Intervention

My neighbor replaced the perfectly good original windows with this job--notice the plywood infill. My realtor friend says that when you replace original windows and doors you take away 40% of the re-sale. We see this going on all over our neighborhood, people just don't get it. You can try to tell them, and it still doesn't register. Putting storm windows over the original windows, is a third of the cost of replacing them, has equal energy efficiency, and retains the value of your home: http://www.oldhouseguy.com/windows.php. Also, the wood used in these historic windows is slow growth, very dense, high quality, unlike the wood today The life expectancy for historic wood windows is hundreds of years, for vinyl, approximately 20-30 years.

My neighbor was intent on replacing all these windows below, like you see on the top photo. This side of his house dominated the view from my house. To try and prevent it, I offered to paint them for the cost of materials: