Dedication

[plasticpigeon]

This house restoration is like a chronic disease. I don't enjoy it but I carry on and endure it. I'm restoring sash windows again. They are so knackered they take about 3 days each just to strip and rebuild including some brickwork. Then, as anyone who has ever done it will know, painting is another endurance test, they are so fiddly! I really was considering plastic at £300 a pop from Colin's windows, but I just can't bring muself to throw the old ones out.

 

[LadyArowana]

You are doing a really lovely job, just think of it as its own reward. To be able to sit back one day and look at them and think "I did that" Priceless as they say in the ads. Carry on and hope you have a good Easter

 

[Alex O]

Are Colin's sash windows any good? We have bog standard UPVC at the moment - probably installed in the 70s and all need replacing. I can't afford timber sashes, so we're thinking of compromising and getting the UPVC sashes with the wood effect foils.

 

[plasticpigeon]

Colin's sash windows are cheap! And they do offer the ones with run through horns and thin glazing bars for a few quid more. The important thing is to order them the right size to sit behind the aperture and not inside the aperture. I have never used Colin's but foir that price I would take a risk on one to see if it was any good.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Well done PP, fabulous work, you know placcy windows come from the armpit of Beelzebub, don't go there.

If youre feeling jaded with their restoration, it might be that youre trying to do too much too quickly? We are 9 years into our project now and just about finished the windows last year - we spent years watching them gently rot. I agree they are incredible labours of love ( though I actually love painting them and painting in general - I can't splice in the new wood though) and I don't think we could have done more than 2 or 3 a year.

It's rarely urgent to repair wood, if necessary paint on wood hardener quickly and come back to the problem another year, the deterioration after wood hardener is minimal.

We've still got rot in the bedroom window, the upkeep of the windows never ends!

Good luck.

 

[Lime]

In reality sash windows are very simple in design and construction.
I'm not very skilled with wood (although I can saw straight) and I found there was nothing that I could not replace to the same standard as the original.
I improved the method of holding them in the brick aperture (two long clout nails) by using several equally-long stainless wood screws.
some windows required over 50% wood replacement.
I took out and repaired 14 windows in all.
Getting the same quality wood is not possible so I also used a hardwood for the sill.
The local wood merchant made up the outline and I just had to cut it to size and fit.
Everything else I made myself.
Of all the jobs on the house I found this the most satisfying, once I had got over the plaster falling off the wall and all the dust of a century or more.
It makes a permanent job that you can secretly admire for decades and is much better than the patch method many people recommend IMO once you pluck up the courage to take them out.

 

[Alex O]

Colin's sash windows are cheap! And they do offer the ones with run through horns and thin glazing bars for a few quid more. The important thing is to order them the right size to sit behind the aperture and not inside the aperture. I have never used Colin's but foir that price I would take a risk on one to see if it was any good.

I'm not sure what this means - how can the windows sit behind the aperture?

 

[plasticpigeon]

In the above picture, you can see that the box frame is flush with the inner brickwork, and set a half brick back from the outer skin of bricks. The window aperture as seen from the outside is smaller than the hole that the box frame goes into from the inside. Many fitters put replacement windows within the smaller aperture made by the outer skin of bricks, so the window is flush with the outer skin of bricks. This is usually very different from the way the windows were originally fitted and looks wrong. It also means the box frame looks thicker than it should as none of it is obscured, so the frames sould be made larger than the outer aperture and fitted from inside to look correct. Some very early sashes were flush with the outside, but these didn't have weights.

 

[Alex O]

Got ya, many thanks.

The current ugly UPVC windows are at least fitted flush to the inside, so that's something. Can't wait to be shot of them all the same.

 

[88v8]

Are Colin's sash windows any good? We have bog standard UPVC at the moment - probably installed in the 70s and all need replacing. I can't afford timber sashes, so we're thinking of compromising and getting the UPVC sashes with the wood effect foils.

Or you could paint your plastic windows so they don't look so c**p, and save up for wooden.
Clean with white spirit then meths, getting well into the corners and angles with a brush.
Sand down with 100 grit to key.
Oil topcoat, not water. No primer. Two coats, lightly rub down between coats.
Make them two colours - perhaps green frames and cream openers?

Ivor

 

[kreyszig]

so we're thinking of compromising and getting the UPVC sashes with the wood effect foils

please no! if there's anything worse than a plastic window, it's got to be a plastic window trying to look like wood.

 

[Alex O]

Nah, give over. I know there are purists here but sometimes we have to be practical. The current windows are blown, have weird, impractical openings and no amount of painting will make them look acceptable. It would take us a decade to save up for timber, with all the other stuff we have to do.

Given that the original fireplaces in my house are cast iron and slate painted to look like wood, I hardly think the Edwardians would have objected to wood-effect windows. Plus, they do actually look good.

You may now burn the witch.

</heresy>

 

[kreyszig]

I have now actually bothered to google wood effect windows, and I will grant you that the ones trying to look like painted wood are not so bad.
However:

 

[Alex O]

Ooh no cocker, I wouldn't have those. The sash ones with the white wood-effect foils are pretty decent.

 

[plasticpigeon]

I've always hated plastic windows, but more because of the design than the materials. I think that plastic sashes are getting better and better, and some look pretty decent. I think if I had plastic casements and wanted to replace them, I would go down the plastic sash route, but the choice of profile and the way they are made has to be chosen carefully. Not all plastic sashes are equal. However replacing the original windows no matter how knackered doesn't sit well with me.

I think these are pretty good.

https://www.rehau.com/gb-en/pvcu-windows-doors--composite-curtain-walling/windows/rehau-heritage#tab3

 

[Flyfisher]

. . . but more because of the design than the materials . . .

That has always been my feeling too. I can't recall ever seeing uPVC windows that actually look pleasing, to my eyes at least, and that applies even to new builds. I'm not entirely sure why and I've tried hard not to be prejudiced simply because they are plastic, but there's something about the designs I've seen that just don't 'look right'.

I guess there is some good reason why exact replicas of traditional wooden frames can't be made using uPVC materials and techniques, but don't know enough about them to understand why.

And as for those windows with fake plastic glazing bars inside the DG units . . .

 

[Feltwell]

There are many very bad UPVC sashes, and a few mediocre ones, but I've yet to see a good one. Some, like the Rehau ones posted up before, look OK from a distance at least - but up close, as you see them when living with them, they still look wrong. Spiral balances instead of cord or chain, catches that don't look right, visible foam gaskets for DG units, none of it helps, but overall I think it's because they just look too perfect - a wooden window, especially an old one, is very rarely as flawless as a new plastic window.

I've been on my own long term labour of love restoring sash windows, at some point I was thinking of posting up details of the restoration of my (previously completely knackered!) lounge bay window. Not as a "Look at me, this is a masterclass in window restoration" - far from it! - more as a "Look, whilst there's probably better ways of doing it, even an untrained numpty like me can achieve a pretty decent result and save an original window, so you can to" - even on a window that looks to be scrap.

I've had to compromise. I'd love to have new "wobbly" restoration glass instead of modern float glass, and I know exactly where I can buy glass that is a very good match for what original glass I have left. But it's stupidly expensive - just too much to justify - so float glass it is, where the original is already gone or broken. I was using linseed paint, but have decided that it's just not practical, the drying times are far too long. So I've placed my faith in modern water borne paint - Bedec MSP, as detailed in other threads, is supposed to last far longer than the usual Dulux stuff. That has neccisitated another compromise - the paint won't stick to linseed putty, so it's a modern mastic that is holding my glass in now. The right decision? Ask me in 10 years!

What is for certain is that properly done with new brush seals in parting and staff beads, and meeting rails, an old sash window is neither rattly nor draughty and glides open and shut with ease.

 

[Hobden]

In the above picture, you can see that the box frame is flush with the inner brickwork, and set a half brick back from the outer skin of bricks.

In passing, wasn't this something to do with the new fire regulations introduced in mid-Georgian times?

 

[TheRoost]

Keep going pp, looks like your doing a grand job.

Lets have some pics of them from both sides as they go back in.

For the last three summers I've been repairing our mock sash pine casements at the back/side of the house which only look about 15-20 years old yet have some extensive rot from neglect, much less work than your sashes but time consuming and often wondered if I was wasting my time as they are not original to the house, but after this winter looking back at the first ones I did, they still look good, the rot has not come back and paint has not fallen off, so starting to appreciate that it was worth the effort and has saved the expense /hassle of replacing with new. At the front of the house we have plain upvc casements which don't suit the house at all, we hate them but that will be a project a long time into the future which would probably involve a remortgage to fund new timber sashes.

A friend bought a upvc conservatory a couple of years ago, said they offered a nice green colour option as opposed to the standard white, I'm sure he said it was a painted coating done at the factory.

It's funny how most people believe that upvc can't/shouldn't be painted, why is that?

 

[plasticpigeon]

Thanks, I'll take a pic from the other side. I will start painting the boxes this weekend. Yes PVC can be painted with the same paint that car bumpers are painted with. I know Rehau make windows and bumpers and offer this service, but unfortunately not many take it up. Have you looked into PVC sashes for the front of the house? Some look pretty good these days! I would consider it if replacing cheap plastic casements.