Sashes

[Anonymous]

I have a friend (yes really) who is trying to decide if it is better to have a sash window repaired or replaced. The repair is the replacement of some timber at the bottom of the window (sill area). On the cash side the offer was £300 for the repair or £600 for the whole window (approx 5' x 3'). Any warnings? Window is in Cheltenham

 

[Anonymous]

Repair it. Simple answer.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree repair it, The quality of the timber is probably better in the old window anyway so therefore it should even outlast a modern replacement in its repaired condition. In terms of conservation you should repair as much of the origional fabric as practically possible.
Financial terms its half the cost so thats no difficult descision either.

 

[Anonymous]

Is there a DIY option or, put another way, can replacement sections be obtained commercially, so that you have a go yourself? I don't know but suggest this in case anyone else has that answer

 

[Anonymous]

Unless listed or CA (which still may be iffY) then a replacement would probably have to be double glazed. That brings its own difficulties.

And the historic glass would be junked, along with the timber.

Repair is the only conservation option.

 

[Anonymous]

What possible argument could there be for replacement?! I can't think of a single one!

 

[Anonymous]

I guess that in part its the apparent comparison of a relatively small repair costing half the price of getting a complete window.

 

[Anonymous]

Repair is always more costly then replacement, relatively speaking. Particularly for jobs like this that require a great deal of traditional manual skill (as opposed to just assembling machine-produced parts for a new window).
But when you take account of the fact that you are (a) conserving historic fabric, (b) supporting traditional skills, and (c) spending half as much, then I still can't see any argument for replacement!

 

[Anonymous]

The only argument for complete replacement is that any repair (no matter how good) will never last as long / or be as strong as new. Having said that 'new will never look quite as good as old'

Does that make sense?

I am currently preparing a schedule of repair for a large box sashe frame that has dry rot in corner of the frame and inner cill board and wet rot in the external cill.

Two timber treatment contractors have recommended complete replacement at far greater cost, but a 'good chippy' can repair, also there is no defect in the sashes so thay can be retained, once all decorated no one be any the wiser.

Half the cost and more importantly historic fabric retained.

PC

 

[Anonymous]

The option for repair was what I recommended to my friend, and I have also quoted the responses here to help support that. Thanks to all.
No doubt there will be some cases where replacement becomes the way to go, but this would probably be at a point where more decay/deterioration had occurred than in this case. What was intriguing was that I had expected the replacement sash window to be more than she was quoted. I also wondered if the quality of the replacement offered would be up to expectations. The company offering the replacement had a name like Mr Sash, which goes to show that there may be a marketing niche for replacement of these old windows.