leaded light windows need replacing. Help!

[susanelizabeth]

Hi all.
I hope you can help me sort out my confusion over the building regs applied to window replacement. I have searched the forum and advice sections but can't find anything relevant.
I live in a cottage with leaded light windows, the frames are rotten to the point where the house is insecure. I have saved up for about four years to afford considering replacement. My dilemma stems from the fact that building regs seem to force me to install double glazed units. I feel this destroys the beauty and satisfaction of having genuine leaded lights.
The cottage is several hundred years old but unlisted, although we are in a lovely, rural hamlet we are not in a conservation area.
The cottage walls are over two feet thick, the windows are small, it is warm in winter and cool in summer, there is no real need for double glazing from a thermal point of view, there is no damp or condensation either - I am really lucky.
I just love my leaded lights and though they can be encapsulated in double or triple glazed units surely that would leave a flat surface? I can't afford that either.
Can anyone advise me with this? Thanks in advance.

 

[robgil]

surely if you were to 'repair' rather than 'replace' then building regs might not play a part?

 

[susanelizabeth]

Yes, I have considered that option. Perfectly valid as the leaded lights can be salvaged and put into new frames - a repair in other words.
However, this is two cottages made into one. The first cottage has the lovely leaded windows with rotted frames. The second cottage has awful hardwood frames that have not rotted but are so hard that all the missing bits of window furniture can't be replaced ( I can't get a screw into the things even with power screwdriver) and are glazed with single panes of flat glass and glued on lead strip. Half the panes are cracked and they are mostly not on the vertical (poor DIY installation by previous owner) which gives an odd uncared for look to the place. They are ugly and don't match the other half of the house.
I want to unify the windows and replace the rotted, broken ones - together that means all the windows on the front of the house.
I simply want timber frames and leaded lights, not plastic and lead strip.

 

[Andrew Bodenham]

You don't say where you are in the country - this might help foruites with specific local knowledge to advise you.

I can symapathise with your situation - it's one of those cases where beauracracy seems to go against common sense. Is your building listed? In any case I would be inclined to contact your local planning authority and speak to both the conservation officer and building control officer and ask for their advice. From my own experience I've found that an up-front request for help and advice can get them on your side and suggesting ways of solving the problem. What you want to do seems very reasonable, and there may be some technical fix (perhaps increasing insulation elsewhere in the property to offset the 'poor' thermal performance of single glazing) or perhaps a relaxation of the regulations that can be applied.
Unfortunately the application of regulations to existing properties is a complex business, so it is best to get the information direct from the relevant authorities.

Good luck, and let us know how you get on.

 

[biffvernon]

Sounds a case of repair rather than replace. All glass and ironmongery to be retained and any timber that is stil serviceable. No need to trouble the good folk at the council office. I'd do it if you were in the top right corner of Lincolnshire.

 

[susanelizabeth]

Thank you so much for such a quick response.
Andrew, I'm in Lancashire. I have already contacted the planning office for advice - double glaze or die! Seriously, I have not been fobbed off yet, and am trying to get further help from them but despite my calls and their promises of 'someone will get back to you' no one has done yet.
Biff, you are a darling. I have been looking at your gorgeous oak windows. I very much doubt I could afford them but am booked onto a glazing course to see whether I can manage to make the lead lights myself and have them fitted into good frames. That's the only way I can afford what I want. I suspect making the lead lights is time consuming rather than extremely difficult. I suppose Lancashire is far, far away from Lincolnshire?

 

[Feltwell]

I did my leaded light window last year, aided by an experienced repairer. It is possible to DIY but expect your first couple of attempts to be sub-standard! Having the right soldering iron is I am told vital.

I got away with retaining single glazing as it was without doubt a repair - original frame kept, as well as all the unbroken glass. I am told, although have never seen, that you can triple glaze with the leaded light as the middle section - still won't look quite right though I reckon.

I suspect that ultimately you may need to chose between abiding by the rules or seeing if you can get away with not doing so, especially on the half where you want to replace the frames.

 

[susanelizabeth]

I'll keep trying with the buiding regs people and the conservation officer. It's Chorley Borough Council, they have been helpful and pleasant to deal with in the past, not obstructive anyway.

Well, just as I was typing this, they phoned back. It has to be double glazed no way round it. The man I spoke to said even listed buildings have to be double glazed. I'm not convinced about that and asked to speak to the conservation officer myself. That isn't possible unfortunately, but he is going to ask around some more.

This must be a bit of a fob off mustn't it? If it has to be double glazing, what will asking around some more achieve?
Oh dear.

 

[AMc]

If you want to retain the existing windows/single glazed appearance then you could consider fitting double glazed units as secondary glazing behind functional leaded ones. That would meet the requirements of PartL1B of the Building Regs and maintain the external appearance. If you make the secondary units simple enough then it may not be too visually intrusive.
Having just paid for and in places fitted many, many double glazed units I can vouch that they will be much, much cheaper than your leaded lights - my double glazing cost around £50m per m2, my quote to replace a damaged leaded window of 6 panes was >£100 for less than 0.25m2.

I suspect that quite a lot of like for like replacement goes on, it depends on how honest you are and who does the fitting. If you need to sell the house and haven't conformed it may hold up the sale and could in the worst case mean paying for replacement windows that do conform. If your fitter is FENSA registered then they will be very unlikely to go ahead with work that fails to meet the regs.

My local joinery company happily made me a replacement single glazed window for a rotten one They seemed genuinely surprised when I told them it was a mistake and had to be double glazed as per my original instructions - irrespective of your thoughts on this I was having regular visits from building control and had no intention of trying to 'get away' with a new single glazed window.

 

[Schoolmarm]

Is that "my" susanelizabeth? :lol:


Biff has been to someone's house up north to fit a window and that is a long way.

No advice just a hello :lol:

 

[susanelizabeth]

Hi Carole,
Yes it's me again after all these years. How are You? I often think of you when I'm driving across the moors.
I got good help and advice from this board before and I'm getting it again. It's lovely to be able state my problem and people just understand.
I don't want to 'get away' with anything because I can only afford to do this job the one time and it's a big deal for me financially.
I understand that the building regs are law and have to be complied with, but it's disappointing to have to lose my genuine leaded lights or have them enclosed in a glass sandwich. Anyway, it's going to be too expensive if I have to have leaded glass encapsulated. I've already been quoted £6,500 for the job which is why I intend to do the lead work myself. Do you have any idea how many 60 hour weeks an agency nurse has to work to pay for this?

 

[biffvernon]

Biff has been to Ev's house to fit a window and that is Northumberland.

That's right, tell the whole world. Good job no Northumbrian planning or buildings control officer ever reads this forum. Sometimes I think it best not to prod the people with the clipboards. The guy who phoned you, susanelizabeth, clearly didn't know what he's talking about.

Somehow we have to reconcile the saving of the planet with the saving of our cultural heritage. Part L, in it's latest manifestation, does try to take a holistic approach that allows one to trade off good insulation in one place against poor insulation somewhere else. I'm sure you don't have to lose your leaded lights. Remember that the 'Approved Documents' of the Building Regs are NOT the law - only the little bits printed in green are the law - the rest is just advice, and there is often more than one way of complying with the legal bit, even if you council bloke doesn't volunteer this.

Doing it yourself is a great plan. Go on the lead glazing course - it's a fascinating craft. You can learn the basics in a weekend and a couple of hundred quids worth of tools would set you up. Lead work is expensive because it is time consuming but if you do it yourself it is money saving because it stops you going out and spending.

 

[susanelizabeth]

'Going out and spending' ??! Good grief! Insert hollow laughing sound. :lol:

Thanks Biff, I'm encouraged again now. I go on the course in two weeks and I'll keep chewing away at this problem until it's resolved somehow. The chap who spoke to me is 'someone in the office' I suspect. Poor chap is going from me to his boss and back again. The boss is probably too busy to address the problem himself. I'll leave them alone until I think I've got a solution to offer them.
Yes, I definitely feel better now. Thanks everyone.

 

[Schoolmarm]

LOL! To going out spending :lol: :lol:


I'm fine thanks, you will have to come and tell us all about the course afterwards.

Carole xxxxxxx

 

[Andrew Bodenham]

In a house where I've done a lot of joinery work the client was able to persuade the BCO to allow single glazing on the front elevation to retain the look of the place whilst fitting good d.g. wooden windows elsewhere. The trade off was higher spec insualtion in the roof. It was a listed property though. This is something where a friendly architect, say, may be able to provide more holistic advice and maybe give you some precendents to offer to your BCO.

Another way forward may be to fit d.g. windows with wooden frames, then place your leaded panel inside that, so from inside you get the appearance of a traditional window, but with the thermal advantages of a d.g. unit. The frame profile will be a bit unusual, but it's a question of shopping around and finding a joinery company who are interested in doing something which is slightly more challenging than usual. I made a window for my house like this, although I haven't got around to getting the leaded panel done yet. Northern Lights Stained Glass in Kendal are fantastic, if a bit far north for you. There are some pics of their work on my website.

As for deciding 'repair/replace' I understand that one can repair 'like for like' up to the point where the primary frame (the bit attached to the walls) is being 'substantially replaced'. This means that a new opening casement frame or sliding sash can be installed, or that the primary frame can have new wood spliced in. So one way round your dilemma might be a repair approach which allows you to keep some of the original woodwork. What sort of windows are they? Fixed, side opening, top hinged, sliding sash? I've done lots of jobs where rotten sills have been replaced, and new frames made under the umbrella of 'like-for-like' repair. If you can quietly get on with it and it looks convincing then it's unlikely that anybody (official or otherwise) would notice or have cause for complaint.

The figures you quote are pretty big! Do you have a lot of windows?

 

[susanelizabeth]

Andrew! I love your doors. I think that will be a project for me after the windows. To get lovely internal doors and a new front door. Your link to the glass site is good, but Kendal would be too far for me unless it was a weekend course. I'm happy with the place I found in Bolton. They do the triple glazing thing too, with the leaded window and double window - a glass sandwich. I sincerely doubt I could afford it, and I'll still end up with a flat glass reflection. I'll enjoy the course they offer.

I think the price I was quoted is high because there are nine windows. Eight really need replacing and one to make it match. The windows are all small, about 3' x 3' typical cottage windows. Side hung casement with two opening lights and a central mullion (sorry about the spelling, have I just made up that word mullian? it looks odd).
I was quoted £3220 for frames, £2,220 for leaded lights, £800 for fitting them. Plus VAT of course. This all for single glazing. The fitter has advised me to check with planning and told me about FENSA certification and also that UPVC double glazing with false leading would be much cheaper and easier to do.

I think the first four leaded windows could be fixed with an honest to goodness repair - if the fitter, or anyone, is prepared to do it. I think it's hard to find people who will repair when they could knock it out and put a standard new one in. The other windows do need to be replaced though.

 

[Flyfisher]

The man I spoke to said even listed buildings have to be double glazed. I'm not convinced about that and asked to speak to the conservation officer myself. That isn't possible unfortunately, but he is going to ask around some more.

I can confirm from experience that listed buildings do not have to be double-glazed when the windows are replaced. And everything I've read suggests that it is extremely difficult to obtain Listed Building Consent to replace SG windows with DG ones.

It's probably not possible to contact the CO because your house is not listed so s/he has no jurisdiction and is probably overworked dealing with listed properties anyway.

 

[susanelizabeth]

Yes, that's much how I thought the situation would be. I felt that I was speaking to someone who answers the phone and passes messages on.
It's hard to discuss a problem when nobody is available to speak to.
Anyway, I'll just prepare as much as I can. Find out as much as I can. Hopefully I'll find a solution, but I will not be doing any work that will not be approved.

 

[Feltwell]

As someone mentioned earlier on, I understand that the rules are centred around an overall insulation approach - and that lack of DG can be offset by having better insulation elsewhere. But, presumably you could also do that by fitting more "conventional" secondary glazing if you can demonstrate it's likely insulation values ? Can one of the more knowledgeable folk comment on this?

My thought is that you could design in single glazed secondary glazing so it is unobtrusive, and it should work out much cheaper than encapsulating leaded glass in DG units.

A totally different style of window I know, but pictures below show how my leaded light window has a secondary glazing frame set into the original frame, I think it's quite unobtrusive. By designing this in from the start you could make it more so.

Here's an overall shot of the window the the secondary glazing in place (complete with horrible white plastic thermostat stuck next to it :roll: ) :-

A close up of the secondary glazing frame in-situ:-

And the same place with the secondary glazing removed, the grey strip just being draught excluder:-

Like I said, totally different style to yours, but might give you some ideas.

Or you could fit some cheap & horrible secondary glazing which might just have to come back down again "for cleaning" once the BCO has signed off!

 

[susanelizabeth]

Feltwell. I love your window. I love your thinking too.
I'd be satisfied with a secondary glazing as unobtrusive as yours. The fact that they can be removed in spring and summer is ideal, I like to open the windows wide in hot weather. Even when in place that glazing unit is good looking, are they easy to remove? Well, I suppose mine would be as they are small.