Fun with Storm Windows

I've been watching the water run down the windows in my sewing room on particularly cold winter mornings for a while now.  It's starting to damage the paint and it looks like some mold spores are setting up shop.  Mysteriously, all of the other windows in the house have storms except for these two, and it doesn't help that they're single pane windows.

*Very Important*  Condensation on windows doesn't mean that there's something wrong with your windows or that they need to be replaced... it's just got to do with the relative humidity in the house and the temperature outside the house.  What you need is a good storm window, not a new window.  The whole new window industry is such a scam, but that's a rant for another day.  If you're interested in why it's more earth friendly to keep your old windows (and who doesn't want great reasons to save tens of thousands of dollars), read this article.

this actually isn't even that bad

the condensation is making the window frame very sad

In the interest of preserving our original wood windows, I decided that something had to be done!  I have a 3-fold plan of attack to combat the water in my house- storm windows, vapor barrier in the crawlspace, and install a bathroom exhaust fan.  Items 2 and 3 are pretty involved, so naturally I decided to work on the storm windows first.

I wasted nearly a whole day coming up with a plan.  I searched online trying to figure out how to replicate the storms on the other awning windows on our house - which are simply a piece of glass framed in aluminum and held in place by the tension of two screws in the window molding.  I even called a glass shop in the area and was told that "we don't do anything like that".  Seriously people?  You can't do piece of glass with the edge wrapped in metal and you call yourselves a glass shop?  

I sent an email to another glass shop and then headed off to the big box hardware store to see what I could find.  The nice store clerk back in the window/door section helped price a custom storm (hard to find without sashes or screens!) and then sent me home to take measurements.  

I headed home to take measurements and realized that standard exterior storms wouldn't work because there are two windows together and the molding is narrow and funny.  Argh!  Finally, at this point, I decided that I should stop fixating on recreating the existing storms on our other awning windows and start focusing on new solutions that will work just as well.

Starting back at zero.  I look around some more online and see that for historic houses (like Victorians and other with really fancy and special windows) people seem to recommend interior storm windows because it doesn't detract from the fancy windows.  Interior storms, you say?  Then I wouldn't have to get up on a ladder with a screw gun!

I found the website of a guy in New Hampshire who makes interior storm windows.  I called to ask about them and he said that they do help with condensation.  He said that he wouldn't make them for me because I lived too far away, but that it would be easy for me to make myself.  They're basically a sheet of acrylic framed out and edged with weatherstripping.  You place it in inside of your window frame and it stays in place with the tension of the weatherstripping.

Sounds like a fun project!

the initial sketch and dimensions

being tough and manly, cutting the miters by hand

 the acrylic (cut to size at the store) and the two horizontal trim pieces

here's where I lose my carpenter cred - I have to confess that the squiggly line is liquid nails adhesive

*very important*  measure your diagonals because it can look square and have the miters line up, but not actually be square... and it would be very hard to fit a trapezoid into a rectangular window opening ; )

The liquid nails goo was fun to put down and worked perfectly fine.  If I'd been patient enough for my dad to get back to town, he could have cut dados into the molding for the acrylic to sit in which would have been much classier.  But I was impatient excited and wanted to do the project immediately!

Rats!  My first acrylic window was about 1/8" too wide for the opening... so I temporarily moved the weatherstripping to the outside on that piece to keep it airtight.  I imagine that using a putty knife whilst cursing a little will work wonders for jamming that weatherstripping in - if not, I'll sand the side of the molding to fix it.

The other window fit PERFECTLY!!

BEAUTIFUL!  Now, if only the foamy weatherstripping came in white *sigh* (and some caulk in the miter joints and a coat of glossy white wouldn't hurt)
  

Overall, I'm so pleased with how the interior storms turned out (despite the hiccup with the first one).  There's no more water running down the windows!  It was a really easy project.  The hardest part was dealing with the measurements because every 1/8" counts when you're compression fitting something in.   I highly recommend it if you've got a condensation problem.  The estimate I got for purchased ones was $89 per window and I spent around $30 per window on the ones I made.  Acrylic is the single biggest cost, at $15 per sheet for the size I needed.  A few strips of wood molding, tube of liquid nails, and two packages of weather stripping made up the rest of the cost 

Naturally, doing one project tends to create others... as you can see, we never got around to painting the window trim white.  Now that my new white window frames are in there, the cream is looking pretty yucky!  When my husband bought the house, everything in the house, and I mean EVERYTHING was that dirty old flat cream paint - we're talking walls, trim, doors, AND ceiling!  We've been steadily painting the ceilings white and the walls different colors but we haven't made it all the way around the house with the trim yet.