Austin Quality Windows specifies and installs wood clad windows in Austin, TX, and is Travis County's trusted source for the premium clad-wood category, specializing in extruded aluminum-clad casements, fiberglass-clad double-hung windows and clad picture units with simulated divided lites. We offer interior wood in pine, Douglas fir, white oak and mahogany, and exterior cladding in custom colors.
Our team provides a matched glass package for each opening, delivering the look of a fine wood sash on the inside with a low-upkeep shell outside for both residential and commercial projects. We install every unit ourselves: our own crew measures each opening, draws the elevations you approve before anything is ordered, and flashes the frame to the manufacturer's installation instructions.
From the stain or paint on the interior sash to a whole house of matched clad units, our team handles every detail. Serving Austin, Barton Creek and Steiner Ranch, including the older streets of Tarrytown, we fit each opening so the wood inside and the cladding outside both look intended.
Why Austin Quality Windows
No handoffs between a salesperson, a measurer and a subcontracted crew. The crew that measures your openings installs the windows.
Cladding is one material laid over another as a protective skin. A clad wood window keeps a real wood frame and sash on the inside of the house and covers every exterior face with a harder, weather-resistant shell. You see and touch wood in the room. The sun, the rain and the sprinkler only ever meet the cladding.
The reason is simple. Wood is a very good insulator and a beautiful interior finish, but bare exterior wood needs paint and attention. An aluminum exterior resists rot, corrosion and insects and needs little more than cleaning, and its finish is made to resist chalking, fading and UV damage.
Most clad wood windows carry aluminum. Fiberglass is the other serious option, rating very good on thermal resistance and durability and very low on maintenance. Vinyl cladding is made too, and we compare all three at the measure.
The wood frame and sash are commonly treated to resist moisture, decay, mold, mildew and termites before the cladding goes on, so the part you never see is protected as well as the part you do.
Most people shopping for a premium wood window start by typing the name of a well-known maker. That is a fair place to begin, and it tells us you want the top of the category. We do not sell a name, and we do not claim a relationship with any maker. What we do is walk you through the construction that actually separates one clad wood unit from another, and specify the unit that answers it.
The first question to ask of any clad window is how its cladding is made, and the difference shows up over time. Extruded cladding shrugs off hail, ladders and lawn equipment that would dent thin sheet, and its thicker wall carries a heavier paint finish that holds its color longer. Where cladding meets the wood frame, an extruded edge stays tight, while a roll-formed edge can lift and let water in behind it.
Roll-formed cladding is thin aluminum sheet bent to shape through a series of rollers. Extruded cladding is heated aluminum forced through a die, so it is thicker, resists dents and keeps a tight edge against the wood.
After the cladding, compare the insulated glass unit, the low-E coating and how the divided lites are made. Those three decide how the window performs and how it reads from the street far more than the badge on the sticker.
The inside of the window is furniture, and the species sets its character. The common premium choices each do something different.
The sash can arrive primed for your painter, prefinished in a stain, or bare for a finish matched on site to your cabinetry. We settle that on the elevations before anything is ordered, because the finish is part of the order, not an afterthought.
A double-hung sash moves both halves up and down, so warm air can leave through the top while cooler air comes in below, which is why older houses in warm climates relied on it. A casement swings on side hinges and seals by pressing its sash against the frame. Fixed picture units carry the largest glass. A clad wood order often mixes all three on one elevation, with matched sightlines across them.
Wood is only half of the comfort story in Austin, where highs pass 90 degrees on about 123 days a year. The glass does the rest.
A true divided lite holds separate panes in the sash. A simulated divided lite puts dimensional bars on the outside and inside of one insulated unit, with a spacer between the panes so the grid casts a real shadow. Flat grilles sealed between the glass are the cheap version, and several of the neighborhoods we serve refuse them outright.
We publish no price for clad wood, because the figure depends on choices only you can make and an opening only we can measure. Here is what moves it.
All of it is settled at the free in-home measure, where we look at every opening and give you a written price and scope.
Clad wood is often the window a neighborhood's rules point to, and we check the current rule for your address at quote time.
Tarrytown sits inside the City of Austin, and parts of the older West Austin streets fall in or near historic districts, so a house there is checked against the City's review before a sash is ordered. We prepare the elevations and product specifications a reviewer asks for and work through the submission with you.
The process
Four steps, and nothing is ordered until you have signed off on the drawings and the price.
We measure every opening, check the framing and the header, and talk through glass, frame material and how each window should operate.
You get drawings of every unit for your approval and for any HOA or historic review, with one written price.
Units are ordered to the approved sizes and glass package, and checked against the drawings when they arrive.
Old units out, openings flashed, new units set, sealed and water tested, then trim and cleanup.
Service area
Questions
The glass package, the cladding type, the interior species and finish, the grille type, the size and count of openings, any header work, access, and any historic or HOA review. The free in-home measure turns those into a written price.
We do not name or represent any maker. We compare the construction that matters, extruded cladding, the glass package, the grille and the interior wood, and specify a unit that meets it.
It depends on the manufacturer, the species and the glass. Clad wood is built to order, and we give you the date in writing with the quote.
If the sash members are largely sound, repair can be the right answer, and on a City of Austin historic property it is the first answer the standards ask for. Where the sash has failed or the house is not under review, clad wood gives you real wood inside with a low-upkeep exterior.
Usually. Barton Creek and Steiner Ranch both review window changes, and a historic property goes through the City's review. We prepare the drawings and specifications and help file them.
A low-E coating chosen for low solar heat gain inside an insulated unit. The NFRC label on each unit shows its SHGC, and Travis County's energy code sets the ceiling it must meet.
We measure every opening ourselves, look at the trim and the wall around it, talk through species, cladding and grilles, and follow up with elevations and a written quote.
Yes, every job carries a written warranty, which we go through with you alongside the quote.
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.
