic window restoration in Austin, TX, as Travis County's trusted specialist in original wood sash, specializing in rehung sash cords and weights, fresh linseed oil glazing putty and the careful reuse of old wavy glass. We offer epoxy consolidation of decayed rails and spliced repairs to sills and muntins.
- Free in-home measure
- Elevations you approve
- Installed to manufacturer instructions
- One written price
About our historic window restoration
Our team provides fitted storm panels and new weatherstripping, delivering a tighter, quieter room that keeps every original profile, for both residential and commercial projects. Before a single pane comes out, the same crew that will rebuild your sash inspects and measures every window, and you sign off on a written, window-by-window schedule of the work.
From numbering each pane so it returns to its own opening to rebalancing a sash until it slides at a touch, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin, Tarrytown, Rollingwood and West Lake Hills, we bring the original sash of an older house back into daily use.
Why Austin Quality Windows
How We Work
No handoffs between a salesperson, a measurer and a subcontracted crew. The crew that measures your openings installs the windows.
Measured on siteEvery opening measured in the wall it sits in, by the crew that will install it
Elevations firstYou approve the drawings, sizes, glass and finish before anything is ordered
Flashed to specSill pans, flashing and sealant to the manufacturer's written instructions
Water testedOpenings checked for leaks before the interior trim goes back on
What Restoring an Original Wood Sash Actually Involves
A double-hung sash window is a simple machine. Each movable panel, the sash, is balanced by a heavy iron or lead weight hidden in a pocket beside the frame, joined to it by a braided cotton cord that runs over a pulley. The glass is held in the sash by small glazier's points and sealed with putty. When a window like that sticks, rattles or lets in water, the cause is almost always one of a handful of parts, and every one of them can be repaired.
Reglazing with linseed oil putty
Failed putty comes out by hand, each pane is numbered and lifted, and the glass goes back on a fresh bed of linseed oil putty, pointed, tooled to a clean bevel and sealed by paint lapped onto the glass.
Cords, weights and pulleys
Broken sash cords are replaced with new cord or with chain, reached through the pocket plate in the jamb or behind the interior trim, and a weight can be increased so a heavy sash lifts easily.
Repair First: How Each Historic Window Is Judged
The National Park Service guidance on historic wooden windows is blunt: the key to planning is a careful evaluation of existing conditions on a unit-by-unit basis. That is how we work. Every opening gets a line on a written window schedule noting its location, paint, frame and sill, the rails, stiles and muntins of the sash, the glazing, the hardware and its overall condition. The finished schedule becomes the scope you approve.
Reading the paint and probing the wood
Moisture is the main cause of decay, and peeling paint shows where water got in, but wood is often sound beneath it, so we probe the sill, the bottom rail corners and the muntin joints.
Three levels of repair
Each sash is assigned one of three levels: routine reglazing and weatherstripping, epoxy stabilization of partly decayed wood, or splices and new parts milled to match, following Austin's standards to repair before replacing.
Restore or Replace: When a New Sash Makes Sense
Before any sash is written off, it is matched to one of those three levels. Routine work covers paint removal, reglazing, frame repair, weatherstripping, reinstallation and repainting. Stabilization dries and treats partially decayed wood, consolidates it with semi-rigid epoxy, then fills, shapes and paints it, and the epoxy can even rebuild a missing sill edge. A splice cuts out a decayed member and replaces it with new wood milled to match, including a duplicated muntin profile. Austin's own Historic Design Standards set the same order: repair rather than replace, and retain a window when 50 percent or more of its wood or metal sash members are intact.
Some sashes have simply gone too far. When the schedule shows that most of a sash would have to be remade, a new wooden sash built to fit the existing frame can be the sensible answer. Those are made as exact custom reproductions, as close facsimiles with similar profiles, or as contemporary sashes of similar appearance.
The frame stays. The opening stays. Where a reproduction is needed, we start from the window being replaced and match the pattern and size of the opening, the proportions of frame and sash, the pane layout, the muntin profile, the wood, the paint colour and the character of the glass. Austin's standards say the same thing in their own words: match the size and details of the existing window, including configuration, profile and finish.
Divided lites done correctly
Where a reproduction carries divided lites, they must be true divided lites or simulated divided lites with dimensional muntins on the outside of the glass. A replacement with false muntins sandwiched inside the glass is exactly what the City's standards say never to use, and we do not offer it on a historic house.
Old Glass, Storm Panels and Comfort Through an Austin Summer
Austin has a humid subtropical climate with long, very hot summers, averaging roughly 29 days a year above 100 degrees. A single pane of old glass is not much of a barrier to that on its own, and this is where most owners assume the originals have to go. They do not. A Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory study cited by the Park Service found that a storm over a historic window can perform much like a new low-E vinyl unit, and older figures rated single-glazed wood windows at a U-value of about 0.88 to 0.99, falling to about 0.44 to 0.49 with a storm added.
Weatherstripping the sash
Air leaking past a loose sash is usually the bigger comfort problem, so we fit metal or spring strips to the rails and channels rather than felt, and a meeting-rail lock pulls both sashes tight against them.
Storm panels
An exterior storm is reversible and keeps the original in place; an interior storm suits a decorative window whose face should stay uncovered, sealed so moisture cannot condense on the cold original.
Glass that does not look tinted
Austin's standards allow insulated low-E glass where appropriate, and ask that any film or glass have no noticeable tint, colour or reflectivity. That rules out the mirrored look on a historic front.
Historic Review in Austin: Advisory or Binding
Whether a restoration needs approval depends on exactly what the house is, and the answer differs street by street.
Landmarks and local historic districts
For a City of Austin landmark or a house in a local historic district, review is binding, and changing a front-wall window or its opening goes to the Historic Landmark Commission.
National Register districts
Contributing houses in a National Register district, such as the Old West Austin Historic District, still go through review for exterior alterations, but the comments that come back are advisory recommendations, not requirements.
Repair is the easy case
Restoring the original sash in place is the treatment the standards ask for first, and the City says staff approve most small projects within five business days.
Which Austin Houses Answer to Which Rules
On a landmark or in a local historic district, the standards also do not allow highly visible historic openings to be enlarged, moved or enclosed. Castle Hill, Harthan Street and Smoot/Terrace Park are three of the city's local districts, just east of MoPac, and Pemberton Heights alone holds more than 25 designated landmarks.
The Old West Austin Historic District, listed on the National Register in 2003, takes in Old Enfield, Pemberton Heights and Bryker Woods between MoPac and Lamar Boulevard. There, review of a contributing house ends in advisory comments. A Tarrytown house is under the City of Austin's rules like any other Austin address; whether a particular one is a landmark or sits in a district is checked for that address, never assumed.
The Commission meets monthly. We check your address against the current rules at quote time, because rules change, and we supply the window schedule and details any review asks for.
What Drives the Cost of Historic Window Restoration
We do not publish a per-window number, because two original sashes on the same wall can need very different work. The written schedule from the survey is what sets the price. These are the things that move it.
- The level of repair each sash needs: routine reglazing and new cords, epoxy stabilization, or spliced parts and new members milled to match.
- Muntin and moulding profiles: duplicating a profile needs a cutter ground to match it, which weighs heavily on a small job and very little across a whole house.
- Paint: the number of layers to come off, and, on a house built before 1978, handling paint that may contain lead with lead-safe methods.
- Glass: cleaning and resetting the original panes, sourcing old glass to match a broken one, or adding insulated low-E glass in a new sash where the rules allow it.
- Storm panels: exterior or interior, the frame material and finish, and arched tops.
- How many openings are done at once: a whole house brings economies a single window cannot.
- Access: a second-storey sash or a steep lot needs staging.
- Historic review: whether the address is a landmark, in a local district or in a National Register district, and restoring versus reproducing.
- Trim and surrounds: interior casing, exterior trim, sill repair, and any siding, stucco or stone disturbed around the frame.
Every quote starts with a free in-home survey, where the crew who would do the work opens the windows and writes up each one.
The process
From First Measure to Finished Openings
Four steps, and nothing is ordered until you have signed off on the drawings and the price.
Free in-home measure
We measure every opening, check the framing and the header, and talk through glass, frame material and how each window should operate.
Elevations and a written price
You get drawings of every unit for your approval and for any HOA or historic review, with one written price.
Ordered to your sizes
Units are ordered to the approved sizes and glass package, and checked against the drawings when they arrive.
Installed and water tested
Old units out, openings flashed, new units set, sealed and water tested, then trim and cleanup.
More of What We Install
Service area
Where We Install
- window installation in Rollingwood
- Barton Creek windows and glass doors
- window installation in West Lake Hills
- Tarrytown windows and glass doors
- window installation in Lost Creek
- window installation in Volente
- Sunset Valley windows and glass doors
- window installation in The Hills
- window installation in Lakeway
- Steiner Ranch
Questions
Historic Window Restoration: Common Questions
What drives the price of restoring my original windows?
The condition of each sash, the level of repair it needs, the paint to be removed, the glass, any storm panels and how many openings are done together. We write it up unit by unit at the survey and price from that schedule.
Can my windows be saved, or do they need to be replaced?
Most can be saved. Wood that looks bad under failed paint is often sound, and decayed sections can be consolidated or spliced. Austin's standards ask owners to keep a historic window when half or more of its sash members are intact. Where a sash truly cannot be saved, we build a matching new sash for the existing frame.
Will my restoration need historic approval, and who files it?
It depends on the address. Landmarks and local historic district houses have binding review, and front-wall window changes go to the Historic Landmark Commission. National Register district review is advisory. We check your address at the quote and prepare the window schedule and details the application needs.
Is a Tarrytown house automatically under the Landmark Commission?
No. Tarrytown follows the City of Austin's rules like any Austin address. Only a designated landmark or a house in a local historic district has binding review, so we look up your specific property rather than assuming.
How long will my windows be open during the work?
While a sash is in the shop, the opening is closed with polyethylene or a plywood panel. Putty, primer and paint need several days to cure, and we give you the schedule in writing with the quote.
Will restored windows be comfortable in Austin heat?
Weatherstripping and a sash lock deal with the drafts, and a well-fitted storm panel brings a single-glazed sash close to the performance of a modern double-glazed unit. Where a new sash is allowed, insulated low-E glass without a noticeable tint is an option.
Can you keep my old wavy glass?
Yes. Each pane is numbered, cleaned and set back into the opening it came from. If one is cracked, we look for old glass to match rather than dropping in a flat modern pane.
Do you cover my area?
We work across Austin and its neighbouring communities in Travis County, including Tarrytown, Rollingwood and West Lake Hills. Call and we will confirm your address.
Is the work covered by a warranty?
Yes, every restoration comes with a written warranty, and the terms are set out in your quote.
Free in-home measure
Talk to us about historic window restoration
Free in-home measure across Austin and the west side. We call you back to set a time.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.