What does it cost to hire out "Reglaze and rescue your wood windows"?

A fair national range is $100–$250; local labor costs move that number up or down by county.

How often should this be done?

Annual, typically June. Local frost dates can shift the timing.

What should I ask before hiring someone for this?

Worth asking: Price per sash to reglaze — and does that include priming and painting the putty? Do you actually work on old wood windows, or is your business replacing them? While you're here: are the sash cords and weights worth restoring on these?

How do I know I'm being upsold on this job?

Watch for: The energy-savings replacement pitch. Payback on $15,000 of new windows through heating bills alone runs decades — the math is the industry's worst-kept secret. 'These windows are shot' about sashes with sound wood and failed putty. Putty is a wear item, like brake pads — its failure is not the window's failure. Vinyl replacements sold as 'lifetime' — old-growth wood windows have already lasted 80 years and are rebuildable forever; vinyl units are landfill when their seals fail. Get a second opinion when: Any full-window-replacement quote — price a restoration carpenter and a good storm window against it first; the comparison usually ends the conversation.

Exterior

Reglaze and rescue your wood windows

Annual · typically June

Why it matters

Your house is old enough to have real wood windows, and here's what the replacement industry won't tell you: those windows were built from old-growth lumber that outlasts anything sold today, and every part of them is repairable. The weak point isn't the window — it's the glazing putty, the beveled seal between glass and wood, which weathers out every few decades and asks to be renewed. In freeze country, failed putty moves fast — water gets behind the glass line, freezes, and levers the putty and paint off in sheets. June is your window: warm enough for putty to cure, months before the weather tests it.

Paired with a decent storm window, a reglazed and weatherstripped wood window performs within shouting distance of a replacement unit — at a twentieth of the cost, without sending irreplaceable material to the dump.

What skipping it costs

$400–$15,000

Glazing putty is what seals glass to wood. When it cracks and falls out, water runs straight into the sash's joinery and the sill below — and rot turns a $15 putty job into rebuilt sashes at hundreds each, or into the $10,000–$15,000 replacement-window purchase the missing putty was engineered to sell.

Two ways to get it done

Do it yourself

~120 min · difficulty 3 of 5

You'll need: Putty knife, Stiff scraper, Heat gun (optional, careful near glass), Paintbrush, Glazing putty (~$15/quart does many windows), Exterior primer and paint, Boiled linseed oil for priming bare wood rabbets.

Walk every window outside and press a thumbnail into the putty lines: sound putty is firm and painted; failed putty is cracked, loose, or missing in runs.
For failed runs: rake out the loose putty with a putty knife (gentle heat helps stubborn sections — mind the glass), leave what's still bonded.
Prime the bare wood rabbet with boiled linseed oil so the wood doesn't drink the oils out of the new putty.
Roll putty into a rope, press it into the channel, and tool it to a clean bevel with the knife in one long stroke. Your third window will look better than your first — that's normal.
Let it skin over (a week or two, per the can), then prime and paint, lapping the paint a hair onto the glass to seal the edge.
While you're there, check the sills: probe any soft spots. Sound-but-weathered sills want paint; punky ones want a carpenter this year, not next.

Hire it out

$100–$250National fair range — local labor moves this number.

A handyman or glazier reglazes for $100–$250 per sash depending on condition, and a restoration carpenter can rebuild rot, re-rope sash weights, and weatherstrip — old windows are a system, and all of it is fixable.

The pitch you'll face instead is replacement, so hold onto the honest math: reglazing plus a quality storm window delivers most of the comfort for a fraction of the money, and old sashes are rebuildable forever while vinyl units are disposable. Hire people who fix windows for a living; the ones who only replace them will always find replacement-shaped problems.

Ask the tech

Price per sash to reglaze — and does that include priming and painting the putty?
Do you actually work on old wood windows, or is your business replacing them?
While you're here: are the sash cords and weights worth restoring on these?

Red flags you're being upsold

The energy-savings replacement pitch. Payback on $15,000 of new windows through heating bills alone runs decades — the math is the industry's worst-kept secret.
'These windows are shot' about sashes with sound wood and failed putty. Putty is a wear item, like brake pads — its failure is not the window's failure.
Vinyl replacements sold as 'lifetime' — old-growth wood windows have already lasted 80 years and are rebuildable forever; vinyl units are landfill when their seals fail.

Second opinion time: Any full-window-replacement quote — price a restoration carpenter and a good storm window against it first; the comparison usually ends the conversation.

The call

DIY it — reglazing is meditative Saturday work and the skill pays for itself for as long as you own an old house. Hire a restoration carpenter, not a window salesman, for anything rotted.