Most painters will not tell you what a window costs until they have stood in your driveway. We will. Every number below is the unit price we bid from in Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, Lakewood, and the rest of the East Side — built from the hours our crews actually log on century homes, not from a national average. Count your windows and your siding and you can get within a few hundred dollars of your estimate before anyone visits.
First question: repaint or restoration?
This is the whole ballgame on an older house, and it is a 7x swing on the same window. A repaint window has sound paint that just needs cleaning, a scuff sand, spot priming, and two coats. A restoration window has paint lifting off the sash, glazing compound cracking out, and storms that are chalky and bare — and the only honest fix is to scrape it to sound wood, sand, re-glaze, prime, and brush two coats, with every storm and screen pulled and refinished off the house.
Walk your house and look at the north and lake-facing sides first. If bare wood or failed glazing shows anywhere, that side is restoration work, and the price below reflects it.
Windows, storms, and doors
Prices are labor. Materials are billed at cost on top of every line.
- Repaint window, one color (sash and trim the same): $75
- Repaint window, two colors (sash and trim different): $150
- Restored window, sash and trim (wash, scrape, sand, re-glaze, prime, two brushed coats): $506
- Storm window or screen, refinished off the house: $75 per piece — most Heights windows carry two storms and a screen, so $225
- Complete restored window unit, sash plus trim plus three storm pieces: $731
- Storm door, refinished: $300
Siding, soffit, and trim
Siding is priced per 100 square feet of painted wall, and the condition tier matters more than the material. Aluminum, fiber cement, vinyl, or wood in good shape is the standard tier: wash, prep, two sprayed coats. Peeling or bare wood is the restoration tier: full scrape and sand, prime, caulk, two finish coats.
- Standard siding, wash-prep-two coats: $281 per 100 sq ft
- Wood siding full restoration: $2,700 per 100 sq ft
- Soffit and trim, scraped, primed, two coats, two colors: $150 per linear foot (plain or dentil profile, same price)
- Soffit and trim, one color: $125 per linear foot
- Whole-house pressure wash before any exterior work: $1,500 flat
- Lift rental for three-story work: billed at cost
Two worked examples
A 1,500 sq ft aluminum-sided ranch in Cleveland Heights, 15 windows in two colors, with a wash: siding 15 × $281 = $4,215, windows 15 × $150 = $2,250, wash $1,500, plus our three quality-check walkthroughs at $225. About $8,200 in labor, materials at cost on top.
A brick colonial with 18 wood windows in restoration condition, each with two storms and a screen, and 60 feet of two-color soffit: windows 18 × $731 = $13,158, soffit 60 × $150 = $9,000, wash $1,500, quality checks $225. About $23,900 in labor, materials at cost on top. Same street, same number of windows as a repaint job, three times the price — because it is three times the work.
What we will not do
We will not bid a restoration house as a repaint to win it, and we will not shave the number in the driveway. A restored window costs what it costs. When a quote from somebody else comes in at a third of ours for the same windows, one of two things is true: they are planning to paint over the failed glazing, or they have not counted the storms. Ask them.
Get your number now
The instant estimator on this site runs these same unit prices against your window count and siding square footage and gives you a range in about two minutes. If you would rather send photos, text or call 440-382-5701 and most Cleveland Heights estimates are back within 24 hours — with the same prices you just read.
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