Window replacement costs in Winston-Salem

In Winston-Salem's West End, what your new windows can look like depends on which side of the house they're on. The West End Historic Overlay District's design review standards, from the Forsyth County Historic Resources Commission, hold areas of high visibility to stricter rules.

On those sides, historic windows are to be kept, with only the damaged parts repaired and matched in kind. If repair isn't feasible, a modern replacement can be considered, but it has to work the same way: casement for casement, double-hung for double-hung. True or simulated divided lights are fine there. Grilles sandwiched between the glass aren't. Making a window opening bigger or smaller on the main façade is inappropriate unless the law requires it, while new openings are appropriate on low-visibility sides. Unfinished aluminum storm windows are out where they'd be seen.

The review path follows the building's status. Replacement windows in a substitute material are major work on a contributing building, which goes to the commission, and minor work on a noncontributing one.

Those standards cover the West End only. Across the wider area, the housing still runs older. Some 43 percent of the area's houses are pre-1980 and close to a fifth are pre-1960, so plenty of houses outside the district are old too.