Campbell & West San Jose Real Estate, brought to you by the Zanger Team at Referral Realty

    The age and condition of windows should be part of any home-buying decision.

    If the windows are new and fit in with the look and age of the house, then check it off your list of concerns and move on.

    If the windows are old and need to be refurbished to make them work as they were designed or need to be replaced with more energy-efficient models, then you’ll need to figure those costs into the equation.

    If the house has a few windows, replacing them might not be a budget-breaker. If you live in a house with 25 or more windows of various sizes, expect money to be tight for awhile.

    How expensive? A recent estimate for replacing five double-hung wood windows with new wood windows in a 90-year-old house was $2,500, or $500 per window, including labor.   One problem with replacing windows in older houses is that they are often oddsized. Before World War II, there was no universal construction standard, so builders made windows in sizes unique to that house.

    Replacing the old windows requires often-expensive customization.     

    In addition, when replacing a window, you have to consider how the new window fits the overall appearance of the house.

    Sometimes, the decision to replace windows in an older house doesn’t rest solely with the homeowner. In historic districts, there are rules governing replacement windows.

    Whatever changes you make to the exterior of your house are governed by those rules, and even if the windows you want are more efficient than what you have now, you have to comply with what the historic commission wants.

    In new construction, standard windows are not that expensive compared with the total cost of the house -  about 3 percent of the total cost. However, special windows  -  transoms, half-moons and Palladian  -  add a considerable amount to the cost. For a $300,000, 3,200-square-foot house, that means $9,000. Divide that by 25 standard windows, and you are talking $360 a window. Vinyl windows  -  which are common in new construction  -  are less expensive than wood ones. The price difference between the two is about $60. But price should not be the sole deciding factor.

    A lot of people who want replacement windows really don’t know what the windows are supposed to do, or aren’t really up to the latest advances in energy efficiency.

    Efficient windows are much more widely available than they were a decade ago, thanks to the rapid growth of new technologies.

    Windows in very old or historic houses usually operate surprisingly well. A lot of old house owners like living in them, and they have maintained the windows. To make older windows more efficient, homeowners strip and paint each sash, replace the glass and hardware, and install new weights and chains so that they move up and down easily.     

    According to the nonprofit Alliance to Save Energy in Washington, replacing windows adds value to a house in several ways.  

    It improves  the appearance and resale of the home. It reduces maintenance costs such as painting, and makes cleaning easier with tilt-sash designs.

    It improves comfort by making windows feel warmer in winter, or cutting down unwanted solar heat in summer, and it reduces damage to furnishings by blocking ultraviolet light that can damage fabrics and other materials.

    According to data collected by Remodeling and Realtor magazines, every dollar will return 96 cents on that investment if the house is sold within a year of completing the work. That is a national figure, however. The actual return could be much higher, depending on the area in which you live.

~Realty Times

WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET IN THIS RELAXED FAMILY HOME WHERE EVERY ROOM IS MEANT TO BE USED-AND IS-BY EVERYONE, EVERY DAY.

At Annie and Rob Lazarus’s home, nothing is uptight, off limits, or hidden away. Rob’s 30-inch TV is front and center in the living room, and when the dining room gets a little crowded, the family pulls open French doors and slides part of the table onto the porch. “On Thanksgiving, we’ll have 23 people at that table and I’ll make a toast and apologize for the tight fit,” Annie says, “But people say they love it because it’s cozy.”

After living in a house with closed-off spaces and seldom-used rooms the California couple took a waste-not approach to building a home. On the main level, the kitchen, living room, and dining room dissolve into one another-and into the outdoors, thanks to maxed out windows. The closest thing to formal is the back porch, with its chandelier and fireplace. And forget about the master suite being a parent-only zone. It’s the preferred spot for the three kids, ages 2 to 12, to read and get ready for bed. “Our house doesn’t have formal divisions of space,” Rob says. “If you have kids, you have to be about casual living so you’re not stressed all the time.”

The couple was also mindful of green building practices. Prefabricated structural insulated panels (SIPs) made with recycled materials make up the walls. “They come on a flatbed and workers literally tilt them up and build the house like Legos,” says Annie, who designed the house. Rob pulled redwood planks from an old carport to reuse for porch floors. And solar cells on the roof power the house.

As for that TV Annie calls “the monster”, she tamed it by surrounding it with cabinets, a solution that not only helps it blend in, but stores lots of stuff in this not-so-large home. “Sometimes I wish we could pop everything out, but in reality, the kids barely even use their own bathroom,” Annie says. “For us, this home works.”

~Better Homes and Gardens (August 2008)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT CHRIS ZANGER WITH THE ZANGER TEAM AT REFERRAL REALTY. 

CALL [408] 914-5046, OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.THEZANGERTEAM.COM

     Solar powered and earth-bermed homes had all the trappings of the future. Forty-plus years ago, there were talks, studies, and journals all extolling the 21st Century as a time of alternative energy sources that were plentiful, clean and cheap.

     Funny how we were supposed to have lots of cool stuff happen in the 21st Century. So far, the coolest things that have really affected my life differently are the PC and the microwave. Other than those two inventions (not including Velcro) my life hasn’t changed that much. Pretty much, I still drive in a gas-guzzling car (no electric car on my horizon, yet), turn on the lights using electricity and incandescent bulbs (the same type and from the same company my parents used) and this last Thanksgiving, I still cooked The Bird in a convection oven overnight at about 250-degrees F  -  notice, I didn’t even use the Celsius reading that we were supposed to be using across the land by now.

     We can only hope that the latest venue of alternative energy-sapping homes being touted by the National Association of Home Builders will actually take root in the North American culture. The Zero Energy Home (ZEH) opened last month in Tucson, Ariz., in the John Wesley Miller Companies’ Armory Park del Sol community. This is a community of alternative energy homes, which use an average of less than a dollar a day for heating and cooling through a partnership with Tucson Electric Power and Global Solar Energy. The community makes extensive use of active and passive solar systems.

     At NAHB’s Research Center Web site, acting president Terre Belt stated, “The Energy Information Administration is forecasting higher residential heating bills this winter, and consumers are looking to build more energy-efficient homes. As energy prices rise and consumers become more aware of the need to reduce energy use, it seems prudent to build homes that conserve and produce energy, and to make existing homes conserve more energy. The Zero Energy Home is designed to demonstrate how to build an affordable and aesthetically-pleasing home that is also energy efficient.” Builder John Wesley Miller, added, “What we’re literally doing here is building a small power plant one house at a time. Once we monitor the success of this home, it’s likely that we will build more in this community.” The ZEH is part of a national initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Energy through its National Renewable Energy Laboratory, according to MillionSolarRoofs.org, a Web site dedicated to the promotion of solar-energy housing. 

      The site says the primary goal of the initiative is to introduce the ZEH concept into the mainstream homebuilding industry. Will it take root? We can only hope so. Homeowners of zero energy structures could actually receive a credit from the power company if their state-of-the-art, energy-efficient dwellings return energy back to the utility grid. The unique construction, along with appliances with commercially available Renewable Energy systems, work together to use very little energy, and when possible, return energy to the grid.

~Realty Times

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT CHRIS ZANGER WITH THE ZANGER TEAM AT REFERRAL REALTY. 

CALL [408] 914-5046, OR VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.THEZANGERTEAM.COM