Savannah Window Co: Replacement Windows, Doors & Glass
Expert residential and commercial window services. Free measure across Chatham County, plus a straight answer on whether your job needs a permit at all.
- Georgia issues no glazing license to check
- Flood zone and permit checked before we quote
- Units ordered to your existing openings
- Free measure across Chatham and Effingham
Our Window Services in Savannah, GA
Energy Efficient Windows
Georgia amended the model energy code in both directions for this part of the state, and the result is a pair of numbers that ordinary double glazing already clears. Knowing that in advance saves Savannah owners a great deal of money.
Vinyl Replacement Windows
Vinyl is the most sold window in this market and the most misunderstood one. It is a genuinely good product bought correctly and a bad one bought off a shelf, and in Savannah the difference between those two turns on something odd: your rough opening.
Fiberglass Windows
Fiberglass costs more than vinyl and less than clad wood, and in this city it earns the gap for one reason that has nothing to do with the brochure. It is made to whatever size you ask for, which means the wall never has to change.
Wood and Clad Wood Windows
Clad wood is the best-looking window you can buy and the one we decline most often. Not on quality, which is excellent, but on where it is being put.
Aluminum Windows
Aluminum divides opinion for a reason. The mid-century aluminum in a lot of Savannah's ranches deserves its bad name, and the thermally broken aluminum sold today is a different product entirely.
Double Hung Windows
The double hung is what most of Savannah already has, and it is where our advice parts company with the industry's. Almost everywhere else the default recommendation is full-frame replacement.
Casement and Awning Windows
Casements and awnings seal better than anything else on the market, and that is not a marketing claim. The sash pulls into a gasket as the lock throws, so the closure is compression rather than a sash sliding past a brush.
Sliding Windows
The horizontal slider is the most sensible window in a great many Savannah houses, and it is sold here far less than it should be. The reason is shape.
Bay and Bow Windows
This is the page where we most argue against the sale. A bay or a bow is a lovely thing and an expensive decision in Savannah, and the expense is not mostly in the window.
Picture and Architectural Windows
Fixed glass is the best value in the entire window catalog, and hardly anybody says so. No sash, no balances, no operator, no moving seal to wear out.
Egress Windows
Egress is the page where we say no most often, and it is worth understanding why before you call anybody. The rules themselves are simple.
Impact and Hurricane Windows
This is the one page here that tells you to take the permit when one is warranted, and to spend the money. Impact glazing is a real product doing a real job on this coast.
Patio and Sliding Doors
A patio door is the biggest opening in most Savannah walls, and it is generally the lowest one as well. Both facts drive how we handle it, and neither is what a showroom conversation tends to be about.
French Doors
French doors suit this city better than almost anywhere. Savannah houses were built with tall openings, deep porches and rooms designed to be opened to the outside, and a hinged pair of glazed doors is what that architecture was expecting in the first place.
Entry Doors
The front door of a Savannah house is often the most looked-at object on the street, and on a stoop above a garden level it is also the highest-value opening in the wall. Those two facts pull in different directions and the job is to satisfy both.
Window Screens
This is the cheapest thing we do and the page we send people to most often. If you have called us about heat, insects or glare and you are anywhere near a decision about the whole house, read this before you spend eighteen thousand dollars on glass.
Glass and Insulated Unit Repair
Most people who call about a window need this and are quoted something else. A misted pane, a cracked lite or a seal that has given up is a repair to the glass.
Commercial Storefront Glass
Commercial glazing downtown runs on a different rulebook from the houses around it, and one provision in particular changes what we recommend. Non-residential buildings have an option that residential buildings do not, and it turns the storefront itself into flood protection.
Savannah Window Co replaces windows, patio doors and entry doors and repairs insulated glass right across Savannah and out through Chatham, Effingham, Bryan and Liberty counties. We work mostly in pultruded fiberglass and vinyl, in clad wood where the room suits it, and in thermally broken aluminum on the wide spans. Nearly all of it is ordered to the opening already sitting in your wall.
That last part is the whole method. The city's own permit list says a residential window swap needs no building permit unless the size changes. Keep the opening and you keep the job small, quiet and quick. Change the opening and you have started a different transaction, with a permit, a declared cost and a paper trail behind it.
The paper trail is the part nobody warns you about. Permitted work is counted toward the fifty percent rule, cumulatively, over five years, against the appraised value of the structure alone. On an older house sitting below the base flood elevation, a big enough total drags the entire building into today's ordinance. We check where you stand before quoting, which costs you nothing and takes about ten minutes.
What Savannah Customers Say
I asked for the two front windows to be made larger, and they showed me what that would have added to our flood file before they showed me a price. We did same-size units instead. Eleven openings, three days, nothing left in the yard afterward.
Two other firms quoted whole new windows for foggy glass. These people came out, said the frames were fine, and swapped the sealed units for a fraction of it. I have since had them back to do the patio door properly.
Old farmhouse, not one opening square, and they measured every single one instead of guessing. The fiberglass units came in exact and the trim inside barely had to be touched. They also fitted pans under all of them without being asked.
Straight about the impact glass. I assumed I needed it everywhere and they said the back elevation did not justify it, so we did the exposed side properly and left the rest. Saved me a serious amount and explained exactly why.
Why Savannah Chooses Savannah Window Co
- ✓We look up your flood zone, base flood elevation and pre-map status before a tape measure comes out, and put the answer in the quote
- ✓Openings that need a permit are priced in a separate column, with the valuation we would declare shown next to them
- ✓Every unit is ordered to the measured opening rather than trimmed or packed out to suit a stock size on a shelf
- ✓Sill pans with end dams on every installation, including the ones where nobody would ever see whether we fitted one
- ✓We will quote insulated glass unit replacement against a whole window and tell you honestly when the cheaper one wins
- ✓Some addresses here answer to a design review body on top of everything else, and we identify that at the first visit rather than after the order
About Savannah Window Co in Savannah, GA
Savannah Window Co works the tidal side of coastal Georgia, from the row houses and raised cottages inside the old city out to the subdivisions in Pooler, Rincon and Richmond Hill. The two ends of that market need opposite things. One needs a company that will order twenty-two odd sizes and leave the walls alone. The other needs a crew that can fit forty identical builder openings in three days.
Georgia licenses no glazing trade, so instead of waving a number at you we put our name on the permit when a permit applies, carry liability and workers' compensation in our own name, and hand over a written workmanship warranty separate from the manufacturer's. Our installers are ours, not a rotating subcontractor list, and the person who measured your openings is on site the day they go in.
There are jobs you should not give us. If your only complaint is a fogged pane in an otherwise solid frame, buy a glass unit and keep the window. If you are already planning to elevate the house, do not put new windows in first, because the lift will disturb the openings and you will pay twice. And if you live out past Claxton and need one sash fixed, somebody closer will serve you better.
How It Works
- 1
We Look Up Your Address First
Before anybody measures anything, we pull your flood zone, your base flood elevation and whether the house predates the first flood map. That answer decides whether we are talking about a straightforward swap or a job that needs planning around a five-year running total.
- 2
Measured Opening by Opening
Every opening gets measured in three places for width and height, plus diagonals, because a hundred-year-old Savannah frame is rarely square. Units are ordered to those numbers. We would rather order twenty-two different sizes than trim a wall to suit a catalog.
- 3
A Quote That Separates The Two Numbers
You get the openings we can do without a permit priced in one column and anything requiring one priced in another, with the permit valuation shown. If the second column is the one putting you near a threshold, the quote says so plainly.
- 4
Installed, Flashed and Documented
Sill pan first, then the unit, then the perimeter seal, in the sequence ASTM E2112 lays out. You get the NFRC labels, the order confirmations with sizes on them, and photographs of each opening before it was closed up.
Commercial Glass and Storefronts in Savannah
Ground-floor commercial space downtown sits low. Broughton, Bay and River Street storefronts, the converted warehouse frontages and the small shops through the Starland corridor all have their finished floors close to grade, and a good share of them fall inside a mapped flood hazard area.
Non-residential buildings get an option houses do not: rather than lifting the floor, a commercial building can be dry floodproofed to the required elevation, which turns storefront glazing, doors and their seals into the flood protection rather than something protected by it. We quote that work as engineering, not as shopfitting.
- ✓Storefront framing specified by system depth, with a thermal break wherever the energy code reaches the opening
- ✓One-inch insulating glass with tempered lites where impact safety glazing rules apply
- ✓Dry floodproofing components: sealed glazing pockets, gasketed door bottoms and removable flood panels
- ✓Tenant improvement glass replacement scheduled overnight so retail trading is not interrupted
- ✓Entrance doors with continuous gear hinges, closers and thresholds set for accessible approach
- ✓Curtain wall and window wall repair on the mid-rise stock along Bay and Bull Street
- ✓Insulated unit replacement in existing storefront pockets without disturbing the frame
- ✓Documented glazing schedules for property managers, listing size, thickness and label data per opening
Service Areas
Savannah Window Co serves Savannah, GA and surrounding communities including:
Recent Projects Across the lower Savannah and Ogeechee basins
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a permit to replace windows in Savannah?
Not if the opening stays the same size. The city's published list of residential projects that need a permit reads "window replacement with a change in size," which means a like-for-like swap into the existing rough opening is not a permitted project and no plans are required either.
Widen an opening, drop a sill for a taller unit, combine two windows into one, or cut a brand new hole, and a building permit applies. We tell you which of your openings falls on which side before you commit to anything.
What is the fifty percent rule and why does it matter for windows?
It is the floodplain provision that decides whether an older building has to be brought up to current standards.
If your house was built before the first flood map, sits below the base flood elevation, and permitted repairs or renovations add up to more than half the appraised value of the structure over a five-year window, the building has to comply with the current ordinance.
Windows only reach that total when a permit is involved, which is exactly why the size question is worth taking seriously.
How high does Savannah require a house to be built above the flood level?
It depends which government you answer to. Inside the city limits the requirement was one foot of freeboard above base flood elevation from 2008 onward, and the ordinance that took effect on the first of January 2025 moved it to two feet. Unincorporated Chatham County requires three feet, and puts electrical, plumbing and ductwork up there too. Those numbers matter to you only if your building crosses the substantial improvement threshold, which is why we start the conversation there.
What U-factor and SHGC do windows need in Savannah?
Chatham County is in Climate Zone 2, and Georgia amended the base code in both directions. The state sets fenestration U-factor at 0.35 rather than the 0.40 the model code allows, and it relaxed solar heat gain coefficient from 0.25 to 0.27. Skylights are held at U-0.65.
If you go the trade-off route instead of the prescriptive table, windows are capped at SHGC 0.30. Any ordinary double-glazed low-E unit clears all of that, which is why we rarely recommend spending up from there.
Are impact windows worth it in Savannah?
They are worth it for wind and airborne debris, and they are worth nothing at all against water rising from underneath, which is the peril most of this county actually faces. Laminated impact glazing is genuinely good product: it holds together when struck, cuts ultraviolet transmission and makes a house harder to break into.
It also costs a multiple of standard glazing. On an elevated house near open water it earns its money. On an inland ranch in Georgetown, panels or shutters buy the same protection for far less.
Should I repair my windows or replace them?
If the frames are sound and the complaint is a fogged pane, a broken balance, a failed sash lock or rotten glazing putty, repair. Replacing a sealed glass unit inside a frame you keep is cheap, fast and never touches a permit or a valuation.
Replace when the frame itself has gone, when the sash no longer meets the sill along its length, or when you are opening the wall for other reasons anyway. We will tell you which one you have, and we lose the bigger sale often enough that you can believe it.