Window and siding replacement in Alton
What the code and the permit desk actually require here — and what the houses in Alton tend to be hiding behind the siding.
- People
- 25,279
- Homes
- 12,551
- Size
- 15.7 square miles
- From downtown
- About 20 miles north
- ZIP codes
- 62002
- Founded or incorporated
- 1837
Many blocks of Alton were built in Victorian Queen Anne style during its 19th-century steamboat-era prosperity, and the city retains an unusually high number of brick-paved streets; the Great Flood of 1993 cut off Alton's water supply for weeks and inundated the historic downtown.
Alton
The housing here is a mix of pre-1940 Victorian-era housing (about 28% of homes) and a large 1950s postwar wave (about 21%).
What that vintage turns up
The original units are single-pane — wood double-hungs on the frame houses, and steel casements on a good number of the brick ones. Steel casements rust along the bottom of the sash and frame first, the exterior putty fails, and the sash goes out of true until there is a visible gap along the closing edge. They are worth knowing about because they are a real decision rather than an obvious one: the National Park Service documented a job repairing sixty-five of them at roughly $360 a window, which was about what replacing them would have cost, and the replacements could not match the narrow original sightlines and cut the glass area by a fifth.
This is asbestos-cement shingle country. The grey or pastel shingles with the wavy bottom edge on so many houses of this age are a Category II non-friable asbestos material, and they are perfectly inert until somebody breaks, saws, sands or power-washes them, at which point the work practice itself is what makes them regulated. Missouri exempts a single house of four units or fewer from the inspection and notification requirements, which makes the paperwork disappear and does nothing at all to the material. Get it tested before anyone touches it.
The one to watch on a house of this age
Low-slope porch roofs tying into a wall are the classic leak on this vintage, and the tie-in is exactly where a kickout flashing belongs and usually is not. Whatever is going on behind that wall has been going on for a while.
Lead paint. Near certain. These houses predate 1978 by a wide margin. 62.2% of the homes in Madison County were built before 1980, and on anything pre-1978 the EPA renovation rule applies to both of these trades. Window replacement is never exempt from it, at any size — a single window triggers it. A whole-house re-side clears the twenty square foot exterior threshold on the first wall. What the rule actually requires of a contractor.
Neighbourhoods
We work across Upper Alton.
Historic districts
Alton has 4: Christian Hill Historic District, Upper Alton Historic District, Middletown Historic District and Downtown Alton Historic District. This matters more for windows than for almost any other kind of work. A visible change to a window on a designated property can need preservation review before a building permit will issue, and in the strictest districts in this metro the material the window is made of is written into the ordinance. Which local rules bite, and which are only advisory.
Next door
Alton shares a boundary with West Alton and Grafton. Where we have a page for a neighbour it is linked; where we do not, the rules there are still different from the rules here.
The rules in Alton
Siding replacement Permit required
Rests on the code's general trigger, not a siding-specific line. Alton City Code Sec. 9-1-2 (Building Permits; Fees) applies to the 'erection, construction, alterations, repairs or removal of any wall, fence, building or structure, or part thereof' - re-siding is an alteration or repair of a wall. Re-siding of a dwelling is not listed among exempt work. No siding line appears in the Sec. 9-1-2 fee schedule and there is no siding-specific permit form.
Window replacement, same opening Permit required Enlarging or cutting an opening Permit required
Same published basis as siding: Sec. 9-1-2 covers 'alterations, repairs. Alton publishes NO distinction between the two, and no window-specific permit form exists - the Forms & Applications page lists Building, Electrical, Commercial Electrical, Mechanical, Plumbing, Fence, Occupancy, Solar, Sign, Alarm, Contour and Excavation permits only.
Illinois sets this, not Alton — and we are not going to print a number we have not read
This is set in Springfield, not here. The Illinois Energy Conservation Code is adopted statewide by the Capital Development Board, and under the Energy Efficient Building Act no unit of local government — home rule or not — may regulate residential energy standards either more or less strictly than the state does. The Board adopted the 2024 edition, in force since 30 November 2025. It reaches alteration, renovation and repair work for which the municipality or county requires a building permit, limited to the part of the house being modified, and there is no Illinois exemption for replacement windows as such.
The unamended 2024 code figure for this climate zone is U-0.28. But Illinois publishes its own amendments to that code, it has amended that very table before, and we have not been able to open the current amendment document. So we are not going to state U-0.28 as the number enforced here. Buy to the ENERGY STAR figure below and the question does not arise; if you need the exact legal minimum, the Capital Development Board’s energy code office is on 217-685-4079.
For comparison, ENERGY STAR asks for U-0.25 or lower with an SHGC of 0.40 or lower everywhere in this metro, which is stricter than every code edition in force here. And the code only bites when the sash and the glazing are replaced together — replace the glass alone in an existing sash, or add a storm window over the top, and it does not apply.
Contractor registration Not published
Sec. 9-1-2 sets out permit fees at length (signs, demolition, electrical, plumbing/mechanical, fencing, solar, reinspection) and specifies NO contractor registration, local licence, bond or insurance. The only bond in the chapter is for demolition: 'a cash performance bond of one thousand dollars ($1,000.00).'.
What the permit costs
Sec. 9-1-2 fee schedule (no siding or window line published): signs $50 base plus $10 per additional thousand; demolition $75-$100; electrical $50-$150 for service installations, $50 per circuit category, commercial $100+ base; plumbing/mechanical $50 residential, $100+ base commercial; fencing $50 residential; solar panels $75 plus $15 per additional thousand; reinspections $35. Demolition fees are set 'at the same rate as for building permit fees based on the cost of the demolition.' Two nonprofits (Piasa Area Habitat for Humanity and Christmas in April) get fee waivers but 'must comply with the provisions of this chapter and obtain appropriate permits.'.
Local quirks
Permits are filed through a third-party BS&A Online portal rather than the city's own site. The Building Permit Application is a free-text form with no work-type checkboxes, so what counts as permit work is decided at the counter. Fee schedule has no siding or window line at all.
Who to call
- Building dept
- 618-463-3500
- Official
- Greg Caffey, Building and Zoning Director (gcaffey@cityofaltonil.gov); Code Enforcement, 101 E. Third Street, Alton IL 62002
- Permits
- Department page
How Alton compares with the rest of Madison County
Same county, same climate, same houses. Not the same rules.
| Place | Permit to re-side | Permit for a window | Window must meet |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alton | Yes | Yes | — |
| Collinsville | Yes | Depends | — |
| Edwardsville | Yes | Yes | — |
| Glen Carbon | Not published | Not published | — |
| Granite City | Depends | Depends | — |
Work we have done in Alton
None logged in Alton yet. When there is one it goes here, with the address block and what was actually done to it. An empty section is better than a number you cannot check.
Where these facts came from
Everything on this page about Alton was read off a published source. Where a question has no published answer we have said so rather than filling the gap.
Sources: cityofaltonil.gov · cityofaltonil.gov · cityofaltonil.gov · codelibrary.amlegal.com · codelibrary.amlegal.com · codelibrary.amlegal.com · codelibrary.amlegal.com · codelibrary.amlegal.com · cdb.illinois.gov · cdb.illinois.gov · cdb.illinois.gov · regulations.justia.com · regulations.justia.com · law.justia.com · law.cornell.edu · energysense.uillinois.edu
Windows or siding in Alton?
Tell us the address. We look up what the city requires before we work out a price.
Tell us about the house
We answer the phone. If we miss you, we call back.