Crown glass versus float glass - views ?

[masochists-r-us]

We're about to replace our nasty 70's front windows with simple cottage windows and have asked the companies to quote including regular float glass as well as hand made or crown glass. The premium we will have to pay for the hand made variety is the princely sum of £1000. The question is, is it worth it to get the right look or should we save the grand and put it toward other aspects of our restoration.
All views appreciated.

 

[Flyfisher]

OK, I'll bite. :wink:

It's a tricky decision but the bottom line is that you'll be installing modern windows (I assume they'll have to be DG to latest specs?), albeit to a traditional design, and the fact is that old glass is only "nice and wobbly" because it was the best they could make at the time. Modern is glass is, optically, far superior to old glass and is of its time. Of course, if you really want wobbly glass then fine, no problem (apart from the £1000) but I don't think there's any reason other than purely personal preference; the very original glass is, sadly, long gone.

And if it's really a matter of old glass preventing other worthy works then I'd choose modern glass; after all, you're already going to transform (for the better) the look of the house simply by installing an appropriate window design. I'm sure the house will love you for that alone and won't worry at all about the type of glass.

But it'll be interesting to read opposing views and reasons.

 

[biffvernon]

First of all you need to do a bit of homework about glass. You will not be getting crown glass. Nobody makes it. Nobody even has the skill and knowledge to make it no matter how much money you throw at them.

What you can get is hand made mouth blown cylinder glass. The source I use is Tatra Glass of Loughborough. The glass is made in Poland in the old way. It's beautiful, so much better than float, looking through it is a completely different experience.

You don't say how much window you are getting for your extra £1000 but the price of this glass is under £100 per square metre. That's not very much more than a decent quality double glazed unit. When I'm quoting for windows I don't charge much more for cylinder glass than for double glazed units.

(Presumably yours is a listed building or in a Conservation Area where your Conservation Officer is a bigger person than the Buildings Control Officer armed with his Part L Document. Flyfisher seems to assume you want double glazing in hand made glass - that's a whole other kettle of fish. Technically possible but it's going to cost.)

 

[AMc]

If you're getting brand new windows made then I would use modern float glass too. £1000 is a lot of money to create the impression of age in something that isn't old. I appreciate others will have different opinions but I figured I'd stick my 2p in.
You also need to check the type of glass - IIRC if you're within 80cm of the floor you should be using toughened or laminated for safety.

 

[JoceAndChris]

I think it depends on everything else. If, like me, you're trying to recreate the 18th C outside and in it's pretty essential to have that wobbly glass -I'd love to replace our modern panes in the Viccy sashes with it.

If you've got contemporary styling going on there doesn't seem much point, especially if this expense would be taking away from other more pressing repairs.

 

[biffvernon]

If you've got contemporary styling going on there doesn't seem much point...

I make contemporary windows - I don't do repro. Sometimes I use hand made mouth blown glass. I use it because it is intrinsically beautiful. I prefer to support the artisan and the craftsman where possible but find it hard to get excited about the float glass production line at Pilkingtons, though I have to use there products all too often.

 

[Penners]

Sometimes I use hand made mouth blown glass. I use it because it is intrinsically beautiful.

But I wonder why it's beautiful? I'm not disagreeing with you (quite the contrary) but I'm intrigued as to why we should find glass that vaguely distorts the view more beautiful than glass that allows us to see the view without distortion.

Is it perhaps that, in the case of the former, we're actually looking at the glass and not the view?

 

[Feltwell]

My glass is late Victorian and therefore presumably not as "wobbly" as the earlier examples. I find I much prefer the look of the original glass from the outside - it reflects the light in a much more interesting way than float glass.

From the inside though, I find the distortion a little uncomfortable. I'm not about to take any original glass out but (especialy for those rooms in frequent use) I'm quite happy to leave the float glass in that been used for repairs before. For £1000 - I'd use the money elsewhere.

 

[JoceAndChris]

But I wonder why it's beautiful? I'm not disagreeing with you (quite the contrary) but I'm intrigued as to why we should find glass that vaguely distorts the view more beautiful than glass that allows us to see the view without distortion.

It 's time for Hopkins again!

"GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him. "

It's beautiful because it's textured, varied, individual, and unpredictable - and -disagreeing with Feltwell here, it distorts reality, almost creating a mirage of the past!

There, was that pretentious enough? :wink:

Biff, we could argue for a long time about the meaning of the words "contemporary" and "reproduction", and their impact on choices of style. As a craftsman, I can see you'd be very sensitive to the precise qualities of the materials you work with - just as a cook would prefer to use the finest and most interesting ingredients.

 

[Penners]

There, was that pretentious enough?

Good effort - almost good enough to be me.

áll trádes

Wherefore the grave accents?

 

[JoceAndChris]

I'm not really sure where they appeared from - unless my keyboard is wantonly adding new levels of pretension! :shock: But if you like you could imagine that bit in cut-glass heightened received pronunciation. :wink:

 

[Penners]

No imagination required. The voice in my head knows no other.

 

[biffvernon]

Biff, we could argue for a long time about the meaning of the words "contemporary" and "reproduction", and their impact on choices of style.

There's no need for argument. It's perhaps easier with furniture. I'm sitting at a 19th century table on a 21st century chair. I like old furniture. I like some new furniture. I don't like new 'repro' furniture, stuff that is new but made in the style of old. That's just fake.

With buildings it's a bit similar. I'm all for repairing what is old and broken but not for building copies of old styles and passing them off as from an earlier time. There's a house in my town that was built a couple of years ago. It's in a conservation area surrounded by Victorian houses. It looks ok and anyone giving it a cursory glance would think it Victorian. But I'm not at all sure it should have been built. The challenge would have been to produce a contemporary design that enhanced the streetscape, a challenge that eluded the developers and planners.

So although I sometimes do a like for like replacement of a windows that is beyond repair, most of my work is clearly of 21st century design though using great materials and with influence of elder days.

The pre-Raphaelites may have been influenced by art from before Raphael but they did not pretend they were not Victorians.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Biff - I like and admire the clarity with which you see this issue, though I'm far from clear on the matter. I'll stand up for high quality repro though.

I guess that means you hate the stuff on this website - I love it. http://www.johnrichard.com/new/products.asp?subcatid=7&subcatname=John%2DRichard+Furniture&catid=16&catname=Furniture

Real antique furniture, at the high end, can be prohibitively expensive- does that mean that no-one is entitled to buy a copy of a beautiful design at a fraction of the cost?

Take, for example, the Jupes table on this website:

http://www.brights-interiors.com/product.asp?id=1985

Apparently a real one can fetch £30,000 - this is a more achievable (for some) way to have a tribute to that amazing piece of history in your home.

Then there's the knotty issue of whether a reproduction piece can be classed as an antique in its own right. The Edwardians copied Regency styles - and, as the pieces are a lot more affordable than Regency pieces I'm very grateful for this! But I also have a nice little 50s Epstein sofa, very influenced by Chippendale and early 19th C style, and only costing me £150 on Ebay. Is it an antique? Or repro?

The styles of the past get copied over and over, and much of what people term contemporary gives more than a nod to former fashions. Take the great range of furniture by Willis and Gambier. Is it contemporary, or reproduction? http://www.wguk.com/pages/home.php

 

[JoceAndChris]

And Biff - if you're still reading, I'd really appreciate your opinion on this, as you'd be my first port of call. (sadly this project is still at a hypothetical stage)

I don't like the current windows in the porch, or the doors - I think they kill a lot of the cottage ornee feel - what do you think about this modern repair?

This was how they looked when the previous owner moved in, (these photos were taken in the mid 80s before he began his repair work, which involved taking off the battlements, putting in a lead roof, putting the battlements back on, and having the new doors and windows made).I've a lot of evidence to say these are the original doors and windows (just took the lock for repair from the matching inner doors and it was identified as early nineteenth century):

If I asked you to remake them as they were, with all that criss-cross moulding, bearing in mind I have all the original wobbly diamond shaped panes in the workshop and I'd like to reuse them, what would you say?

In case anyone hasn't seen Biff's lovely windows, which look anything but contemporary to me, here are some:

http://www.biffvernon.freeserve.co.uk/lincolnshire_sash.htm

 

[biffvernon]

I hope those dangly Christmas lights have gone.

The original criss-cross stuff was timber was it? I've seen similar in cast iron not a million miles from your neck of the woods.

Finding a use for the old glass would be a fine thing.

And yes you make a good case for the repro furniture. It's a matter of taste. I kinda associate that stuff with 3 star hotel chains. Most British craftspeople would be bored out of their skulls reproducing this stuff when they could be creating their own designs.

Which raises the question of who is making it? And what is it made of?

Show me why you know this kind of furniture is not made in the far east from illegally felled tropical rainforest timber.

The furniture is branded as Theodore Alexander, a subsidiary company of Paul Maitland International, a global corporation founded by Paul Maitland in 1996 whose current CEO is Harvey Dondero, formerly chairman of World Market Centre of Las Vegas. The main manufacturing base is near Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where there are almost 9000 employees. It is one of Asia's largest furniture manufacturers.

This is mass produced in Asian factories from timber from tropical rainforests with zero traceablility regarding sustaintable use of forest products.

Frankly, I would rather see this furniture ground up and returned to the forest whence it came where it might be of some use as compost (if it hasn't been doused with anti-woodworm poisons).

 

[JoceAndChris]

I take it from your silence on my original timber windows and doors you don't think it's a good idea to reproduce them.

The Christmas lights are still there unfortunately as the little solar power lights we've installed are not sufficient to see by- the garden is pitch black at night and there are lots of treacherous steps to navigate.

I don't know about the sustainability of the methods of production used by Brights of Nettlebed. I'll speak to them about it. I just bought a gilded mahogany mirror from them, it's made in Bali, they seem to be quite proud of the industry they've taken to the craftsmen there. http://www.brights-interiors.com/sub-category.asp?id=33

 

[Penners]

I hope those dangly Christmas lights have gone.

But why bother with taking them down? You'll only have to put them up again in about nine months.

That, at least, appears to be the attitude of the residents at a house near us, where the bloody things flap around in the wind all year long. :roll:

 

[biffvernon]

I take it from your silence on my original timber windows and doors you don't think it's a good idea to reproduce them.

Not at all. I said it would be good to use the old glass. I just wanted to check whether the originals were in fact timber and not cast iron.

I don't know about the sustainability of the methods of production used by Brights of Nettlebed. I'll speak to them about it.

You think they'll know? There will almost certainly be no reliable paper-trail of traceability for these product.

I just bought a gilded mahogany mirror from them, it's made in Bali, they seem to be quite proud of the industry they've taken to the craftsmen there. http://www.brights-interiors.com/sub-category.asp?id=33

They may well say they are proud! But of course the timber is not mahogany in the botanical sense, i.e. a member of the Swietenia genus, all of whose species are listed under CITES as protected and so if someone sold it to you and you bought it you should both be locked up! Anyway, it doesn't grow in Bali. The word is scattered carelessly over any darkish reddish looking tropical timber. The Bali wood trade is massive - forget romantic ideas of small crafts people - they are just a link in a vast global corporate chain that is destroying the Indonesian rainforest. Indonesia is the third largest contributor to global warming as a result of it's CO2 emission from deforestation.

Buying this furniture is rather like eating a KitKat.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Don't, anyone, watch that link whilst eating your lunch as I just did.

You're probably right that the repro stuff is destroying the rainforests, and that those responsible will keep very quiet about it. I've emailed Brights, it will be interesting to see what the response is.

I'm not sure how I'd wrestle with my conscience if I did have the money to buy all repro stuff for the house (if we're talking imaginary situations of course I'd prefer to furnish with authentic stuff from 1750-1800), but, anyway, you'll be pleased to hear that regardless of what I'd like what I have is chiefly second-hand junk. And of course if it came to the luxurious choice of blowing 9k on a table, or on restoring/ repairing the fabric of the house I'd choose the house.

Do you think the stuff in Laura Ashley, Ikea and John Lewis is destroying the rainforests as well?

But of course the timber is not mahogany in the botanical sense, i.e. a member of the Swietenia genus, all of whose species are listed under CITES as protected and so if someone sold it to you and you bought it you should both be locked up! Anyway, it doesn't grow in Bali. The word is scattered carelessly over any darkish reddish looking tropical timber

I didn't know that, how fascinating. I do wish people would give materials their proper names.

Not at all. I said it would be good to use the old glass.

Apologies, I thought you meant as a cold-frame or some such thing. When the time comes I'll ask you for a quote.