Storm Window Types for Older Homes
Which storm fits depends on how you use the window, how the house looks from the street, and whether the storm goes inside or out. Today's storms are not the seasonal panels that came down every spring. DOE describes modern low-E storms as permanently mounted, made in fixed or operable versions so the window behind keeps working the way it always has, and lists less outside noise among the benefits. Here are the five main kinds, with what each does best.
Triple-Track Aluminum Exterior Storms
Three tracks hold an upper glass panel, a lower glass panel and a half screen, and you slide them to pick glass or screen without going outside. They suit double-hungs you open often. A good installer will bed the frame in sealant along the sides and top and leave the bottom edge free to drain. NPS warns against bare aluminum on historic windows, so ask for a factory paint finish that suits the trim.
Two-Track and Fixed-Panel Storms
A two-track storm has one sliding panel and one fixed panel, and swaps glass for screen by hand. A fixed storm is a single sheet of glass in a thin frame, with no meeting rail across the middle. In our view fixed panels look cleanest from the street and seal best, but they stop the window behind them from opening. Use them on picture windows, stair windows and sashes that never get opened anyway.
Interior Storm Panels: Compression-Fit and Magnetic
Interior storms go on from inside. Compression-fit panels have a soft tubular gasket around the edge and press into the window casing. Magnetic panels click onto a thin steel strip fastened around the opening. Both come out for cleaning or summer. They're handy above the first floor and on houses where nothing on the facade may change. The NPS brief adds one caution: moist room air trapped between an interior storm and a cold old window can condense on the prime sash. Its answer is a tight seal on the interior storm with a little ventilation left around the old window.
Low-E Glass Storm Panels
Older storms were plain clear glass. Low-E storms carry a coating that reflects heat back into the house in winter and helps keep it cooler in summer. The U.S. Department of Energy says they reflect radiant heat 35% better than clear storms. DOE also points buyers to the Attachments Energy Rating Council (AERC), which publishes energy ratings for the storm windows it has rated, so ask for the AERC rating on the panel quoted.
Custom Wood Storm Sash
On a landmark house, a wood storm sash built to the exact opening often looks most at home. It's a flat frame with one pane or a muntin pattern that lines up with the window behind it. Wood storms hang from hooks on the outside casing, or sit in the opening on turn buttons, and some swap to screens in summer. NPS lists wood alongside aluminum, vinyl and plastic as storm frame materials, and to our eye wood is the easiest of the four to blend into a painted wood house. Wood storms need paint like any wood window, but from the street they read as part of the house rather than an add-on.
Why Richmond homeowners call Richmond Expert Windows
- A single independent window contractor gets your request, never a lead auction
- Every opening is measured on site before a number is put on paper
- Ask for the quote in writing: unit series, glass package, install method
- Homeowners pay nothing for the referral or the visit
Storm Windows in Richmond's Old and Historic Districts
Exterior storm windows are on the short list of projects that CAR staff can approve administratively in a City Old and Historic District, without going before the full Commission. The CAR's own guidelines for staff approval, adopted January 14, 2020, set the terms:
No damage
The storm can't damage or hide the window sash and frame.Matching divisions
Its divisions match the original window or it has none at all.Paint
The color goes with the building's paint scheme, and aluminum storms are primed and painted.Not allowed by staff
False muntins, storms that turn an operable window into a fixed one, and tinted or reflective glass all need a full Certificate of Appropriateness.
An application is still required. The wider district rules, and why replacing the windows is so hard there, are on the wood window restoration page.
Storm Window Cost and Energy Savings
HomeGuide's national figure for storm windows is $150 to $400 each, installed; no Richmond-only price is published. DOE says low-E storm windows, interior or exterior, can save 10% to 30% on heating and cooling costs, depending on the window behind them. It puts the savings close to a full replacement at about a third of the cost, and says storms can cut whole-house air leakage by 10% or more. Our take: that math is strongest on a house with sound original sash, where the alternative is tearing out windows that could last decades more.
Richmond's climate gives a storm work in both seasons. Heating degree days at the airport run about 3,736 a year against about 1,561 cooling degree days, so winter heat loss is the bigger bill, but summer cooling load is real too. A low-E storm helps on both counts, which is why it's the panel we'd ask about first on a south- or west-facing wall. On a shaded north wall, a clear storm still does the main job of stopping drafts.
Storm Window Quotes: What to Check
- 1
Measurements per opening
Old openings are rarely square, so each storm should be sized to its own window. - 2
Weatherstripping and joints
DOE advises weatherstripping at every movable joint and frames with interlocking or overlapping joints. - 3
Glass type
Clear or low-E, and the AERC rating if low-E. - 4
Finish
A painted color that matches the trim, not bare mill aluminum. - 5
Fastening
How the frame attaches, and whether removing it later would leave the original casing intact. - 6
Screens
Which windows get a screen, half or full, and whether the screen is part of the storm or a separate panel. - 7
Paint disturbance
In a house built before 1978, scraping the casing to fit a storm falls under the lead-safe rules on the wood window restoration page.
See Window Sash Replacement in Richmond, VA when the original sash behind the storm has given out. See Window Repair in Richmond, VA for broken panes, cords and locks to fix before the storms go on.