Window Styles, and What Each One Is Good For

Style is not just a look. It decides how much air you actually get, how it holds up in this climate, how it is cleaned, and what it costs.

Single hung

The bottom sash slides up, the top is fixed. The default in Florida for a reason: it is the least expensive operating window and there is less hardware to fail in salt air. You get roughly half the opening as ventilation.

Double hung

Both sashes move, and both usually tilt in so you can clean the outside from indoors. Worth it on a second floor. Costs more than a single hung and has more moving parts.

Horizontal slider

One or both panels slide sideways. Common on wide openings, easy to operate, no crank. Good value on a wide wall where a single hung would look wrong.

Casement

Hinged on the side, cranks outward. Seals the tightest of any style because the sash pulls against the frame, and it catches side breezes better than anything else. The crank is the failure point over time, and an open casement is a sail in a squall.

Awning

Hinged at the top, opens outward from the bottom. The one style you can leave cracked in a rain shower. Good over a kitchen sink or high on a bathroom wall.

Fixed and picture

Does not open. Cheapest per square foot, best seal, most glass. Good in combination with operating windows rather than by itself, unless you have no reason ever to open that wall.

Bay and bow

Projects out from the wall. Expensive, structural, and it changes the roof and flashing detail above it. Beautiful and worth being careful about who installs it, because it is a leak waiting to happen if the head flashing is done poorly.

A Florida specific note on ventilation

People replacing windows here often size ventilation for a house they are not going to open. If the windows are shut ten months a year, put the money into glass performance and impact rating rather than into operating styles you will not use. If you do open the house in January and February, casements and awnings earn their price.