UPVC windows and pebbledash should be banned!

[Matt101]

Why do people see fit to ruin their Victorian houses with pebbledash and ugly UPVC windows, even when they had perfectly good wooden sashes and brickwork, and removing bay windows to make *a parking space* :shock: . I think UPVC windows and pebbledash should be made illegal. *Rant over*.

I have some pictures that I have taken of "vandalised" houses that have been butchered


Mullions missing, painted bricks and a garage.


This house has had the very nice arched sash windows replaced with UPVC and the opening squared off + pebbledashed.


Bay window removed and decorative arched window opening lost.


Badly fitted UPVC front door


Bay window missing mullions and upstairs windows replaced with one.


Believe it or not, this used to be a decent Art Deco house.


Bay window removed to create a parking space.

The question I always ask is WHY??? what is the point. If anyone else has any photos of houses that have had nice windows replaced with awful ones, please post them here.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Because they think they're improving their houses. They're wrong, but a couple of dozen people in a fairly remote part of the interweb aren't going to make much difference. So you're right, ban pebbledash and upvc, and write to your MPs until they make it a hot topic that might make or break the next election.

 

[Penners]

Good plan. If we make enough noise, I'm sure we can get the national press to switch their attention from the global financial crisis. :roll:




I claim Brownie points for not using the word 'meltdown'.




Damn! I used the word 'meltdown'.

 

[Ian Bond]

Yes, but at least you didn't say Credit Crunch.

Double damn!

 

[yamin]

Try ours! I LOVE this house, really LOVE it - but why oh why did they take out the original sashes and replace them with these awful things? Plus a foul UPVC front door - fortunately thats the one thing we HAVE been able to chnge - but at what £20k for all the windows....? Just can't do it. Those photos are abominations.
How much royal icing did that Art Deco one take do you think??View attachment 2View attachment 2

 

[Lime]

yamin, a sad sight indeed.
The first floor windows in particular.

The house sign is not too bad.
Nearly every other house around here that is painted white has that name.
A house I once owned proclaimed Thisll Dome (in gothic script) over the door and it was some months later a friend pointed out that it was a variation of This'll do me.

Not quite the same ring to it.

 

[Flyfisher]

The trouble with freedom is that people do what they like with it.

Taste is subjective. Who, in their right mind, is going to spend significant sums of money on making their property less appealing to themselves? Therein lies the answer to "why"?

A "Ministry of Taste" might seem like a good idea when viewing such unfortunate examples but I have the scary thought that, statistically, it could well be headed up by someone who actually favours uPVC windows!

No doubt there's a "Pimp-My-House" website out there somewhere bemoaning silly old fuddy-duddy house owners who are misguided enough to stick with old-fashioned windows and exterior wall-coverings. Funny old world.

 

[Penners]

yamin

Many congratulations on having replaced a strong candidate for the title Most-Hideous-And-Inappropriate-Front-Door-In-The-World-Except-For-The-One-Opposite-Penners.

Lovely house!

 

[Feltwell]

Who, in their right mind, is going to spend significant sums of money on making their property less appealing to themselves? Therein lies the answer to "why"?

Indeed. Let's just hope that UPVC windows go out of fashion - after all, it wasn't that long ago that everybody wanted Artex (a plasterer friend of mine tells me he's making a good living now skimming over all the Artex ceilings that he made a good living out of putting up in the 70's and 80's !)

Apparently the likely next ex-fad to be considered horribly naff in the not-to-distant future is laminate flooring, all the rage in the "Changing Rooms" era. At least laminate flooring doesn't do much damage to a building, save for the odd trimmed door.

My personal "favourite" has to be stone cladding. There is a lovely terrace of early Victorian cottages a few doors down from me, all have lost their original windows but otherwise are fairly unmolested - except for the end one, the front of which is stone clad, with a cement rendered side wall, hideous dormer clad in UPVC boards added to roof on the rear etc etc.

Back in 1970something no doubt the owner thought that their lovely and expensive stone cladding would help their little cottage stand out from and above the rest of the terrace.

 

[jocelyn plummer]

To say nothing of the condensation streaming down the walls inside the house----- bathrooms and utility areas being the worst.

However, I have had the shock of my life when investigating why my favourite 19th C bracket clock is not working. The Restorer has shown me the inside and most parts are corroded with rust---- a legacy from the damp, salty air, stone floors, and cement render on the inside walls of our early 15thc house in N Norfolk. There is rust on some of my silverware as well. So breathability around the place is soooo important.

 

[Edwardia]

I live by the sea and my silver cutlery gets polished once a year. The silver on view ( a 1930s teapot which my maternal grandmother filched from a Lyons Corner House) gets polished about once a month. Is Norfolk more salty than Kent ?

 

[middi]

( I am still trying to figure out how Jocelyn,s silver is rusting away :wink: )

AS to embelishing your pride and joy ( the house of course !!!) . In the middle 70's one of my father,s Italian friend decided to " stone clad" his newly acquired Victorian, yellow stock brick, terraced house, very much to the envy of his neighbours. The neighbours loved it so much they soon followed suit. He was so pi**ed off about loosing the "individuality" status he decided to come up with something that it would be pretty hard to replicate ( well, not in Enfield Middlessex anyway).
He repeadetely painted the three colours of the Italian flag on the face stones. He nearly sparked off world war three and was asked by the council if he could please paint it a uniform colour.

( I think is still there.....painted bright pink !!)

Now I ask you, do we really think that "joe blog" out there is going to differentiate between nice bright PVC windows and those carefully replicated wooden ones especially if he is told to go up a ladder every few years to paint them.

Quoting Flyfisher " therein lay the answer to why ? "

 

[Feltwell]

What scares me is that you can still get stone cladding done - and the fact that it is being advertised still means that people are doing it! Have a look at this "beauty":-

http://www.externalcoatings.co.uk/cladding.php

The fact it's a semi just finishes it off really. OK, it looks like an ex-Council house, some estates aren't the prettiest and even on the better ones the houses tend to be very similar throughout - but I fail to see how this makes it look better.

But - I worked at the head office of one of the major DIY chains until 3 years ago. The most popular wallpaper (after lining paper) is still woodchip. Polystyrene ceiling tiles still sell in vast quantities. The most popular coving type sold is not plaster, or the paper-covered polystyrene, but still the raw polystyrene type that still looks like polystyrene even once it's been painted.

Go in any B&Q Warehouse store and you will see that they still sell Artex and the tools for creating the textured effects - if no one bought them they wouldn't stock them.

Avocado bath suites are definitely dead though, however replacement Avocado loo seats still sell well !

 

[Moo]

There's a real heart-breaker on that site -
Click on New Projects (at the top of the page) and have a look at the sixth one down.

 

[Penners]

It's awful - but so are the ghastly phoney quoins on the one above it.

 

[Penners]

the raw polystyrene type that still looks like polystyrene even once it's been painted.

Isn't that what the planners call "honest"? :x

 

[Penners]

No doubt there's a "Pimp-My-House" website

Your powers of prediction are quite scarey...

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/pimp-my-house/

 

[Matt101]

That website made me feel ill, especially that one on the projects page.

In fact, One of the things I hate is when people paint brick houses. However, I noticed the owners of this house however have been removing the paint of of the brickwork.



I also found this website, and it has some good examples of houses that are being loved once again:

http://www.mahonbrickwork.co.uk/

 

[Feltwell]

There's a real heart-breaker on that site -
Click on New Projects (at the top of the page) and have a look at the sixth one down.

I saw that one too, and at first glance it looks like it's been cement rendered or pebble-dashed. But is also appears on their brick-cleaning page as an example of their work - which makes me wonder if it's just a cr*p photograph of an over-cleaned house.

http://www.externalcoatings.co.uk/cleaning.php

Shocking site though.

Matt, that Mahon brickwork site is quite good - I'm particularly surprised they reckon they can get cement pebble dash off London stock bricks (which I believe are quite soft?) with good results. If that's true then stone cladding removal should be a possibility as well - I turned down an otherwise quite nice house a while ago simply because it had been stone-clad.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

What scares me is that you can still get stone cladding done - and the fact that it is being advertised still means that people are doing it! Have a look at this "beauty":-

http://www.externalcoatings.co.uk/cladding.php

I swear I've done nothing to the spelling, or the claims made, here are some choice extracts from that website:

Troweltex Texture Coating can transform a property and add value.
A virtual maintenance free duraable coating to give you weather protection with a fantastic end result.A fresh and clean finish to your home.
Below are just a few examples of pointing styles and types. We also spray the walls with water repellent weather sealent for added protection.
Below are just a few examples of how Polymer Insulation Render Systems can transform a property and add value to your house.
Pebble dashing is a traditional method of coating your home
Faciers and Guttering

I'm sure they're "experts" in the field...