Making Wood Frame Windows

[Jared Sankovich]

Sapele and accoya seem to be the most common timber window wood.

[Mel Fulks]

Assuming that the house will have a good roof with hangover any kind of kiln dried wood will
last longer than you , and succeeding owners,if used “bark side out “ and kept painted.

[Joe Calhoon]

For a cheaper material that would hold up with paint I would consider Eastern White pine. Heartwood and tight growth rings if you can find it. The big window companies gave wood windows a bad reputation when they started using sapwood for windows. Stay away from Ponderosa Pine. It will rot even in vertical positions. I’ve used a lot of CVG fir, it’s OK vertically. Not cheap anymore. Also white oak is good but makes for heavy windows. A lot of the 100 year old windows were tight grain pine and held up very well. Of course lead paint helped.
my preferred is Sipo Mahogany. Accoya is good but hard to get here and expensive. I prefer it as cladding where no hardware penetrates to avoid corrosion.
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[Kevin Jenness]

I've used Sapele and Sipo (Utile) and the Sipo was more stable. Accoya is very stable and rot resistant but nearly impossible to get here in roughsawn unless you order a unit and expensive, plus suitable only for painted work. I would take a hard look at torrefied wood. White pine is a nice millwork material but hard to get the quality slow grown heartwood.

[Tom M King]

I would stay away from plantation grown Mahogany. It goes by many names. You just don't know what you're really getting and some of it moves with moisture changes more than any other wood I've ever seen.

[Mel Fulks]

Mahogany is great , but so is Platinum ! We are running out of mahogany ….but platinum is always available. High priced stuff for
a house , where not needed is a problem, not a “feature” when you decide to sell.

[William Hodge]

Sapele works pretty well for window frames. Most important is protecting the sash. I use aluminum storms, wooden sash, and wooden interior storms. This combination stops condensation from forming on the glass, because the glass surface temperature is below the dew point.

I make about 50 window frames a year. I make more sash than frames, the sash seem to rot out faster.

Eastern White Pine used to be the go to wood in New England. Everything we made out of Eastern White Pine in the 10980's and 1990's seems to rot out fast. Tight grain, heart wood, salvaged wood, doesn't matter. Water and Pine don't mix.

[Carroll Courtney]

William sometimes when you get chance could you post some pics of your sashes? I didn’t know that sash materials were made for exterior and interior. This is new to me

[Rob Luter]

Where will these be installed (locale)? What style operator (Vertical Hung, Horizontal Sliding, Casement, Fixed)? Will they be single or dual glazed? How will they be finished (inside and out)? Depending on these variables you could have a number of viable choices that run the gamut of material cost.

[Bruce Wrenn]

In working years, I built many replacement window frames using pine from Home Depot. I would search thru stock and pick stock that was mostly clear, or clear, then create a stock pile for when needed. The windows in our house are 44 years old, and only one frame has been replaced. It's the west facing (afternoon sun) window, plus rain storms come from that direction, except for hurricanes. Frames and sashes are natural ( no paint), and were job site treated with a product called "Wood Life," which may no longer be available. For sills, I used solid sill stock from HD, No finger joints to pop open later.

[Mike Wilkins]

10 years ago I built some louvered shutters from Cypress. Painted well and have stood up well even with direct sunlight and seasonal temperature changes.

[Tom M King]

I've never built the jambs, but have built plenty of sash and repaired almost as many 200 year old jambs, but those are all so much different than what you're building that are more like modern window units. I did repair some 1850 window frames that were very large double hung sash.

On all the old windows I always came up with some method to be able to take the sash out to work on them without having to pull nails out of stops. I've used a lot of threaded inserts and bronze machine screws that blend in with the old Heart Pine wood that all these old houses are built with around here.

The really old ones are all single hung, where only the lower sash operates, and it also holds in the top sash, so there are no parting stops. In those 1850 double hung windows the parting stops needed to be replaced after being taken out who knows how many times in 165 years. I made the parting stops out of White Oak and put them in with stainless steel trim screws with small TORX drive screws. The interior stops were the bronze machine screws in threaded inserts.

I don't paint the stops where the sash rests against them when the windows are closed, but wax them good with Renaissance wax. A decade later and they still operate better probably than they ever have.

I do paint the sash all the way across the front unlike can be done with modern windows in aluminum tracks. I don't paint the stops where that paint rests against them.

Having removable stops means that you can take the sash out to paint them and not risk painting them shut. It also allows a few extras sash to be kept on site so if one needs to be taken out to be repaired or repainted there is a replacement that can go right in. Removable with screws means you can take the stops off to remove the sash for whatever purpose without even damaging the paint.

Regardless of the paint sheen the house is painted with, I always paint sash with gloss paint. We pressure wash these museum houses every year, except for the windows, and a Windex hose end sprayer makes the windows like new again.

I always use the highest grade exterior paint that Sherwin Williams sells. I tried their Emerald Rain Refresh when it first came out on a fascia on a rental house we have with no gutters. That paint has been on the fascia for a year or two and it has no black streaks on it from the asphalt shingle roof under big Oak trees. That fascia used to get black streaks on it in a month. It's all I've used since my first trial and will gladly pay the hundred bucks, or so a gallon for it. It saves us a lot of time washing. The only complaints I've heard about it on painting forums is that masking tape won't stick reliably to it.

I use gloss on the sash because it makes the windows shine, and with past paints it was easier to keep clean, but it's not enough surface area to look out of place with the rest of the house.

[Tom M King]

Just noticed that SW Emerald paints, which includes Rain Refresh, is 40% off Feb. 9-19. Even with a pro account there is still a significant discount. This usually just comes up twice a year. It's often on sale 20 or 30 percent off.