I can't help you with cost, but we do have these throughout our home in the living areas. We purchased it after it was built, but it was a fairly standard "builder grade" home, so I am guessing they are not that much. I would ask the trim carpenter or the framers. It really helps open things up in our home. The door openings are standard height and our ceilings are 9'. The extra foot of glass makes the doorway look proportional to the ceiling and the doors to the bedrooms and such are the same height as the actual opening, so things match up well. Best of luck with your build!

Transom windows are a standard item available from many window makers.

For interior transoms, you don't have to have a prebuilt unit from the window makers. Your framer & trim guy can make those happen. The framer frames for it & the trim guy builds a backer frame panel, inserts the glass and secures it in place by creating another frame panel on the other side. They can then put on "dividers" to give you that divided lite look or you can just leave it without. It's typically much less expensive to do it this way than getting them from the window manufacturers.

Yeah, you definitely don't want to use standard exterior transom windows for an interior location.

Nowadays, almost all manufactured windows are designed to limit heat transfer between the interior and the exterior of your home... i.e., double or triple-paned low-E glass with xenon or some other inert gas permanently sealed between the panes, etc. In general, that is a good thing but for an INTERIOR window where you're not worried about heat transfer from one room to another, why pay for all that technology?

mydreamhome is right, have your framers frame up an extra tall opening and your trim guy can make these happen. It is pretty simple to do. No way it should cost you anything close to what a premade (manufactured) transom window would cost.

If you want the clarity of real glass instead of plexi-glass tho, be sure and pay the extra few dollars to get tempered glass panes instead of plain glass. When tempered glass is broken, it crumbles into small granular chunks instead of splintering into jagged shards. Codes require that glass within 18 inches of a doorway be tempered glass. A transom over the doorway definitely falls within that 18inch range but your trim guy may not know about the codes since he doesn't generally deal with glass.

If you are using them over exterior doors get them from the door manufacturer so that the sightlines will line up and you will know that the frames will be compatible. If your using them interior most millwork shops that sell interior prehung door units will also sell transoms for the doors.

wow, thanks for all the great info everyone! I had no idea the trim guys could make these. I will definitely start doing some research into that. Great to know that they're not as costly as ext. transoms.

thanks again!

you definitely don't want to use standard exterior transom windows for an interior location. Nowadays, almost all manufactured windows are designed to limit heat transfer between the interior and the exterior of your home... i.e., double or triple-paned low-E glass[etc]

But compared to custom work, they may still be cheaper and better built. Get quotes.

For special shapes, outside windows are likely the most economic choice. In a custom house I did, their interior designer specified Paladian windows over double interior doors. There was no choice but double pane exterior units.