I'm in the process right now of repairing the storm windows on a 1930's era one room school building that I had moved onto my property about 18 years ago. The half-dozen 6' high, non-standard size original windows are too draughty to go without storms, and replacing all of them would be prohibitively expensive for what the building is used for, a workshop/hobby space. When I repainted this summer I removed the storms, and now am in the process of repairing them as best I can. These are cheap, ugly, flimsy aluminium storm windows probably dating back to the 60's or early 70s'. I have found out that it is very difficult to find replacement parts for this type of window. "They don't make 'em any more" (hopefully they are right). I have managed to locate some pieces, and have fabricated others by modifying parts removed from junk storm windows. Once cleaned up and repaired, I painted the bare metal frames, using a coat of metal primer under the same paint I used on the rest of the building. Painted, they don't look half bad, and should save considerably on the heat bill once they are all installed. BTW, those are some nice photos. How do you go about posting photos on this forum? Some others I subscribe to have a button for attachments, but I can't find any clue to how to do it here.

Yes, we did. It took a year of haunting CraigsList and the local junkyards/salvage places to collect all the supplies, then a few months of rehabbing the old sash we found. I just installed them a month ago, in the nick of time for a cold winter here in the Northeast. I was lucky in that the replacement folks left the original frames intact; they just pulled out the sash, pulleys and weights, but the jamb still had the pulley cutout. Once I found the right sized pulleys it was just a matter of reinstalling everything, shaving the sash to fit, weatherstripping, etc. Ha. "Just" a matter of that. But it's absolutely worth it. The new and weatherstripped old wooden sash, even without storms, are just as airtight as those cheap vinyls were. They were awful: poorly sealed, breaking and bowing, half of them wouldn't even open any more - of course, had they been a nicer high-cost version, perhaps we wouldn't have been motivated in the first place. But are vinyls ever nicer, high-cost versions... ? ;-) If folks are seriously that interested in the project, I'm happy to post a few pictures.

Thanks Oberon, I didn't know one could specify a coating on the "outside" of an IG unit. That's a good idea for storm windows. My idea of using the big box to order replacement glass now won't work----they won't sell it unless I am specifically using it for one of their manufacturer's windows. I'm not---I'm making storm windows. So, now the price of glass has doubled and tripled based on quotes from the mom & pop shops I've talked to (none of which seem to know much about coatings and IG). So, I may be forced to use single-pane 1/4" glass. But, before I give up on IG, I want to poke around a bit more. EfficientWindows.org (if I'm reading it correctly) says clear, single panes get 1.04 U-factor and double-pane clear is 0.50 That seems a big difference and that's without any coating. What they don't say is the thickness of the glass panes in either example. Is that likely to be 1/8"? http://www.efficientwindows.org/glazing_.cfm?id=1 Their stated 0.50 U-factor is based on double-pane, clear with a 1/2" airspace. But again, they don't say the thickness of the glass. http://www.efficientwindows.org/glazing_.cfm?id=3 My winter temps average 20's nighttime & 30's daytime. Since my old drafty home never gets warm in winter or hot in summer, what are the best thickness choices for an IG unit? I was thinking 5/8" overall (two 1/8" lites with 3/8" airspace) but maybe another configuration is much better given performance & prices. Maybe 1/2" overall is good enough and much less expensive. What do you recommend? I am gearing up for winter! I'm new to this area (I'm from Los Angeles where I also had an old, drafty home but never really noticed). Thanks very much for all the great advice Oberon. You are a real asset to this forum. -Chris

If these are Andersen's you will know it because they will have a logo, or "bug" (in window tech-speak) in a lower corner of the units. If it doesn't say Andersen on the glass, then they are someone elses windows. And to the point, you have frost on the storms because the temperature of the glass in the storms is below freezing. Of course to have frost you must first have moisture - and that moisture is coming thru your windows, along with warm air, and there is enough moisture in there to allow condensation to form within the space between the double hungs and the storms. When it is cold enough outside to cause the storms to have frost, it doesn't take very much moisture to have condensation. The best way to stop moisture (and heat) from leaving your home is to ensure that the current windows are weather tight. Ensure that weatherstripping is intact and that the windows are locked when closed. I am adding a rather long post that I wrote a couple of years ago that (I hope) helps explain condensation on windows. I post it several times around this time of year because window condensation is not uncommon given the right set of circumstances. The reason why there is condensation or frost or ice on the interior of your interior window or storm window has a rather simple explanation the surface temperature of the window is below the dew point temperature of the air in your homeÂthatÂs itÂa very simple explanation. Unfortunately, the explanation as to why the window surface temperature of your windows is below the dew point temperature of your home is potentially a bit more complex  but I am going to offer a few thoughts and even throw in a few numbers that I hope might help your situation. In the summer, when you pull something cold and refreshing out of the refrigerator, and the air is warm and humid, that cold and refreshing beverage container suddenly and quite magically becomes instantly wet  just as soon as it is exposed to the air. What has happened is that the temperature of the container fresh from the refrigerator is below the dew point temperature of the air  which has caused condensation on the outside of that container. What happens to your windows in the fall and winter is that the surface of the glass is below the dew point temperature of the air in your home  which is causing condensation on the surface of that glass. Dew point is defined as saturation vapor density...or put in simpler terms, when the air reaches 100% relative humidity and can hold no more moisture. Relative humidity is, well, relative. Relative humidity is a comparison of the actual vapor density versus the saturation vapor density at a particular temperature. Put a bit more simply, dew point is 100% relative humidity or the point where the air - at that temperature - is no longer able to hold any more moisture. If the air has reached vapor saturation (100% relative humidity), then the air will release moisture...be it on the outside of that cold beverage container in the summer time, or be it on the interior glass surface of your windows in the winter time, it makes no difference. If the surface temperature happens to be below freezing, then that moisture becomes frost or even ice. In order to stop condensation from forming on the surface of a window, you either have to lower the dew point temperature of the air in your home to a level below the dew point temperature of the window surface, or you have to warm up the window surface to a temperature above the dew point temperature of your home, or a combination of both. Lowering the relative humidity of the air in your home MAY have absolutely no effect on controlling window condensationÂand I bet that that statement is a bit of a surprise to some folksÂit is true however because there are two ways to lower relative humidity  increase air temperature or decrease moisture content. If you increase the air temperature you will lower the relative humidity but you will not change the dew point - which is based on the amount of water vapor in the air and is not based on the temperature of the air. The amount of moisture in the air is measured in grams per cubic meter, which is kind of nice for our metric folks but not so nice for our non-metric folks; but the metric version is much easier on the calculator than the English version. However, in the interest of making this stuff easier to understand for all of us non-metric types, I am going to use Fahrenheit rather than Celsius temperatures in the calculations. Okay  consider your home at 65 degrees F and with a relative humidity reading of 40%. There are 6.25 grams of water in a cubic meter of air in your home in that particular scenario - which then equates to a dew point temperature of 38 degrees F. So at 38 degrees the air will be at 100% relative humidity or at saturation vapor density. Now, if your neighbor keeps her house at 75 degrees, but she also has 6.25 grams of water per cubic meter in her air, then the relative humidity in her home is 29% - versus your 40%. But, and hereÂs the kicker, the dew point temperature in her home is still 38 degrees. While the relative humidity in her home is much lower than is the relative humidity in yours; if the surface temperature of the windows in her home is 35 degrees she will have condensation on those windowsÂyet if the surface temperature of your windows is 40 degrees  only five degrees warmer  you will not have condensation on your windows. So, while her handy humidity gauge reads (correctly) only 29% RH  she has a condensation problem. While your handy humidity gauge reads (correctly) 40% RH  you donÂt have a condensation problemÂSWEETÂwell, for you anyway, not her. If your home hygrometer measures the relative humidity in your home at 60% while the temperature of your home is 70 degrees, you will have a dew point temperature of about 51 degrees  meaning that if the temperature of the window surface is below 51 degrees then you will have condensation - so now we talk a little more specifically about windows. The interior surface temperature of a single lite of glass, when the temperature outside is 0 degrees F and the inside air temperature is 70 degrees, will be about 16 degrees. Add a storm window on the outside and the surface temperature of the inside lite jumps up to about 43 degrees  a huge improvement. But these are center-of-glass readings and not the temperature readings at the edge of the window where condensation usually forms. A typical clear glass dual pane window is going to have center-of-glass temperature reading pretty much the same as a single pane with a storm  something that is often claimed (correctly) by folks who advocate refurbishing windows rather than replacing (something that I am not going into here  I am NOT advocating either replacement or restoration in this post. It is long enough and detailed enough already without opening that particular can-of-worms!) However, if that dual pane has a LowE coating and an argon gas infill then the center-of-glass temperature will be about 57 degrees  a 14 degree improvement over a clear glass dual pane or a single pane with storm window  but again, and more importantly, there will be a comparable edge of glass improvement as well, particularly if the IGU (Insulating Glass Unit) was manufactured using a warm edge spacer system. Also, the dual pane is going to have desiccant between the glass layers. Desiccant absorbs moisture keeping the inside of the dual pane system very dry. The advantage? If it gets cold enough outside, the temperature in the airspace between the lites can get very low. By keeping that space dry, it helps to keep the dew point temperature very low as well; something not always possible when using a single pane and storm window. Although a single pane with a good and tight storm window can help the interior lite to avoid condensation (when compared with a single lite and no storm), the storm window itself will frost up when the temperature is low enough  at a temperature usually well above the temperature that will cause the dual pane to ice up. It is unavoidable given the right circumstances So what does a window temperature of 57 degrees mean? Well, as I mentioned earlier a home kept at 70 degrees with a 60% relative humidity has a dew point temperature of 51 degrees so it is unlikely that there will be condensation problem on those particular windows despite the relatively high relative humidity in the home. But what happens to the dew point if you keep your home at 70 degrees and you have a 65% relative humidity? Well, for one thing the dew point has jumped up to 57 degrees which we have already noted is the same as the window temperature. For another thing, anyone with 65% relative humidity in a home at 70 degrees has way too much moisture in their air and they are in serious need of some sort of ventilation system  or at least several good exhaust fans! Somewhere back in this post I mentioned that lowering the relative humidity in your home may not help control condensationÂthat is still trueÂIF the relative humidity is lowered because of an increase in temperature. But, lowering the relative humidity by removing water is a different story because in that case you will also be lowering the dew point as you lower the relative humidity and that WILL help to control condensation on your windows.