Start with conditions, not a product
No matter the frame material, flashing and sill condition still determine how the window actually performs.
Build a complete scope
- What is installed now and whether pre-war sash is worth restoring
- Whether the age of the coatings dictates the method used on site
- Every opening gauged on site, because pre-war sizes vary room to room
- Frame material and thermal break sized for lake-effect winters
- Sealing round the frame, trim reinstated, removal of the old, and cover
South Bend context
That layered building history left South Bend with window stock spanning more than a century of styles. Chapin Park's roughly 260 contributing buildings, developed mostly between 1890 and 1910 on the former Horatio Chapin estate, carry Second Empire, Queen Anne, and Gothic Revival openings; later additions platted through the 1920s brought their own sash proportions; and the postwar and modern subdivisions that followed brought yet another generation of window sizing. Matching a replacement to the right opening, for the right era of South Bend home, is the whole job.