Cobblestone Museum hosts seminar on repairing historic wooden windows
Photos by Tom Rivers: Steve Jordan, a preservationist who focuses on restoring historic wooden windows, is leading a seminar at the Cobblestone Museum this week on window repair.
GAINES – It’s becoming a lost art, repairing windows that are more than a century old.
The Cobblestone Museum and the Landmark Society of Western New York are teaming this week to train more people in fixing old windows.
Steve Jordan, a window preservation specialist and author of The Window Sash Bible, is leading the historic wood window repair seminar. There is a four-day intensive seminar that started Tuesday and continues through Friday. Jordan and his students are removing windows from the Cobblestone Schoolhouse, originally built in 1849, and making window repairs as part of the seminar. There will also be a one-day introductory seminar on Saturday.
Jordan is teaching how to evaluate old windows, removing sashes from the window opening, remove putty, remove paint, remove glass, install new sash cords, weather strip old windows and other skills for preserving old windows.
Steve Jordan is leading in intensive window repair seminar this week at the Cobblestone Museum.
Erin Anheier, a Cobblestone Museum board member, suggested the seminar to the Landmark Society. She saw it as a way to repair windows at the Cobblestone Schoolhouse and educate more people in the task.
The Landmark Society each year presents a list of “Five to Revive,” which are typically sites in the Rochester region in need of preservation or they could be lost from disrepair.
The Landmark Society in October 2016 included “historic trades” to the Five to Revive, because the organization was concerned there weren’t enough trained professionals in carpentry, masonry, stained/decorative glass, painting, roof repair, metalwork, and window restoration with historic buildings.
