Windows are a key design element, creating space and illumination essential for aesthetic cohesion. Premium wood windows provide homeowners with unique opportunities for beauty, sustainability, and customization unmatched by other materials like vinyl or aluminum.
Many homeowners have concerns about the longevity and maintenance of wooden windows. However, new finishing techniques and advancements in painting technologies pioneered by committed artisans, along with careful material selection, can create beautiful, durable wood windows that stand the test of time and beat the elements.
Fenstür’s premium wooden windows have a 15- to more than 50-year maintenance cycle. We can customize our products to suit your design preferences and your home's climate through intentional engineering and expert assembly.
Homeowners who choose Fenstür wood windows are making a conscious decision to support sustainability and quality. When craftsmanship meets proper care, wooden windows can provide a lifetime of beauty and performance.
Material Matters: Choosing the Best Wood for Durability
The first step in protecting wooden window frames is material selection. Choosing high-quality, durable materials is crucial for creating a product that provides longevity and meets our strict aesthetic criteria.
Hardwoods like oak, mahogany, and teak provide the best wood for windows due to their natural resistance to rot, insects, and weathering.
Certain woods may offer better protection and longevity, depending on the climate and environment surrounding your home. For example, the best type of wood for windows in coastal homes is often Douglas Fir, growing in coastal regions of the Pacific North West that can better withstand humidity, salt, and wind.
Fenstür offers clients a broad range of carefully curated options and expert guidance from experienced artisans during the design process, so you can choose the right wood for your project.
Our wood is always sustainably harvested and specially selected from old-growth timber grown in cold and wet climates. To ensure durability, we use materials graded for a higher proportion of heartwood, the most desirable part of the tree.
In addition to careful selection, Fenstür also treats its materials with respect. Raw wood is carefully stored and cared for to prevent weathering, weakening, and damage. We carefully inspect each piece before use, engineering all window components to increase stability, reduce knots, and minimize pitch bleed.
Our process is always quality-focused, aiming to prevent issues like wood rot in window frames right from the start, creating beautiful and easy-to-maintain products.
Protective Treatments & Finishes: Shielding Your Windows from the Elements
All Fenstür products are assembled in-house by artisans specializing in quality production. Frequent visual inspections at every stage of the assembly process ensure that all pieces meet our exacting quality standards.
However, our finishing process ensures more than just beauty. It’s also critical to the durability and longevity of our products.
Factory-applied sealants and weather-resistant coatings provide unmatched protection compared to job-site application, shielding vulnerable areas of our windows that are inaccessible after assembly. For example, we carefully apply end-grain sealants in all window bottoms and joints to prevent water absorption in vulnerable sections.
Our focus on quality materials extends to choosing only the best finish for wood windows. We carefully select industrial-quality paints and sealants that reduce maintenance requirements, simplify routine care, and provide UV protection, which is critical for preventing fading and warping.
Finally, Fenstür’s finishing process enhances durability and aesthetics through innovative design, meticulous engineering, and attention to detail. Seemingly small details like rounded corners can improve paint adhesion and no exterior flat spots for water to pool, can reduce the need for repainting.
When creating a product meant to last a lifetime, details matter. Fenstür windows are built with this ideology in mind, allowing us to deliver beautiful, durable products quickly and efficiently.
Regular Maintenance for Longevity: Simple Steps to Extend Window Life
Like many beautiful things, wood windows do require care and maintenance. However, people are often surprised at how easy and non-invasive wood window maintenance can be. Fenstür windows have a 15- to more than 30-year maintenance cycle, making your wood windows a potentially lifelong asset.
Engaging in routine maintenance and inspection is much easier and less expensive than repairing wood windows with rotting wood. If you learn how to maintain wooden windows properly, they’ll likely repay you with a lifetime of satisfaction.
Cleaning
It’s important to clean your wooden windows regularly. Best practice calls for cleaning twice yearly, with supplemental action after severe weather events:
- First, remove loose dirt and debris.
- Use Fenstur’s Wood Cleaner, applied by spraying the non-toxic cleaning solution onto an included microfiber rag to wipe away grime and oils.
- Avoid harsh chemicals like bleach, abrasive cleaning tools, and pressure washing, all of which can cause damage.
Inspecting
During your routine cleaning, take some time to inspect the condition of your windows carefully. Conditions to watch out for include:
- Cracking
- Peeling paint
- Rot
- Wear
- Exposed wood
- Mold and mildew
- Warping
- Swelling
Regular inspections are a key element of wood window protection and should be done twice a year at a minimum, with additional inspections following severe storms or other environmental stressors. The sooner damages can be caught, the easier it is to fix and stop degradation.
Clean, inspect AND refurbish
After inspecting the window, apply Fenstür’s Wood Maintenance Coating. Applied in the same way as the cleaning solution, this maintenance coat wipes on with a microfiber cloth and fills and seals blemishes, surface scratches, and other blemishes invisible to the naked eye. Like armor all wipes for your car dashboard, this step repairs, rejuvenates, and restores the paint on the window increasing the paints lifespan by +50% when used annually.
Resealing and Refinishing
High-quality coatings, like the ones used by Fenstür, can last up to 50 years or more, depending on the maintenance, upkeep, climate and exposure. In high exposure areas homeowners can expect 10-15 years. Alert for issues they can fix themselves before requiring a professional to fix or repair. Such as noticing a dent in the wood caused by impact from an object. This can be sealed over with supplied touch-up paint to prevent water intrusion, before water damage occurs requiring in-depth repairs to be taken.
Acting quickly to fix problems like peeling paint, worn sealant, and other weather protective coatings can prevent more costly issues, like the need to repair rotted wood windows. When the time comes to re-finish your windows, fear not - for as long as the paint has been maintained and physical and water damages avoided, you will never need to sand the paint away and refinish from the ground up. Rather, the windows can be cleaned, gently scuffed with scotchbrite, and then a new top-coat brushed or sprayed overtop of the old one restoring your windows to their original protective state like the day they left the factory.
Environmental Factors & Smart Installation: Setting Your Windows Up for Success
Some climates are harder on homes than others. Weather and environmental conditions can significantly impact the lifespan and durability of your wood windows and your home in general.
At Fenstür, we engineer our windows to withstand challenges before they arise, ensuring long-term durability and performance. By proactively addressing potential issues, we set you and your windows up for lasting success.
Here are some of the most common environmental stressors and how we combat them:
High Humidity
Humidity can cause wood to absorb moisture, leading to swelling, warping, rot, mold, and cracks. Dehumidifiers and regular inspections can help prevent these issues.
Fenstür’s Fix
We use high-quality, water-resistant sealants and finishes to minimize moisture penetration, providing layers of protection between your wood windows and external moisture. The paint also controls the rate of moisture moving in and out of the wood, to reduce stressed from rapid environmental changes.
Extreme Temperature Variation
Extreme temperature fluctuations cause wood to expand and contract rapidly, leading to warping, cracking, and increased thermal stress, accelerating wear and reducing longevity.
Fenstür’s Fix
Our weather-resistant coatings protect against UV rays and temperature extremes. We use only factory-grade finishes applied during assembly for maximum coverage. We also use engineered wood components tp make the wood more stable.
Coastal Exposure
Moist, salty air, strong winds, and direct sunlight can degrade wood integrity and weaken timber frames faster than other environments.
Fenstür’s Fix
Our expert artisans can help you select a wood variety with proven resilience in coastal climates, like tropical or hardwoods. Additionally, we carefully engineer every window to increase joint strength, prevent pooling water, and protect glazing.
Beyond material selection, building design plays a critical role in protecting your investment. Strategic architectural choices—like incorporating adequate overhangs and thoughtful window placement—can shield windows from direct exposure and extend their lifespan.
Finally, keep in mind that proper installation can prevent warping, leaks, and inefficiencies. We connect clients with trusted, long-term partners capable of installing your windows securely and efficiently.
Sustainability & Longevity with Fenstür Windows
Wood windows offer environmentally conscious homeowners a beautiful option that meets their ethical and ideological standards. Our wood windows are renewable, sustainably harvested, low-impact, and energy-saving. Most crucially, wood windows are reparable rather than disposable.
Properly cared for, wood windows are an investment in a lifetime of beauty that can be refurbished, repainted, and reimagined endlessly.
In addition to their aesthetic value, Fenstür artisans meticulously design and engineer our windows to be strong and eco-friendly. Key design innovations include:
- Advanced machine processes that create a smoother timber surface and increased joint strength
- Specially drained and vented glass cavities to improve the service life of glazing
- Innovative component design featuring a slight slope, particularly in horizontal sections, to prevent pooling water, water penetration, and wood rot around windows and other vulnerable areas.
- Multiple gaskets seal windows and doors tightly, preventing drafts
Our products are North American Fenestration Standard (NAFS) certified and built to withstand the test of time, with little need for intervention and maintenance.
We are proud to partner with homeowners in endeavors like the Green Point Project, a Living Building Challenge and Green Shores for Homes project built to Passive House standards, which used our windows.
Timeless Beauty, Lasting Performance
There are windows in almost every room in a house, making them a critical design element that can significantly impact the beauty and character of a home. Investing in high-quality wooden windows adds long-term value, aesthetically, environmentally, and financially.
Although wood windows require care and maintenance, Fenstür’s innovative designs and high-quality manufacturing mean that homeowners can think of maintenance cycles in decades rather than years.
Fenstür windows provide lasting beauty and elite performance. Reach out today to learn more or request a quote.
