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Anonymous
Guest
And of course, she'll be repainting (or more likely replacing) her upvc windows before then. I can't understand where her dogmatism about "not having a choice" is coming from, though.
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Anonymous
Guest
Thanks very much Biff, I'll look into that!
Appreciate your help.
Heidi
Appreciate your help.
Heidi
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Anonymous
Guest
Andrew also I wouldn't give up on - but as a local authority HBO hey, what can he know?
uPVC windows are awful, environmentally unsound, and if you are about to put your existing ones in landfill, where they may well pollute, then at least don't add on a future disposal problem also. Do the decent thing.
uPVC windows are awful, environmentally unsound, and if you are about to put your existing ones in landfill, where they may well pollute, then at least don't add on a future disposal problem also. Do the decent thing.
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Anonymous
Guest
Whilst I have sympathy with the anti uPVC comments of most respondents. I have two comments: 1) I replaced my rotten original sash windows, with new timber ones 16 years ago, and despite maintenance one is already rotting and needs replacing.
2) Recently put house on market, and neither Estate Agents or would be buyers have shown any interest at all in the fact that it has sash-style timber, rather than uPVC windows. I suspect it is actually a negative for some of them.
2) Recently put house on market, and neither Estate Agents or would be buyers have shown any interest at all in the fact that it has sash-style timber, rather than uPVC windows. I suspect it is actually a negative for some of them.
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Anonymous
Guest
I doubt that your original sash windows were beyond repair, and possibly the replacements were of inferior timber. My timber windows have lasted many decades.
I am sure that there are those who relish the prospect of uPVC windows. They are#####however, and most certainly do not last as long as the manufacturers say they will.
There are many, many people with no taste whatsoever and no care regarding the environment - no-one ever went bust underestimating the taste of the great British public.
I am sure that there are those who relish the prospect of uPVC windows. They are#####however, and most certainly do not last as long as the manufacturers say they will.
There are many, many people with no taste whatsoever and no care regarding the environment - no-one ever went bust underestimating the taste of the great British public.
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Anonymous
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Its true that many buyers of uninspired properties do like to choose pvc, because it means extra insulation and no painting. PVC's problems dont seem much appreciated at the moment.
But if youve got something with character, adding pvc will really affect its value negatively, typically by 4 figures.
NT
But if youve got something with character, adding pvc will really affect its value negatively, typically by 4 figures.
NT
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Anonymous
Guest
As a carpenter/joiner of some years standing, with broad experience replicating original wooden features on listed properties, I had to respond to this thread. If anyone can stand on the opposite side of the street away from one of the MODERN upvc vertical sliding sashes with astrical (the modern 'trade' name for atrigals) bars and tell the difference between that and a gloss-painted wooden one I'd be surprised indeed. I have seen a lot of sceptics converted when they've actually seen the things installed. It is impossible to argue that of all the upvc replacement windows available, the use of the upvc vertical slider isn't a perfectly acceptable alternative to the ubiquitous 'top hung with dummy horns' in conservation areas. And for the record, they cost half as much as wooden ones and WILL last longer. The whole arguement against upvc is at best snobbish, at worst criminal, in that it ignores the fact that to supply sufficient timber to provide for all the housing needs of the increasing population is simply not possible at anything like a sustainable level. And good tradesmen have gone broke depending on the good taste of the British public. There simply aren't enough of you well-heeled, comfortably-off middle class around to keep experienced, highly skilled craftsmen like me in sufficient work to provide a reasonable living. Cloth caps don't come cheap any more.
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Anonymous
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As a carpenter/joiner of some years standing, with narrow experience designing and making original wooden windows, I had to respond to this thread. If anyone can stand their loved one on the opposite side of the room away from one of the MODERN glass fake diamonds you are about to give her and she can tell the difference between that and a real stone I'd be surprised indeed. I have seen a lot of relationships break down when they've actually seen the things close up.
Likewise I would argue that all of the upvc replacement windows available, including the use of the upvc vertical slider are perfectly unacceptable alternatives to wooden frames. The ubiquitous 'top hung with dummy horns' in conservation areas are often in contravention of the Building Regulations as they do not offer the required emergency egress. Although, for the record, they sometimes cost a little less than wooden ones, because they do not last as long turn out to be more expensive eventually. The whole argument against upvc is founded on a holistic approach to integrating sustainable building materials and methods with an appreciation of craft and design.
The use of PVC ignores the fact that it is based on a polluting industry consuming finite resource whose price will soon escalate in the post-Peak Oil era when increased or even sustained demand can no longer be met by supply at any price. Fortunately there is a sufficient supply of sustainably produced timber to provide for all the housing needs of the increasing population. Good tradesmen never go broke depending on the good taste of the British public. Moderately skilled craftsmen like me have no difficulty in finding sufficient work to provide a reasonable living. I wear a woolly hat.
Merry Christmas CJS
Likewise I would argue that all of the upvc replacement windows available, including the use of the upvc vertical slider are perfectly unacceptable alternatives to wooden frames. The ubiquitous 'top hung with dummy horns' in conservation areas are often in contravention of the Building Regulations as they do not offer the required emergency egress. Although, for the record, they sometimes cost a little less than wooden ones, because they do not last as long turn out to be more expensive eventually. The whole argument against upvc is founded on a holistic approach to integrating sustainable building materials and methods with an appreciation of craft and design.
The use of PVC ignores the fact that it is based on a polluting industry consuming finite resource whose price will soon escalate in the post-Peak Oil era when increased or even sustained demand can no longer be met by supply at any price. Fortunately there is a sufficient supply of sustainably produced timber to provide for all the housing needs of the increasing population. Good tradesmen never go broke depending on the good taste of the British public. Moderately skilled craftsmen like me have no difficulty in finding sufficient work to provide a reasonable living. I wear a woolly hat.
Merry Christmas CJS
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Anonymous
Guest
As a carpenter/joiner of no years standing and probably lacking the skill to make a timber window I had to respond to this thread. I saw some windows at the Homebuilder show at Excel this year. They were displayed on a stand for all to see and feel. They looked like a very well made timber sash window, and that's what I thought they were. They seemed to be assembled from individual pieces of timber just as someone with a passing interest in joinery would expect : the glazing bars were individually scribed and jointed over each other; the bits that actually hold the glass in around the edges (forgotten what they're called) were individual pieces; and the sash looked like a proper sliding affair, but with modern weatherproofing and the alternative for weights and cords that I've seen before. They were timber-finished, and the grain was all going the correct way for every individual piece. To all intents and purposes, they looked liked a well-made but factory produced and too perfectly finished timber double glazed window, even when standing up close. Only when I actually touched them did I realise they were assembled from individual components made from printed uPVC. The architectural detailing was modern and not really aping anything old but in my opinion it would be very hard for a CO to resist them on appearance grounds when compared with timber. For those who don't give a fig about their impending destruction and disposal, would buy their loved one Zirconia instead of a diamond and wouldn't be seen dead in a cloth cap they would make a wonderful conversation piece next time they invite their party guests to look out onto their manicured lawn.
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Anonymous
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Well heeled and comfortably off I ain't. In order to live in a period property we do a great deal of the enormous amount of work required to repair it ourselves, and in order to afford to employ others to work on the parts we cannot manage we do without 'essentials' which possibly others wouldn't consider being able to manage without - exotic holidays, designer clothes, new furniture and gadgets, new cars every couple of years. The other half has been known to wear a cloth cap, although in t'country it's more a sign that you live in t'country than that of being a tradesperson. We also favour woolly hats which is possibly also a sign that we live in t'country and it's frequently bloody cold oop north.
However, our sartorial peccadillos apart, we do attempt to treat our old house with a modicum of care, believing that we are only guardians etc.
Sadly, I see daily plastic windows being fitted in place of timber sashes which are perfectly sound - as a quick inspection of the skip shows where they are junked.
We have timber windows where the frames seem to have lasted over two hundred years, and with a bit of repair should last another two hundred. The sliding parts were replaced in about 1875 with new fangled two over twos and they seem to be wearing well, too. Crucially, they retain the historic glass, with its small imperfections. As the windows are handmade and the glass mouth-blown, they fit well in a building made from natural materials. I'm afraid I can spot the ersatz placcy sashes from several feet away - too flat, too blindingly white, too perfect, flat glass and crucially with little respect for the history of the sash window. Ditto the top hung sashes which some seem to favour. What these must look like viewed from inside a room I hate to consider. Still, there's no accounting for taste, as MFI and DFS etc etc can confirm.
Interesting then that the placcy window industry has its own word for astragals - which never were one standard design, as with horns.
We also have some rather unpleasant modern sashes which I agree have not lasted well, and will need to be replaced. I think the problem possibly lay with the wood used, which was not up to the job, as possibly was not the joiner who chose it.
However, the glass can be recycled in the cold frame, the sound timber can be re-used ditto, the rotten for firewood. I appreciate that there are problems using wood for fires but at the moment there is not a great deal of alternative, and many of the alternatives are rather more polluting.
I've never actually priced up a uPVC sash window - it would be interesting to compare it with the cost of a couple of timber sashes we had made by a local joiner.
Thoughtful people are becoming aware of the farce that is the uPVC window and door industry - especially now that doors seem to be a 'fashion' item, replaced for a different design every couple of years, as indeed are some older uPVC windows being replaced. This is a pollution and disposal disaster of mammoth proportions. I doubt that those who have been making vast sums from these products will be footing the bill for the problems they are causing worldwide - I gather China is now their target market. Of course, swathes of buildings many hundreds of years old are being demolished there to make way for the new and shiny and profitable for some. What a waste of world resources, let alone irreplacable heritage.
The Observer mag October 2nd had this to say:
'A trend for PVC-framed windows and doors over the past decade - usually marketed as the low or no maintenance alternative to timber window frames - has left a number of environmental organisations, inclusing Friends of the Earth and the WWF, suffering from panic attacks.
Manufactured from PVC-u, an unplasticised polyvinyl chloride, during an energy intensive and polluting process, PVC windows also involve the use of a number of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) - a group of chemicals so potentially harmful that they are now being phased out of manufacturing.
In terms of outlay, the National Housing Federation has found PVC-u windows to be more expensive than their timber counterparts and it also questions the veracity of the 'no maintenance' claims, as they appear to degrade over 20-25 years, just like normal windows.'
Now I dispute that 'normal' windows should all degrade over thsi short a timescale, but you get the picture.
Placcy does degrade , as one recent poster on this site stated - when cleaning his mother's uPVC windows, one simply shattered. Recent research cited in the SPAB News showed some windows degrading after only a decade or so - and discolouring, scratching, peeling, the seals failing - all manner of nasties. And of course many double glazing units will fail over a fairly short lifespan and require replacement.
No, not the solution so many are being duped into thinking they are. I would suggest that decent repair and draughtproofingf, coupled with good quality paint, would in the long term be chaeaper - and rather better for our built heritage than tacky placcy.
Once it's gone it's gone...
However, our sartorial peccadillos apart, we do attempt to treat our old house with a modicum of care, believing that we are only guardians etc.
Sadly, I see daily plastic windows being fitted in place of timber sashes which are perfectly sound - as a quick inspection of the skip shows where they are junked.
We have timber windows where the frames seem to have lasted over two hundred years, and with a bit of repair should last another two hundred. The sliding parts were replaced in about 1875 with new fangled two over twos and they seem to be wearing well, too. Crucially, they retain the historic glass, with its small imperfections. As the windows are handmade and the glass mouth-blown, they fit well in a building made from natural materials. I'm afraid I can spot the ersatz placcy sashes from several feet away - too flat, too blindingly white, too perfect, flat glass and crucially with little respect for the history of the sash window. Ditto the top hung sashes which some seem to favour. What these must look like viewed from inside a room I hate to consider. Still, there's no accounting for taste, as MFI and DFS etc etc can confirm.
Interesting then that the placcy window industry has its own word for astragals - which never were one standard design, as with horns.
We also have some rather unpleasant modern sashes which I agree have not lasted well, and will need to be replaced. I think the problem possibly lay with the wood used, which was not up to the job, as possibly was not the joiner who chose it.
However, the glass can be recycled in the cold frame, the sound timber can be re-used ditto, the rotten for firewood. I appreciate that there are problems using wood for fires but at the moment there is not a great deal of alternative, and many of the alternatives are rather more polluting.
I've never actually priced up a uPVC sash window - it would be interesting to compare it with the cost of a couple of timber sashes we had made by a local joiner.
Thoughtful people are becoming aware of the farce that is the uPVC window and door industry - especially now that doors seem to be a 'fashion' item, replaced for a different design every couple of years, as indeed are some older uPVC windows being replaced. This is a pollution and disposal disaster of mammoth proportions. I doubt that those who have been making vast sums from these products will be footing the bill for the problems they are causing worldwide - I gather China is now their target market. Of course, swathes of buildings many hundreds of years old are being demolished there to make way for the new and shiny and profitable for some. What a waste of world resources, let alone irreplacable heritage.
The Observer mag October 2nd had this to say:
'A trend for PVC-framed windows and doors over the past decade - usually marketed as the low or no maintenance alternative to timber window frames - has left a number of environmental organisations, inclusing Friends of the Earth and the WWF, suffering from panic attacks.
Manufactured from PVC-u, an unplasticised polyvinyl chloride, during an energy intensive and polluting process, PVC windows also involve the use of a number of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) - a group of chemicals so potentially harmful that they are now being phased out of manufacturing.
In terms of outlay, the National Housing Federation has found PVC-u windows to be more expensive than their timber counterparts and it also questions the veracity of the 'no maintenance' claims, as they appear to degrade over 20-25 years, just like normal windows.'
Now I dispute that 'normal' windows should all degrade over thsi short a timescale, but you get the picture.
Placcy does degrade , as one recent poster on this site stated - when cleaning his mother's uPVC windows, one simply shattered. Recent research cited in the SPAB News showed some windows degrading after only a decade or so - and discolouring, scratching, peeling, the seals failing - all manner of nasties. And of course many double glazing units will fail over a fairly short lifespan and require replacement.
No, not the solution so many are being duped into thinking they are. I would suggest that decent repair and draughtproofingf, coupled with good quality paint, would in the long term be chaeaper - and rather better for our built heritage than tacky placcy.
Once it's gone it's gone...
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Anonymous
Guest
As someone with a moderate amount of time in the sash window industry, I suggest that differentiating between a PVCu vertical sliding sash and the real thing in timber is simplicity itself and has nothing to do with the glass, the finished appearance or the texture.
The main giveaway is caused by poor design of the meeting rails of PVCu windows. This is because the plastic window industry can only cut material @ 45% so that they can use the same section material for all the parts of the windows.
The meeting rails on most typical victorian sashes are between 30mm and 35mm, whilst the style and head sections are 40mm - 45mm. Most PVCu vertical sliding windows use a 50mm - 60mm section all round. So, even without glazing bars, the most inexperienced person could pick out the plastic!
The main giveaway is caused by poor design of the meeting rails of PVCu windows. This is because the plastic window industry can only cut material @ 45% so that they can use the same section material for all the parts of the windows.
The meeting rails on most typical victorian sashes are between 30mm and 35mm, whilst the style and head sections are 40mm - 45mm. Most PVCu vertical sliding windows use a 50mm - 60mm section all round. So, even without glazing bars, the most inexperienced person could pick out the plastic!
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Anonymous
Guest
As you say - the giveaway is the lack of respect for historic precedent. There is no 'standard' design for genuine sash windows - they evolved over a considerable time period.
uPVC - horns tend to be stuck on as an afterthought in many, also...
uPVC - horns tend to be stuck on as an afterthought in many, also...
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Anonymous
Guest
From what I've seen of pvc windows, they always look like everything has been stuck on as an afterthought. Ie they do seem to look quite poorly made.
NT
NT
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Anonymous
Guest
With uPVC windows he reflections are too flat and regular - on wooden sashes ie where each pane is seperate, there is always a bit of a difference, pane to pane.
I checked my young ie 115 year old windows and apart from the cills at the back (well the bits of rotten wood which used to be cills) they only need the joints tightening up, draughtproofing and the glass reputtying in so that the glass doesn't move.
I seriously worry about getting anyone to do them in a way that they would be thought suitable by a buyer in a few years time though.
But whatever - I prefer them rotting than plastic.
I checked my young ie 115 year old windows and apart from the cills at the back (well the bits of rotten wood which used to be cills) they only need the joints tightening up, draughtproofing and the glass reputtying in so that the glass doesn't move.
I seriously worry about getting anyone to do them in a way that they would be thought suitable by a buyer in a few years time though.
But whatever - I prefer them rotting than plastic.
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Anonymous
Guest
Hazel - I know they aren't cheap, but have you asked Ventrolla for a quote?
They do a good job.
They do a good job.
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Anonymous
Guest
i can *certainly* tell the difference from across the street. i would be astonished if anyone could not. i have modern UPVC double glazing and it is s**t. the frames have let go around the joints, and 2 of my windows have fallen out as a result. i spent yesterday morning fixing some paint-clogged timber sash windows at least 100 yrs old which have had replacement DG sash units, and which were in considerably better overall nick than my under-10 yr old uPVC.