Window prices.

[Manks]

I am thinking of replacing the front UPVC windows in my cottage with timber framed ones.

I need 4 x single opening casements, 4 x double opening casements and one hallway non-opening. Tbe windows will be Georgian bar with eight panes per bay and each pane will be a separate secgtion of K glass double glazing. So, in essence they will be like the ones the house had when new but with double glazed panels.

I have had a local joinery firm come in today to quote me.

They have quoted the following:

1. Softwood £4100 inc VAT

2. Hard wood £5900.

These prices include three new lintels, installation and priming. So its about £500 per window installed for the softwood.

How does the price sound?

Manks

 

[biffvernon]

I wonder what you understand by 'Georgian bar'? The thin glazing bars typical of the late 18th and 19th centuries are around 20mm wide. Double glazing needs bars of more than 30mm, more typical of early 18th century, Queen Anne, unless they are fake stick-on bars.

Those prices sound about right. I'd probably charge around price #2 for oak but without the installation unless you lived in my corner of Lincolnshire.

 

[Manks]

Installation acounts for £1600 of the price.

Oh and the bars are not stick on. The glazing bars are proper with 200 little panes of glass fitted.

 

[biffvernon]

How wide?

 

[Manks]

Sorry Biff, how wide which bit?

The windows are prolly 1400 wide, the glass.... hmmm 150mm? Not sure.

The glazing bars will be wider than 20mm, the joiner told me that, obviously due to the weight of the glass.

Manks

 

[Nemesis]

I think Biff will tell you it's to do with the double glazing, which needs to be rebated into the wood a fair way or the seals will fail. Hence wide bars.

 

[biffvernon]

Yep, that's it. The glazing bar rebate has to cover the sealed unit spacer bar. That usually means 12mm each side, plus at least 6mm for the wood through the middle means a bar width of at least 30mm. I usually do them at around 33mm to be on the safe side. Most mass produced windows have even wider bars.

What do you understand by 'hard wood'. If it's a tropical hardwood how do you know it does not belong to a family of orang utangs?

 

[Pford75]

I'd also ask what the hardwood is...sapele, oak, etc? and where it is sourced from.

We found a 10-15% price increase for oak over sapele

 

[Manks]

Its not oak Biff. It may well have belonged to a family of monkeys, what point is it you are bringing out here?

Manks

 

[Nemesis]

http://www.orangutans-sos.org/?gclid=CO-Yy5OfqI4CFQ9FMAodqlksSw


http://www.orangutans-sos.org/orangcrisis.php


http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jun2007/2007-06-19-03.asp

A small quote from that article:

Christian Nellemann, a lead author on the UNEP Rapid Response report, said, "The rate of decline of the forests is the most alarming we have seen yet anywhere in the World. The real blame lies on the countries buying the timber and wood products from illegal sources."

"The stepping up of law enforcement in Indonesia is a very encouraging step indeed," said Nellemann, "but governments in importing countries bear a direct responsibility for the crisis."

UNEP says consumers can help by choosing wood products that are certified and labeled as being sustainably harvested.

Orangutans are intelligent and have the ability to reason and think. They closely related to humans, sharing 97 percent of the same DNA. The orangutan is the only strictly arboreal ape and is the largest tree living mammal in the world.

 

[Pford75]

Plus...it doesn't really make sense to fly timber all the way to the UK...when we have a plentiful supply of very good timber here.

I also much prefer the grain/colour on oak (which if your original windows were hardwood, is what they were probably made of).

 

[biffvernon]

I don't suppose that tropical hardwood is actually flown here - it floats

The point, Manks, is that it may well have belonged to a family of hairy monkeys and then some naked ones nicked it. There is so much fraud and corruption in the trade that one cannot rely on certification and even when logging is legal that does not make it environmentally sustainable. There is plenty of excellent hardwood in Europe and using it leads to a better market and improved forest management.

The good guys use oak, the bad guys use sapele.

 

[Manks]

Biff

The wood is coming from Fitchett & Woollacott, so I can always ask them if any monkeys were harmed in its procurement.

As for the good guys using oak, a lot depends upon the budget available at the client end I'd have thought. I haven't the budget for oak.

Manks

 

[Nemesis]

Are you going to paint the windows?

If so, why not use Douglas Fir and oak for the cills?

 

[skier-hughes]

I did that, but in the end the Dougla Fir SPAB/CO recommended we ended up paying just as much for our wood as if we'd gone for Oak!!!

 

[Penners]

I can always ask them if any monkeys were harmed in its procurement.

And they'll probably give the "certified source" answer, which they may very well believe. But see Biff's comments above about that.

 

[Manks]

I have every intention that the only monkeys involved will be the installers.

Manks

 

[biffvernon]

Maybe you don't give a monkeys (sorry, couldn't resist ) but as Graham suggested, oak may not be dearer than a good quality softwood or a tropical hardwood. It's such a common misconception that oak is amazingly expensive that joiners get away with charging a lot for oak. I pay about £25 per cubic foot for the oak that goes into my windows, so the cost of the timber is actually a small proportion of the finished work. If I was so careless of the environment as to use a tropical hardwood they would be no cheaper.

In the DRC, rainforest covers 86 million hectares (about 40 percent of the country). Around 70 percent, or 60 million hectares, of the rainforest is threatened by logging. Between 2000 and 2005 the DRC lost over 1.5 million hectares of forest.

Logging in the Congo rainforest is different to logging in the Amazon in that the logging industry focuses on a dozen species of high commercial value which represents about 90 percent of timber production. The main species taken are afromosia, wengé, limba, padouk, tola, iroko, sipo, sapelli, tiama, bosse, acajou and dibetou.

By "taking the best and leaving the rest" vast areas of forest are opened up and the creation of a network of tracks created to remove the valuable timber allows access to the remaining forest for poachers that target many of the rainforest's rare and endangered species (see below: bush meat). Several tree species have been so intensively logged that they are now considered threatened by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

More

And then read this.

 

[Manks]

Biff

You looked at my windows once and told me you'd charge about £1000 each in oak. Given that I have been quoted half that for an alternative hard wood, I have to assume that oak is dearer.

Or you are ;-)

Manks

 

[biffvernon]

I am. It's not the wood.