PRESERVING WINDOWS TO THE PAST

Author(s): James Sullivan, Globe Correspondent Date: July 30, 2006 Page: 1 Section: Globe North

There's a housing battle of historic proportions building north of Boston and across the Commonwealth.

Like painted window sashes in humid weather, disputes over historical homes are even stickier than usual, as homeowners grapple with preservationists over traditional guidelines and modern materials. "There's a lot of hot air on this issue," said Claire Dempsey, interim director of the Preservation Studies program at Boston University.

The city of Beverly was recently taken to court over its Historic District Commission's refusal to allow a condominium owner to install vinyl windows. In Salem, one homeowner who was unhappy with being regulated "consciously made the home look like an eyesore," according to one observer.

And two Historic District commissioners in Gloucester recently resigned in protest over the board's approval of vinyl replacement windows on a home in the city's historic district.

"I'm tired of everyone trying to lower the bar," said Prudence Fish, who quit along with a colleague, Margaret Flavin. "Gloucester is so permeated with vinyl, there's hardly anything left that's an honest house. I call it the `buried city.' "

Vinyl windows, increasingly in demand since the 1980s for their low maintenance and energy efficiency, surpassed wood windows in sales for the first time in 1999, according to one study. Given the preponderance of old homes on the North Shore and the rising cost of heating energy, the vinyl vs. wood debate won't be resolved anytime soon.

Topsfield's Alison Hardy, who runs a wood-window repair business called The Window Woman of New England, said she gets a lot of her business from "disgruntled" homeowners who initially want to go to vinyl replacement. They often live in historic districts where they are required to get repair quotes for their wooden windows before the board will consider vinyl.

One man in Salem "was completely convinced there was no way his old windows could be saved," Hardy said, "and now he's starting to restore them."

She said she had another client in Danvers who put in vinyl replacement windows on the first floor of her 1910 house and then had Hardy's company restore the second-floor windows.

Hardy also restored windows for Kevin O'Connor, now in his fourth year as host of PBS's "This Old House," who has an 1894 Queen Anne Victorian in Beverly. The windows were failing badly when he and his wife moved in.

"We rearranged the furniture to pull away from the windows," he said. The cost of repairing his ornately detailed windows was considerable, he admitted: "We thought long and hard about these windows. I don't have an endless bank account, like most people."

In the end, he said, "I took 112-year-old windows and, in my opinion, added another 75 years. It's a bargain."

A properly restored wooden window, together with a good storm window, said O'Connor, can provide a comparable R-value (the standard measurement of thermal insulation) to a new vinyl replacement. "And talk about the value of curb appeal that's it right there."

Some consumers are starting to question the window industry's contention that vinyl replacements are much more energy-efficient than well-maintained wooden frames. And some say the vinyl seal will fail in 20 or 30 years. Yet the vinyl industry is booming.

"People have bought all of the salespeople's claims for replacement windows," Hardy said. "They've completely taken the bait."

But the industry is getting better at simulating a historic look, according to Ken Monroe, millwork manager at Beverly's Moynihan Lumber. In the past few years, companies such as Marvin and Anderson, he said, have made "terrific leaps and bounds" with the traditional look.

"It's pretty new, in the scheme of things," says Monroe. "There are very few manufacturers that still do an authentic wood window. Everyone seems to be moving to those low-maintenance exteriors."

Margaret Flavin, the other commissioner who resigned in protest, said she considers vinyl windows to be the latest in a long line of dubious "improvements," from asphalt and asbestos shingles to aluminum siding.

"It all goes back to the same thing," she said. "The natural materials prove to be long-lived."

Windows are far and away the biggest headache for preservationists, according to William Finch, chairman of Beverly's Historic District Commission and co-owner of the historic preservation consultancy Finch & Rose. While paint colors are an ongoing concern and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) fencing is an occasional issue, nothing, he said, prompts heated debate like windows.

It's a "slippery slope problem," Finch said. "If you do it for one, then the next homeowner says, `Why can't I?' "

Playing the preservationist cop has clearly taken its toll. "The whole concept of telling somebody what to do with the outside of their house is anti-American to many people," he said with a hint of disgust.

Fish, the former commissioner, worked for years in real estate, where she specialized in older homes.

"I was in Newburyport when urban renewal was going on," she said. "Historic houses are 90 percent of what I've done, real estate-wise."

She pointed out that Newburyport is one of many local towns that don't have an officially regulated historic district. One applicant in Gloucester, she said, tried to argue that some owners in Ipswich's historic district were switching to vinyl replacement windows.

"I had to laugh," she recalled. "Ipswich has no historic district. It has some covenanted houses and an area on the National Register, but no historic district."

Having quit the commission, she's more convinced than ever that vinyl windows are a scourge. "Old windows can look very shabby, but they can be put back together and reglazed like brand new."

Her advice to homeowners: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And if it is, fix it with a like product."

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