Ramona, I completely agree with your desire to keep your old windows. That is by far the best, and often the most economical thing to do. Keeping your triple tracks for a fews years will help you identify the best solution. They are ugly but modestly effective as storms. And as the pp pointed out they can be painted to blend them in more. Many old houses had them installed in the last quarter of the 20th c as an energy saving tactic. Whether they actually do much is a debatable question, but they did, at least provide some life-prolonging protection for the primary sashes, and a platform for an all-season screen. (The latter is not to taken lightly. I often open my windows on warm winter days just to change the air. Without screens my indoor cats would escape, so it's handy having screens easily at hand just for that. I am in the process of rehabbing my windows, once I have got the wooden storms set-up, if I need to open a window in winter, I plan to use those small expandable screens to contain my critters.) The old-fashioned thing to do about storm windows is have wooden ones made and have wooden screen windows made, as well, to change out for the summer. Newer wood ones can found that allow you to pop out one section of the storm and exchange it for a screen panel during the summer. However, of course, in both these instances you would still have a wooden frame on the outside of your primary window. The invisible storm windows are often permanently mounted in exterior applications, though removable when installed inside. They are pricey, though, and as you note don't manage the screen issue. And the interior ones leave your primary windows exposed to the elements. You didn't say where you are located, but you may need to evaluate which need is more critical (tight storms or more flexible storm and screen arrangements) depending on your climate. Another good tactic to deal with the cost of wooden storms and screens is to do one elevation at a time to spread the cost, a bit. Sometimes one can find a local carpenter with experince to make wooden storms, and more importantly, fit them on site. Old houses are quite maddening, and few old houses still have perfectly square window openings (if they ever did), so whatever you do will require some skill to install. Use of triple tracks (particularly existing ones) as a transitional strategy when the long range plan is rehabbing the original windows and adding wooden storms/screens is certainly better, in my view than succumbing to the blandishments of the replacement window sales guy who will leave you without an essential feature of your house, with dubious energy savings and probably far-less long-lived materials, if not substantially altered window openings. They are, however, extremely annoying to clean. I curse those beastly tracks three times a year and they, in turn, get revenge by slicing my fingers. HTH, Molly~

We are in Bulverde, outside of San Antonio. Another general window question just came up...looking at the bid from the first supplier, which is the same takeoff all other suppliers based their bids on, all of our windows that end in -60 (i.e. 3060) are bid for 72" tall (i.e. 36x72"). Is this correct?? I thought they would be 36x60". Specifically, it's says Jeld-Wen single hung vinyl window, rough opening 36x72", frame size is 35.5x71.5". The blue print where this particular window goes says 3060. I will call them tomorrow to verify, but just wondering now while I'm sitting down and comparing brands.

Also as an added note you did not mention if you were planning in using Wood or Vinyl. In wood units single hungs are actually a slight bit higher in price than a double hung because they are modifying a double hung to make it a single hung where as vinyl units are approx 10 - 15% cheaper.

1) I'd second oberon's question 2) there is nothing inherent about vinyl that would make it any worse in terms of seal failures, despite some of the propaganda that is out there. If anything, vinyl windows are engineered to accommodate for more expansion and contraction/movement than just about any other window material. With that said, you shouldn't deal with seal failures due to building movement in a window of any material. There are a lot of parts to move around between the foundation and wall framing before getting to the IGU which is sealed independent of the sash frame in the vast majority of windows. It so happens that there are a lot of crappy, cheap, builder grade vinyl windows on the market which don't paint a great picture, but a good window that is vinyl, wood, or fiberglass should serve you just fine regardless. Just be sure to pick a quality product to mitigate seal failures.