Why Orange homes are different
In Orange, a window job is often a design review question before it is a product question,
and the protected houses come from two eras that could not be further apart.
Old Towne is the first. It is a square mile around the Plaza, more than 1,300 buildings put up
between roughly 1874 and 1940, Victorians, Craftsman bungalows and Spanish Colonial Revival
houses among them, and it is the largest National Register district in California. Windows here
are character-defining, which is why the Old Towne Preservation Association lists vinyl window
installation among the district’s most common violations. The practical rule for a homeowner is
simple: in Old Towne, the city’s historic design standards decide what a replacement can look
like, and a product that fails that test is a problem even if it passes the energy code. We
start every Old Towne visit by establishing what is original, what has already been replaced,
and what the standards will allow.
The Eichlers are the second, and they are the more unusual problem. Eichler Homes built 339 homes in Fairhaven, Fairmeadow and Fairhills between 1960 and 1964, and in November
2018 the city made all three tracts local historic districts with enforceable standards.
During drafting, the standards stressed repairing the original aluminum sliding glass doors,
because faithful replacements are not commercially available: modern dual-pane frames are
visibly broader. The same process relaxed some energy requirements, windows among them, to make
preservation possible. So an Eichler job in Orange is a negotiation between thin original
profiles, what the planner will approve, and what a modern unit can actually do.
Between and around those districts are the 1960s and 1970s tracts that make up most of the
city, where the work is ordinary aluminum replacement and the historic design standards do not apply.
One last Orange-specific trap: the map has holes. El Modena, North El Modena, Orange Park Acres
and Olive include unincorporated land, and there the permit comes from the County, not from the
city’s Building Division, so we check the parcel before we file.
What a job costs in Orange
We do not publish a price list, because matching wood sash on a Craftsman bungalow in Old Towne and replacing aluminum sliders on an unprotected 1960s tract house are not the same job. How we price is explained on our cost pages; a quote for your house comes after a free in-home measure.
