Boy oh boy...Do I have the cleanest windows ever?! Like they're not even there! Cuz they're not. Thanks to Obama's weatherproofing incentive program (what a great idea!) we got the windows of our dreams for the sunroom. I loved how the old windows looked (true mullions, very sunroomy looking) but not how they performed. They were so drafty we caulked them shut so in the summer I baked in that room. Yeah, we're some of the few folks who don't have air conditioning. About 10 years ago we replaced all the windows in our house but the quote for the sunroom was as much as the entire house so we opted not to do them then. A few weeks ago we special ordered the nine sunroom windows, five basement windows and a storm door for the front door. The weather couldn't have been nicer for Window Replacement Day. We got the old windows (my husband likes to say "winders") off and the hardest part of this entire job was taking off the copper weatherstripping that was put on probably in 1930. Every inch was a tack refusing to come out so the copper had to be cut around each tack, pulled off and the tack pounded further into the wood.
I do encourage anyone to do this themselves. Replacement windows are rather easy to put in. As long as they're not up too high. The most dangerous part of this job was getting poked by the holly bush outside. My hands did take a beating with that copper stripping though.
I LOVE windows that open and close, open and close. These windows open with a crank and I really do like going in every day and cranking them open and closed, with a big smile on my face.
Caluked, painted and ready for winter. Bring it on!
5 comments:
A "great idea?" I guess it is for YOU . . . not so great for me in that now my taxes will be too high for me to get my own new windows while I am forced to help pay for yours. :(
Looks great Dalis and that room will be so nice with a breeze!!!!
Oh, how pretty~!
Dear Anonymous.
Wow, where to begin? Here's how tax credits work. I buy qualifying windows. (A quick aside on that. The R-value for single pane windows is about 1. The qualifying windows are 3.3 times better than that. In our case replacing windows in this one room will lower our greenhouse gas emissions by 1500 lbs per year. That might not impress you, so let me take a different approach: we will save about $3000 over ten years. You can do this calculation for yourself here ).
After buying the windows, I fill out a form on my federal taxes (Form 5695) and put the credit, about 30% of the purchase price, on the second page of Form 1040, line 52. This and all other tax credits (like adoption, child care, etc.) reduce our tax burden. So, you see, it is a reduction in taxes! I am not taking your money, I am just giving the federal government less of mine! I would have thought you’d like that.
Now, we could argue long and hard about what the federal government should be doing with our money. For example, I am no big fan of wars, and it bothers me enormously that much, much more of my money has gone to fighting pointless wars than helping people or providing tax credits for energy conservation over my tax-paying years. It also bothers me that people in the US have been so slow to pick up on the twin threats to our economy from the end-of-oil and climate change, both of which are real enough.
So, we all can be happy about the energy conservation tax credits. Lower taxes, less dependence on oil, lower greenhouse emissions.
Hello, Dalis. How've you been? I was looking online for information about replacing windows when I saw your blog and got curious. You surely have a warm, homey place there thanks to those windows. I surely want to have the same feel for my house up here in Canada, and I'm looking right now at this beautiful Toronto windows maker which offers a wide range of choices for windows. I am eying for them for my window purchase should I materialize my plan.
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