Window Repair Cost Calculator
Repairing a window runs $134 to $497 each in Atlanta depending on the fault. ⚠️ A misted double-glazed window is repaired by changing the sealed glass unit inside the sash you already have — not the window — and that is $320 against $1,358 to replace it. Every single fault is cheaper to repair; the question is how many the window has.
Estimate the cost for your home
Estimated cost of the repair
$992
typical · range $594 to $1,390 · $331 per window · 4.2 trade hours · one visit
⚠️ Misting is a failed seal on the glass unit, not a failed window — and the unit is replaced inside the sash you already have. That is the single most useful thing on this page, because it is the repair most likely to be quoted as a replacement. What it does not buy is worth knowing too: the frame keeps whatever air leakage and whatever U-factor it had.
Labour priced at national wages. Enter a ZIP code to price it for your area. 77% of this figure comes from modelled parts, glass and call-out — each line shows its own uncertainty.
Priced from bls.gov Aug 2026how every line is sourced
The one input that changes the answer for you.
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The figure above is already calculated. Each step just makes it more yours, and you can stop at any of them.
Every single fault is cheaper to repair. The question is how many you have
Each fault on your 3 windows, spread over the years it buys, against $4,160 for the same windows replaced — a figure that comes from our window replacement model, not from a second set of bands here.
| What is wrong | Cost | Per year | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Misted or fogged double glazing15–25 years | $992 | $50/yr | repair |
| Cracked or broken pane20–40 years | $702 | $23/yr | repair |
| Will not stay up, or is hard to lift15–20 years | $444 | $25/yr | repair |
| Broken crank, lock, hinge or roller12–20 years | $485 | $30/yr | repair |
| Draughty or rattling8–12 years | $422 | $42/yr | repair |
| ⚠️ Rotted sill, jamb or sash10–25 years | $1,584 | $91/yr | ⚠️ no verdict |
| Torn or missing screen8–15 years | $354 | $31/yr | repair |
| Replace them instead25–40 years, from our replacement model | $4,160 | $128/yr | — |
⚠️ The rot row carries no verdict, and that is the finding rather than a gap. Rot is a water fault that shows up at the window, so the years a repair buys depend on whether anybody finds the leak — and a tidy number with the word “repair” beside it would be exactly the kind of cell that gets quoted on its own and read as advice. Everything else says repair, which is true and is not the useful part. The useful part is the next table.
It takes 5 separate faults on one window before replacing wins
Faults stacked on the same window, cheapest first, sharing one call-out. ⚠️ The years the bundle buys are the years of the shortest fix in it — because when the weatherstripping goes you are back at the window. That assumption is stated because the whole table hangs on it.
| Faults on one window | Running cost | Per year |
|---|---|---|
| 1. torn or missing screenshortest fix lasts 11.5 years | $220 | $19/yr |
| 2. draughty or rattlingshortest fix lasts 10 years | $309 | $31/yr |
| 3. will not stay up, or is hard to liftshortest fix lasts 10 years | $406 | $41/yr |
| 4. broken crank, lock, hinge or rollershortest fix lasts 10 years | $516 | $52/yr |
| 5. misted or fogged double glazingshortest fix lasts 10 years | $795 | $80/yr⚠️ replace |
| 6. cracked or broken paneshortest fix lasts 10 years | $978 | $98/yr⚠️ replace |
| One new window | $1,918 | $59/yr |
⚠️ So the honest answer to “is it cheaper to repair or replace?” is repair, until the same window needs 5 things at once. One fault is never close. A window with a broken balance, a torn screen and a draught is still not close. The one that flips it is the window where the glass has gone as well — and even then it flips on arithmetic, not by much. What this table cannot weigh is the next one: cost per year says nothing about what the two purchases actually buy.
What the repair does not buy
| Repairing | Replacing | |
|---|---|---|
| The air leakage of the frame | unchanged | new weatherseals and a frame set square in the opening |
| The U-factor of the frame itself | unchanged — only the glass improves | the whole assembly is rated together |
| How it operates | unchanged unless the fault was the hardware | new balances, new hardware, new everything |
| A warranty on the assembly | on the part fitted, and usually short | on the unit, and usually long |
| The federal renovation rule in a pre-1978 house | often stays under the threshold | ⚠️ never minor repair and maintenance, whatever the size |
⚠️ A new sealed unit in an old sash fixes the misting and changes nothing about the frame. That is not an argument against repairing — it is what makes the cost-per-year tables above mean something rather than everything. If the reason you are here is that the house is cold, the row to read is air leakage, and the cheapest thing on this page addresses it directly.
| Line item | Qty | Cost | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Call-out: getting a glazier to the house1 visit | 1each | $85–$220 | estimated±44% |
| Misted or fogged double glazing — parts and glasswindows with this fault × size factor | 3each | $285–$930 | estimated±53% |
| Misted or fogged double glazing — labour1.4 h per window × size factor | 4.2hour | $224–$240 | sourced |
| Total | $594–$1,390 | ±40% |
Where these numbers come from
- Yes, a fogged double-glazed window is repaired — and not by replacing it
- Google shows “can a double pane window be repaired?” on this search, and the answer almost nobody gives is yes. Misting is a failed seal on the insulated glass unit, and that unit is changed inside the existing sash. The frame stays, the hardware stays, the trim is never opened. That is $320 a window here against $1,358 to replace it — a figure that comes from our window replacement model, not from a second set of bands here. ⚠️ And the honest half: it buys the glass and nothing else. The air leakage of the frame, its U-factor and the way it operates are all exactly what they were, which is why the comparison on this page is worth reading in two columns rather than one. Glass ratings and what a new assembly is rated on are at ENERGY STAR, Windows, doors and skylights (read 2026-08-25).
- Every fault is cheaper to repair, so the real question is how many
- All seven faults on this page come out cheaper per year than a new window, and a table where every row says the same thing decides nothing. So the page computes the number that does decide it: stacking faults on the same window, replacing wins at 5 of them at once — $764 of accumulated repairs against $1,877 for one new unit. A broken balance, a torn screen and a draught together are still not close. The one that tips it is the window where the glass has gone as well. ⚠️ That table rests on a stated assumption and it would be dishonest to hide it: the years a bundle of repairs buys are the years of the shortest fix in the bundle, because when the weatherstripping goes at year ten you are back at that window. Without that assumption, adding up fixes with different lives means nothing at all.
- Rot gets no verdict, on purpose
- A rotted sill is not a window fault. It is a water fault that shows up at the window, and repairing the wood without finding where the water gets in buys the same repair again in a few years. ⚠️ So the comparison table on this page prints no verdict on that row — not because the number is missing, but because the number would be a tidy cell with the word “repair” beside it, and cells like that get quoted on their own and read as advice. This site has been caught by exactly that once before. The practical version: push a screwdriver into the sill before anybody measures anything. If it goes in, what you need first is an answer to why it got wet, and that answer is above the window — flashing, cladding, a sealant joint, a gutter that overshoots — rather than in it. That work costs $1,490 here for 3 windows, and $1,953 in a pre-1978 house.
- The lead rule cuts the other way here, and where the numbers come from
- In a house built before 1978 the federal renovation rule turns on how much painted surface the work disturbs — more than 6 square feet per room and it needs a certified firm, containment and cleaning verification. Replacing a window is never minor repair and maintenance whatever its size. Repairing one frequently is, because swapping a sealed unit from outside disturbs almost no paint while cutting out a sill disturbs plenty — which is why this page adds that cost only to the faults that actually break paint: $1,490 for rot on a modern house against $1,953 on an old one, and nothing at all for misted glass either way. The threshold and the rule are 40 CFR 745 subpart E, Residential Property Renovation (read 2026-08-25), and what to do about the paint itself is on our lead paint page. ⚠️ Labour is official and this page says which kind you are getting: wages from BLS OEWS for glaziers, May 2025, retrieved 2026-08-20, benefit-loaded from BLS ECEC — but BLS publishes a glazier wage in only 194 of the 530 areas in our index, and outside those the model falls back to the construction and extraction group for your area rather than inventing one. Every estimated band is on the dataset page and the whole approach on the method page. For scale, the call-out alone puts one window at $422 and ten at $285 each; draughty or rattling is the cheapest thing here and the one most often needed.
- Material prices
- Modelled estimates, not sourced prices. No public, machine-readable source of US residential material prices exists, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise. Each line carries its own uncertainty band. How we estimate them.
Contractor overhead and profit applied at 33–43% over direct cost. Data last reviewed 2026-08-25.
What this figure does not include
- A new window
- ⚠️ Deliberately not priced here even though this page compares against it constantly: replacement units, insert or full-frame, are on our window replacement page, and the figures this page puts beside each repair come from that model rather than from a second set of bands. One job, one model, one number — two models of the same work drift apart, and a reader who compared the pages would be right to stop trusting both.
- Finding out where the water is getting in
- ⚠️ The thing a rotted sill is actually telling you, and the thing this page cannot price. It might be the flashing above the opening, the cladding beside it, a failed sealant joint, or a gutter that overshoots. Repairing the wood without answering that question buys you the same repair again, which is why the cost-per-year comparison on this page refuses to put a verdict on that row.
- Restoring a historic sash properly
- Stripping, splicing, re-glazing with putty and rebuilding the cords and weights of a genuinely old window is skilled joinery, it is often the right thing to do, and it costs several times what this page shows. It is a different trade with a different market and there is no honest national band for it.
- What the repair does not buy
- ⚠️ Worth reading as an exclusion because it is easy to miss: a new sealed unit in an old sash fixes the misting and changes nothing about the frame it sits in. The air leakage, the U-factor of the frame and the way it operates are all still whatever they were. That is not an argument against repairing — it is what makes the cost-per-year table on this page mean something rather than everything.
Questions people actually ask
Can a double pane window be repaired?
Yes — and it is the repair most likely to be quoted to you as a replacement. ⚠️ When a double-glazed window mists up, what has failed is the seal around the **insulated glass unit**, and that unit is changed inside the sash you already have. The window stays, the frame stays, the hardware stays. On this model that is $961 for 3 standard windows in Atlanta — $320 each — against $4,074 to replace the same three. What it does not buy is worth knowing: the frame keeps whatever air leakage and whatever U-factor it always had, because only the glass changed.
Is it cheaper to repair windows or replace them?
Repair, and it is not close on a single fault — every one of the faults this page models comes out cheaper per year than a new window. ⚠️ The useful version of the question is how many faults it takes to flip it, and that is calculable: stacking faults on the same window, sharing one call-out, replacing wins at **5 separate faults at once** — $764 of repairs against $1,877 for one new window. A window with a broken balance, a torn screen and a draught is still not there. The one that flips it is the window where the glass has gone too. And cost per year is not the whole decision — a repair leaves the frame exactly as it was.
How much should it cost to fix a window?
$134 to $497 a window in Atlanta depending on what is wrong — draughty at the cheap end, rotted sill at the dear end, a misted sealed unit in between. ⚠️ The number that moves it most is not the fault, it is how many windows you deal with on one visit: $422 a window if a glazier comes for one, $285 if they come for ten. Somebody has to arrive with a van either way. Walk the house and list everything before you phone.
How much does it cost to fix my windows?
For 3 windows on one visit: $402 for draughts, $426 for balances that will not hold a sash up, $961 for misted glass and $1,490 for rot. ⚠️ The last of those is the one to treat differently. Rot is not a window fault, it is a water fault that shows up at the window — so this page deliberately puts no repair-or-replace verdict on it, because how long the repair lasts depends on whether anybody finds where the water is getting in. Push a screwdriver into the sill before anybody quotes. If it goes in, the question to answer first is above the window rather than in it.
Taken from Google’s “people also ask” results for this search on 2026-08-25, not invented.
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- The full window repair cost dataset
Every unit price, every quantity rule and the reasoning behind each estimate, as a plain table.
- How we calculate
The formula, the sources, and an honest account of which parts of the model are weak.