Blood boiling corner

[Nigel Watts]

The windows in the second picture are so brutal they verge on the poetic. If this facade were transposed to the Tate Modern it might win a Turner pize.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Slipping through the listing net:

 

[Moo]

That's not blood-boiling, Gareth. It's gut-wrenching and tear-jerking.
How can people be so brutal? I know - greed, ignorance.......

 

[middi]

The "old style" shutters were hingied against the wall of the window opening recess internally and the casements would open internally in the conventional manner. Easily achieved due to the, normally, 2 feet deep walls. Good for keeping the sun out but not the heat in.

Later improvements was to attach the the int. shutters on raised hingies against the window frames over the casements. This is much better to "seal" and keep heat in. This is/was the traditional approach. On most apartments mass constructed windows, roller shutters, similar to the average garage doors but operated internally with cords etc., are utilised to keep the sun and rain out.These incorporate ventilation slats if not fully shut. These r/shutters are fitted externally , therefore the in-swinging casements can be opened but ventilation is not impaired.

On the previous mentioned conventional shutters muslin style netting is required to keep the flies out.

One of the biggest drawbacks is the necessity to make arrangements for driving rain not to be channelled into the window cill(and the house). This is usually crudely ( and effectively ) achieved by having small rain channels which sometimes run within the int. window ledge and then out again. The designers usually build windows under balconies and parapets, this alleviates the problem.

As DG ha not escaped and widely used, they are all manufactured ( including shutters) also to open inwards.

WE should tell them about sash windows Biff,it would solve a lot of fiddly problems.

 

[piper]

This part of Spain doesn't get too cold in the winter then?

It does get very cold and wet in the middle of winter, because it's very high. Extremadura, like Madrid, is said to have "three months of Winter and nine months of Hell", because of cold winters and very hot summers. When we were there at the end of last May it was like a warm English Summer, but the locals were complaining of how cold it was. Parts of Spain had just had torrential freak rain which caused some serious flooding and destroyed a lot of the cherry crop.
Those shutters are intriguing. Congratulations to Biff for noticing the problem - I'm ashamed to say it didn't occur to me when I was there (like I said, more interested in the roof). Certainly, some remaining few very traditional old "peasant" houses I've seen in Southern Andalucia don't have glass, but a restored building like the one in my picture - with a modern use by a community organisation - surely must have glass. It may be something like Middi describes - seems like a good excuse to go back there and find out

 

[Penners]

both casements and shutters open internally.

Oh ho, how does that work? Doesn't that mean you can't have the glass part shut and the wooden part open at the same time - rather defeating the object of the exercise?

Quite so. In the south of France, many houses have outward-opening shutters, with a cunning fastener on the inside that enables them to be latched fully closed or partly closed.

During the day, the inward opening windows are opened to let in air, but the shutters are always closed to keep out the hot sun. It's effective, although it tends to make indoors a bit gloomy.

So you sit outside under the mulberry tree with a glass of rose wine.

 

[Nemesis]

Horrid and blood boiling:

Nast cementy pointing, coloured dark, and placcy windows...

 

[Nemesis]

Bet the door was next...

 

[Penners]

GRRRRRRRRRRR! :x

Vile, vile, vile....

 

[Nemesis]

Cumbria. Bet they thought it a great improvement...

 

[Ian Bond]

Drove through parts of Cumbria a couple of weeks ago, on the way back from a Landmark break - so many lovely houses spoiled by the horrors of uPVC :evil:

Those placcy jobs'll be in another skip in 20 years or so time, when those wonderful sashes would've outlasted them by a couple of hundred years.

Nice door though - wide and nicely proportioned panels.

 

[elm]

Nice door though

What, you mean you don't prefer that fetching little mock Tudor number next door then? :?

 

[MDE]

I don't think Cumbrians have an exclusive on bad taste. What they do have is a lot of old stone buildings and a shortage of decent builders who know how to look after them.

 

[Nemesis]

Until not very long ago, Cumbria, like Northumberland, had vey few plccy windows and 'home improvements' of that sort to be see.

The past couple of years has seen an explosion of atrocities. Awful. Even places like the houses round the green at Milburn are sporting them.

http://www.visitcumbria.com/pen/milburn.htm

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/74119

Thankfully, not all (click on pics for larger view)

http://www.eastgatebarn.com/description/outside.html

Once gone, they are gone. Yet beautiful old windows are possibly the finest pieces of craftmanship in many houses, and the cost of getting something made as lovely today is not cheap.



Why do they do it?

 

[MDE]

I think they do it because they are told that's what they must have according to the regulations. The planners seem happy with it (I've not so far found the local planning authorities to be a fount of wisdom and common sense). There may be alternatives, but not much locally. Some folk even have to go as far as Lincolnshire to find a decent window. :wink:

 

[Nemesis]

But many are ripping out sound windows to do it, so it must be that they are fooled by the marketing con!

More Milburn pics:

http://www.geograph.org.uk/gridref/NY6529

 

[elm]

I don't think Cumbrians have an exclusive on bad taste.

Agreed. This is (for now) our own front door, a definite blood boiler along with the pebbledash and the grim pointing on the garden wall ..... Underneath it all somewhere there's a very old stone farmhouse .....

 

[Nemesis]

Nice!

A search on IoE does bring up some buildings listed with uPVC windows:


[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]

IoE Number: 35594
Location: 12-16 NEWNHAM STREET
BEDFORD, BEDFORD, BEDFORDSHIRE
Photographer: Clive Jones
Date Photographed: 01 August 1999
Date listed: 18 April 1991
Date of last amendment: 18 April 1991
Grade II


The following buildings shall be added:TL 0449 & TL0549BedfordNewnham Street1/203Nos 12-16

The following buildings shall be added: TL 0449 & TL0549 Bedford Newnham Street 1/203 Nos 12-16 (even) II Row of three houses. 1798, for James Whittingstall and William Long (brewers). Red brick in flemish bond; plain tile roofs; brick stacks. 2 storeys, 6 bays; each house of 2 bays and with gabled rear wing, that of no.16 rebuilt, those of nos 12 and 14 heightened. Plinth: No 12 has old 6-panel door on left in architrave with 4-pane overlight, dentilled cornice, and bracketed hood; nos 14 and 16 have late C20 doors,on left and right respectively, each with overlight and late C20 bracketed hood. Nos 12 and 14 each have a mid-late C19 bay window; no 16 small-pane bowed window on brick plinth. On 1st floor nos 12 and 16 have original window openings with flat gauged brick arches, no 16 having original small-pane side-sliding sashes, no 12 with replacement small-pane 2-light casements; no 14 has upvc windows in concrete rendered surrounds with tile sills. Two ridge stacks between houses. Interior: Nos 12 and 14 retain original board doors; cupboards, and stairs, no 14 retaining closed string balustrade with stick balusters and ball-finialed square newel. Continuous roof space. Bedfordshire County Planning Department, Bedford: Aspects of Town Origins and Development, Bedfordshire Historic Environment No 2, fig 8 indenture accompanying deeds no 12. Terrier of St Cuthberts Church, 1822.

However, more seraching at times brings up descriptions of timber sashes and pics recently taken with nasty replacements...

 

[ljn]

oldschool windows from Pisa

 

[Nemesis]