York Neighborhood Window Contractor, Bellingham

York is where Bellingham's housing history starts. Wedged between downtown and Samish Way, the neighborhood holds some of the oldest homes in the city — modest Victorians and workers' cottages from the 1890s and early 1900s, built when the town was still four separate settlements. Replacing windows in houses this old is careful work, and it is work Alpine Exteriors has been doing around Bellingham long enough to respect.

What 130-Year-Old Windows Are Really Like

Many York homes still carry original weight-and-pulley sash windows: single panes of wavy glass in wood frames, counterbalanced by iron weights hidden in the wall cavities beside them. They are charming, and they are catastrophic thermally — the weight pockets are literally uninsulated chases running the height of every window, funneling cold air through the wall even when the sash itself is tight. Add a century of paint, swelling, and settling, and you get windows that are stuck shut in some rooms, rattling loose in others, and expensive to live behind everywhere.

Our replacements deal with the whole assembly, not just the glass. We remove the old weights, insulate the pockets they leave behind, air-seal the full perimeter, and set new units that finally separate indoors from outdoors — often the single biggest comfort upgrade a York house can get.

Keeping the Old-House Face

Nobody in York wants their 1890s cottage looking like it got new windows from a strip mall. We plan replacements to disappear into the architecture:

• Double-hung units in the original proportions, keeping the tall, narrow openings these facades were composed around
• Slim frames and matched trim reveals, so glass area stays generous the way it originally was
• Divided-light patterns where the house had them, in crisp modern materials
• Interior casings preserved or replicated — the fir trim in these houses is irreplaceable and we treat it that way

Old Houses Deserve Experienced Hands

A York window opening is never square, rarely standard-sized, and occasionally hiding rot, knob-and-tube wiring, or a previous owner's improvisation in the wall beside it. That is why every project starts with a free on-site estimate where we assess each opening individually and scope the real work before quoting it — and why 25 years of experience with Whatcom County's older housing stock matters more on these blocks than in any subdivision. We have opened enough century-old walls to price what is behind yours realistically instead of optimistically. Alpine Exteriors has completed more than 2,000 projects in that time, plenty of them on blocks like these, and we back every installation with a 25-year workmanship warranty.

The result is a house that keeps its century-old face to the street and finally holds its heat behind it. Your heating bill notices immediately; the neighbors never do.