One of the main benefits of home replacement windows, both vinyl home replacement windows and fiberglass home replacement windows, is the easy maintenance regimen both require. Old fashioned wooden framed windows needed lots of care: annual or semi-annual painting, regular checking of the window’s integrity to ensure that the weather hadn’t worked the panes of glass loose, and a laborious cleaning process.
Modern home replacement window manufacturers such as Pella, Andersen, Champion, Harvey and more have all made easy maintenance a priority. They know homeowners want clean, sparkling windows — and they know that most homeowners hate the labor intensive care that old fashioned windows require.
It’s important to remember that window maintenance isn’t just a concern today. It’s going to be an issue tomorrow — and the days and years that come after that. If you, like most people, plan to spend most of your life in your home, you’ll want home replacement windows that offer easy maintenance options.
After all, getting up on a ladder to wash second story windows isn’t a terrible lot of fun when you’re thirty, fit, and flexible. Imagine climbing that same ladder, with window cleaning supplies in tow, sixteen to twenty feet up into the air when you’re seventy. It’s not an attractive thought, is it?
Home replacement window maintenance can be divided into two categories: cleaning the home replacement windows and keeping the exterior frames looking sharp. Let’s address cleaning home replacement windows.
Home replacement windows are often fitted with special ‘tilt in’ hinges. This means that you can clean the exterior and interior of your home replacement windows without ever having to step outside of your home. The attraction of this is immediately obvious — gone forever are the ladders and perilous climbs. No longer do you have to navigate around shrubbery or flowerbeds while trying to clean your windows. You can clean your home replacement windows as often as you’d like to, as accessing the exterior of your windows just became much easier.
Now let’s address keeping the exterior window frames looking sharp. After all, windows are one of the first things people notice about your home. Do you want them to see faded paint, dirt and debris, broken or chipped sills, or other less-than-perfect conditions?
Of course not.
If you have old fashioned wooden framed windows, you’ve got a lot of work on your hands. Keeping those windows looking sharp means regular painting. Cleaning spider webs and wayward leaves from exterior window frames can be difficult when organic matter sticks to splintered, rough surfaces.
Vinyl replacement windows offer the ultimate in easy maintenance. Smooth surfaces never need painting. The color goes through and through — a stray scratch or ding won’t stand out like a sore thumb because the color remains consistent. Couple this with tilt in designs, and the majority of exterior frame cleaning can be achieved without ever setting foot outside your home.
Fiberglass replacement windows do require occasional painting, but not on an annual basis the way traditional wooden framed windows do. Additionally, fiberglass replacement windows also boast an easy clean smooth surface and often tilt in designs.
Remember: maintenance is a life long consideration. Pick the home replacement windows that make it easy for you today and tomorrow!