With 30 years of experience building and selling windows, Alan Hart-McArthur has become known for his expertise in all things glass.

To the division manager, selling windows is about meeting customers’ needs and providing the best value, even if that means less profit.

That’s why Hart-McArthur, formerly the owner of Versatile Sash and Woodwork Inc., often tells his customers that sometimes – though not always – it’s more energy efficient and cost effective to preserve older structures’ original windows rather than replace them. According to him, the and some local contractors, there is a common misconception that new, insulated windows are always the best option.

“There’s great ability in existing windows to restore,” he said. “You can get a very comfortable level of performance with a much lower direct cost.”

Hart-McArthur said the energy associated with the manufacture and installation of new windows, which are commonly made from fossil fuels, can be much greater than for the repair of existing windows. He said that an old wood window sometimes can be repaired by simply adding an aluminum storm window outside and putty inside. Only replacing the glass, and not the whole window, also can be effective, he added.

Hart-McArthur believes an insulated window sometimes can be more expensive, even if its initial cost seems reasonable.

“I always tell my customers that the direct cost of buying a replacement window is not the whole cost,” he said. “If it is a wood product, it’s got to get painted again; if it’s a vinyl product, you have very expensive fossil fuels; if you’re ripping the original wooden window sashes out of the frame, you got landfill and disposal costs.”

Portland’s Architectural Heritage Center has pointed this out recently, hosting workshops to help educate the public and local contractors about the benefits of preserving original windows. Val Ballestrem, education manager at the center, said one emphasis in the workshops was that an old building’s ceilings and walls, if not insulated properly, waste more energy than windows.

He said that insulated windows can be less efficient at preventing air leaks than original windows.

“You put this triple-pane window in an old house, and it still leaks around the side because you just can’t fit it no matter what you do,” Ballestrem said. “On the other hand, you’ve got a window that was built specifically for that house. It’s lived with that house for 100 years, and if the house is a little off-kilter now, the window has adjusted.”

Carl Thompson, certified home analyst at , believes it’s almost impossible to fully seal air leaks around original windows of old structures because they become off plumb over time. He disagreed with Ballestrem’s statement that insulated windows can’t fit in old homes.

“I would very much disagree with that – it’s what we do every day,” he said. “It’s not like we’re taking a Home Depot window and trying to make it fit in a hole; these are custom-made.”

Meanwhile, Mark Urban, owner of , which restores old homes, said insulated windows commonly fail after 20 years and that repair can be difficult.

“They’re so expensive to repair; people are going to be like, ‘Why did they ever invent these things?’ ” he said. “I think we have a ticking time bomb in American architecture because everybody is using so much more glass than they did 50 years ago, and I think everyone is going to say, ‘Oh my God’ when they get their bill and five of their windows every year have failed.”

But Dylan Aune, owner of , said the energy needed to replace an old window or repair an insulated window is not much.

“Old wood windows are very easy to change in and out,” he said. “In a truck with the right tools, you can change out all the windows in a day – that’s hardly a use of any energy. I can change out the glass or any of the units (of an insulated window) in 20 minutes.”

Urban said that he and Hart-MacArthur’s former company, Versatile Sash and Woodwork, once collected energy efficiency data for insulated windows and original windows. According to the data, if an aluminum storm window is installed outside of an old window and an energy panel is installed inside, efficiency can be only 15 percent less than for an insulated window.

However, Urban and Hart-McArthur agree that preserving original windows is not always the right option. For instance, the cost and effort to repair unique windows – such as an antique wavy one – can be extremely high. Also, insulated windows are far superior for blocking noise.

Hart-McArthur added that Portland’s mild climate also increases the value of preserving original windows. He said that insulated windows are much more effective in extreme weather conditions.

Of course, in the end, it’s the customer’s decision – not the contractor’s. But Hart-McArthur believes more people are recognizing original windows’ worth.

“I think the Northwest is becoming a focal point; we’ve seen a pretty strong movement recently of more and more folks to say, “I don’t need to tear out and have a full replacement of my existing windows,” he said.

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The developers of a condo project in Northwest Portland this year have accumulated fines totaling $9,060.81 – and that amount appears likely to grow.

replaced existing wooden window sashes with vinyl ones when it converted the ‘s apartments into condominiums in 2007. But the building sits within a historic district – and the developers did not seek historic design review. The developers were informed that the windows need to be replaced; however, they are still seeking an affordable solution that the city would approve.

Carlton Court, at Northwest 17th Avenue and Everett Street, was one of several “vintage” buildings that Benjamin Stutz and Jeff Mincheff transformed into condos a few years ago, said Peter Finley Fry, a consultant working for the developers. But when the project was done, Portland’s code enforcement office was notified of the building’s new, bright-white vinyl windows sashes.

The building is a “secondary contributing resource” in the Alphabet Historic District, so major exterior modifications are subject to historic design review. City planners told the developers that there’s no chance that vinyl windows would pass that review, and so the project entered the city’s code enforcement process. The developers appealed at every level up to the state Land Use Board of Appeals, but in October 2010 they exhausted their last appeal.

Then the city in January began assessing a monthly fee of $1,282.60 for the code violation. That fee won’t go away until something changes, according to Mike Liefeld, code enforcement manager for the city.

“Their options were to replace the vinyl windows with original wood windows, or start the design review process to get something else approved,” Liefeld said.

Installation of wood windows would be too expensive, Fry said. He estimated that the developers spent $80,000 to replace the several types of windows with vinyl ones; use of wood windows would have cost $300,000 to $400,000 more.

“If they’d have known they had to do wood windows in the first place, they wouldn’t have done the project at all,” Fry said. “(Neglect) would have caused the building to rot.”

However, the city contends that the vinyl windows have a big effect on the building and its contribution to the historic district.

“They have a lot of impact on the character of the building,” said planner Dave Skilton, who works in the land use services division of the city’s Bureau of Development Services. “We’re striving to get back a modicum of the (building’s) original character.”

One solution Fry has suggested is to paint the bright-white vinyl of the window sashes a darker color, so the impact isn’t so jarring. But Skilton said that solution “is not likely to work.”

The vinyl window issue is complicated by the fact that it’s a condo building, Fry added. The 37 units are titled separately, so each window change would require approval from each individual owner, he said.

The Carlton Court homeowners association is planning to discuss the issue at an upcoming meeting, according to its president, Michele Mather. She said the association hadn’t asked its members yet if they would allow their vinyl windows to be switched out with wooden ones.

“It’s just our hope as the HOA that this comes to an approved situation quickly and that it’s something all our owners can feel good about,” Mather said.

Fry said he received permission from the Carlton Court homeowners association to at least submit an application for historic design review on its behalf. But he doesn’t know yet what that application will include.

“We have two options – one is to work with the city for a solution that will work with everyone,” Fry said. “The other, if it’s not possible to reach a realistic compromise … I would have to propose something and we would have to fight it out (with the city). I haven’t got to the point of that decision. We’re in an intractable situation.”

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After meeting with the Portland Design Commission twice, and are ready to move forward with a 92-unit, six-story apartment project – vinyl windows and all – at 23rd Avenue and Lovejoy Street in Northwest Portland.

Critics of vinyl windows say they are inferior quality and less visually appealing, and the design commission has often rejected attempts to incorporate them into developments.

But vinyl windows are less expensive than fiberglass or aluminum alternatives, so they are an attractive option for new projects, according to Paul Jeffreys, a senior project designer and an associate principal at SERA.

“The apartment market right now is pretty good, but it’s still pretty tight,” he said. “We’re finding that the price point on vinyl windows makes these projects a little more possible.”

However, approval for such windows can be difficult to obtain from the design commission, which reviews designs of new buildings and major renovations in the city.

“In the past, vinyl windows were proposed (to the commission) and they weren’t high enough quality,” city planner Chris Caruso said.

Historic preservation advocate Val Ballestrem, education manager for the and the , explained some of the concerns about vinyl windows. They may contain toxic materials, can be troublesome to repair, and are available in a limited number of colors – including an “unnatural” bright white, “which is one reason why they’re so obvious,” he said.

Ballestrem added that vinyl windows stick out when they replace wood and metal windows in a historic building, or when they are part of a new building in a historic district.

“For people to understand (the difference) they actually have to see it, but once you see it you can always spot it in an instant,” he said. “It messes up the character of a building.”

Caruso said that when vinyl windows are proposed, the design commission typically recommends that designers consider using fiberglass frames “because you can get a thinner profile than with vinyl windows.”

But for the apartment project at 23rd and Lovejoy, the team is using , which have a lifetime guarantee – a “very good” sign of quality, Jeffreys said. The windows are manufactured as “commercial” grade rather than lower “residential” grade. They also have gray frames instead of white, and will be set back in the building so their profile won’t be as visible from the street, Jeffreys said.

The project team last month brought in prototype windows to a design commission meeting to demonstrate the product’s quality.

“Some people have connotations with vinyl windows because of residential construction,” said Tom Dichera, vice president of development at C.E. John Co. “These aren’t those. They are commercial grade, high quality and do very well from an energy point of view.”

The design commission approved the project last month after two hearings just two weeks apart – a “good” speed, Jeffreys said.

“With improvements in vinyl window technology, in the commercial quality and color selection, the commission has been more inclined to approve them if they work with the building,” Caruso said.

Jeffreys said it’s not any easier nowadays to gain approval for vinyl windows, but he added that he believes the commission OK’d the ones proposed for the building at 23rd and Lovejoy because they are “high performance.”

Another project by C.E. John, an apartment building at Northwest 23rd Avenue and Raleigh Street designed by GBD Architects, will feature the same kind of vinyl windows and also was approved by the design commission last month. The building will offer smaller apartment units and include a mechanized parking structure.

Contractor will start work on both projects early next year, Dichera said. The Lovejoy project should wrap up in 14 months, and the Raleigh project will finish in 10 to 11 months, he said.

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When Sam Pardue looked into fixing the “beautiful, leaky, old windows” in his 1906 Portland home, he became so frustrated by the lack of options that he began developing his own solution.

Pardue came up with a customized, acrylic insert that boosts the performance of single-pane windows to the equivalence of standard, double-pane windows at about 20 percent of the cost. The window inserts stay in place because of a patent-pending spring bulb that creates a seal similar to that of a refrigerator door.

One year ago, Pardue left his position as CEO of Portland-based photography product company Lensbaby to fully pursue starting , a business that has gained a significant amount of attention from customers, clean technology investors and utilities.

A grant from the Oregon Built Environment and Sustainable Technologies Center helped secure Portland General Electric’s participation in the review of an Indow Windows pilot installation planned for later this summer. As a regional semifinalist in the Cleantech Open business competition, Indow Windows has been able to refine its pitch to potential investors.

“The Cleantech Open is a different type of competition or engagement than anything else out there as far as I can tell,” Pardue said. “It provides you with coaching and business plan development and resources which are designed to help companies succeed in the marketplace, regardless of whether you win the competition or not.”

Some Indow Windows customers had faced the same problem that had frustrated Pardue: attractive, historic windows that were drafty but irreplaceable. Indow Windows were installed this year in a home listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and Pardue hopes others will see that the product does not detract from existing architecture.

But people also are interested in installing Indow Windows to save money on utility payments. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that windows can account for up to 25 percent of a home’s heating bill.

Noise reduction is another selling point. The company recently introduced an acoustic-grade insert that cuts outdoor sound by 70 percent, and has drawn attention from commercial customers including the Leftbank Annex in Northeast Portland and the Olympic Mills Commerce Center.

Pardue knew that for Indow Windows to continue growing, it would need a system to manage all of the information pertinent in a mass customization business. The startup conquered that milestone just a few weeks ago, he said.

The company invested in customized software that will enable technicians to measure windows with a laser tool, and then wirelessly transmit the dimensions to a web application installed on a laptop at the Indow Windows manufacturing facility in North Portland.

“With the push of a button, any dealer anywhere can submit a purchase order to us and it’ll be received into our cloud-based database, and from there we can drive all manufacturing and order fulfillment,” Pardue explained.

“We invested quite a bit of time, effort and money in order to develop a complete IT system that will allow us to do business in Salem or Seattle or St. Louis, and that’s really the key in making this a national business.”

Indow Windows has drawn customers through a large referral network in the Portland area, but it plans to transition to working with wholesale dealers in the fall. Pardue said he is discussing wholesale arrangements with about a dozen dealers in Oregon and Washington, including businesses that sell curtains and blinds, home contractors, solar panel installers and window shops.

The list price for customized panes is $20 per square foot, with a nominal measurement and installation fee.

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Oregon’s State Historic Preservation Office is supporting a nation-wide movement among preservationists to save historic windows.

“When people think of energy efficiency, new windows immediately come to mind,” said SHPO Restoration Specialist Joy Spears. Spears is among a group of preservationists in the National Window Preservation Standards Collaborative. The group is trying to educate people on techniques to improve energy efficiency of windows without replacing them, a practice that compromises the historic integrity of old homes and buildings.

The group recently convened a conference in Kentucky and plans to release a report in December 2011, outlining the effectiveness of alternatives to replacing heritage windows.

Spears said that some suggested alternatives to completely replacing windows include adding storm windows or weather strips. The group plans to create a book of information to help home owners complete upgrades themselves or enlist a contractor to perform upgrades in a heritage-friendly way.

Spears said that the NWPSC’s ideas are “nothing new,” but the practice of using storm windows or weather strips has fallen out of favor in upgrades with the new energy-efficiency movement.

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