Feltwell
Member
- Messages
- 6,378
- Location
- Shropshire, England
Hello,
Thought it might be useful to others to post up what is hopefully some inspiration that you can repair your original windows yourself, even if they look to be in a bad way - it's time consuming but really not that complicated.
First off, this is not a masterclass in how to repair windows - neither is it a demonstration of the best craftsmanship & joinery techniques. That is the point - whilst I'm a reasonable DIY'er I'm certainly not a time served joiner, the only formal woodwork training I have had was an O Level at school 30 years ago - and I've not had any guidance in window repair. If I can do it then so can others........
I've done a few sash windows here, but the "Nemesis" that was hanging over me was the big lounge bay window, bottom right of the picture below. I knew it was bad - I knew that when I bought the house - but it was potentially such a big job that it was an easy one to keep putting off, for fear of it turning out to be a massive can of worms once I started cutting into it.
I really couldn't keep putting it off forever - gaps around the main sash were so big we had a problem with bees getting through them one summer! Only the bottom sash of the big centre window opened, that was a real effort to get open as well. The frame had obviously been repaired in the past, badly - and those repairs were rotting - plus the side sashes were not original and were badly made, they were rotting too! A couple of sample images but the rot was widespread, all the wooden cills had been badly replaced and all were rotten at each end:-
Then one day Mrs F provided the prod I needed to finally bite the bullet and start work on it, courtesy of her going to swat a wasp with a rolled up newspaper:-
The wasp did die so it wasn't *completely* in vain....
The glass was holding the sash together, so really no other option but to get on with the repair! Starting with the big centre window, which is 8' tall x 4' wide, both sashes were taken out - carefully, it turns out the top one was being held in place in the frame by paint alone. Someone had nailed it in place through the horns, and threw away the original sash weights. That was clearly some time ago as the nails had rusted through, so it was only the paint holding it up!
What quickly became apparent was the whole window was a long way out of square, even the sides of the frames were not parallel. The Victorians never did seem to be any good at putting decent foundations beneath bays - the whole thing had clearly settled and moved, almost certainly in the first few years after the house was built. There is no sign of any movement now and it's noticeable that the neighbouring house also clearly has a bay that has settled.
The bottom sash wasn't too bad - regluing the loose joints was all that was really required, plus fitting some metal brackets to reinforce the bottom joints, which I fitted into routed grooves on the internal side and then filled over to hide them. However, the bottom rail of the top sash was rotten:-
So that was carefully replaced with a new hardwood rail, as the bottom rail will always be vulnerable to rot. The rest of the sash was salvageable, the tenon on the bottom of the glazing bar had disintegrated, but I was able to secure it carefully to the new bottom rail with a dowel drilled into it. I cheated slightly - I got the joinery firm that supplied the hardwood to me to machine the blank rail to size, for me to then cut the joints into and fit. Luckily the old rotten bottom rail came out easily leaving the joints to the side rails in good order - I could copy the ends of the old rotten bar:
Trimming the sashes to size was a pain. After much procrastination, and the realisation that the whole bay was so far out of square that nothing would ever be level and compromise was the order of the day, I decided that the mid-rails of the 3 windows would be level and would align properly across the bay - before they were well & truly out of line - and everything else would fit around that. This necessitated having slightly different size sashes on the smaller side windows, and cutting the sides of the middle sashes at an angle so they would still slide OK. Visually it's all a compromise but I think it looks OK. One of the existing sashes was too small, but cutting it back to good square edge with a circular saw and then gluing a hardwood strip on took it up to the required size. By the time it's been sanded to blend the size in precisely and painted it's invisible.
Whilst it would have been lovely to go for "wobbly" tatra glass, when I checked how much it would be it was just eye-watering, more expense than could be justified. So I went with modern float glass
- the bottom sash being toughened for safety as the window sits very close to the floor. I went with single glazing, the rest of the house is single glazed, and fitting DG units would have raised a whole host of problems - too heavy for the weights in the sash boxes, and no room for larger weights, for starters. I'm not convinced DG makes a big difference anyway, it's one more thing to fail in the future, I think most of the extra benefit comes from draft-proofing.
The sashes were draft-proofed - the parting and staff beads have brush seals in them, but I also machine the top of the top sash and the bottom of the bottom sash (which doesn't strictly need doing - but it stops water blowing under the sash) with a tiny groove with a router and put a bubble seal in them:-
The meeting rail also had a carrier machined into it for a brush seal.
Next job was the roof. It was an unattractive felt roof but the main problem was it sloped the wrong way - it was supposed to slope to a rear gutter but most of it sloped forward, so the water was dripping over the front edge and onto the stone cill below, where it bounced back onto the window frame, causing I suspected much of the rot.
This was one to call the professionals in for, as detailed in an old post I got a leadworker in who did a fabulous job, we corrected all the past butchering of the roof structure so it now sloped the right way - and insulated the roof properly for the first time.
Next step then was to start cutting out the rotten sections of frame and splicing in new timber. I made the decision to only use hardwood or Douglas Fir for this - these were all the more vulnerable parts of the window, this was so much work I wanted this to be a job I did once and once only, the aim being that by the time it needs doing again it won't be my problem by default!
I got the joinery company to machine me some sections of hardwood to profile for the cills, and roughly to size for the frame sections I would need. As the 4 smaller side sashes were in such a bad way and weren't original anyway, I also got the joinery company to make me up some new ones in hardwood. It was a job I could have done myself but it saved me some time.
This where the leap of faith is required, once you start the major cutting out of the rotten sections - for example, Mrs F was a little shocked to come home one day to see that what started the day as this:-
Ended the day as this:-
Some of the outer sections were cut back further on another day.
The remains of the original cills were still in place underneath the boxes - the previous repairer had just chopped them out at the edge of the sides of the frame, thereby putting a joint in exactly the most vulnerable and rot-prone position.
For cutting out the rotten timber a decent oscillating multi-tool with a curved and straight blade is a must-have I'd say, I know you can do it by hand but it's so much easier with one of these. I tried to make all my cuts on a 30 degree diagonal, as it them makes it easier to cut the new sections on a mitre saw. I've also been very careful to make it so that the angle of the cut pushes any water that runs down it to the outside of the window - the last repairs pushed it to the inner edges of the sections and has caused some of rot. No matter how carefully you splice timber in there may just be enough of a step in a joint to cause water to run along it.
I cut all rot out - there's no point in doing half measures. For jointing new sections to old, there's no fancy joints required, I glued new sections in and used stainless brackets hidden within the box frame to reinforce it all. Not very purest but effective - and unless you are daft enough to post a picture on an internet forum, no one will ever know.... I also used stainless screws throughout. Toolstation do some good stainless angle brackets quite cheaply.
The frame was originally secured to the stone cill with iron brackets, which had almost completely disintegrated. Likewise, steel screws used in previous repairs were rusting and had caused problems.
Part way through repairing the frame, all the cills and sides of the frames were in, just the front pieces (which serve no structural purpose - purely decorative) to go. I used an epoxy repair system to glue the sections in - it acts as a filler as well, much harder than the usual 2-part fillers you can buy. Seems like good stuff if used in the right way, certainly sticks firm and goes very hard but still with a little flexibility. Green paint at the top is the old stuff waiting to be stripped off.
I have no qualms about using modern items such as plastic spacers if they are hidden. If you're working with old timber that is not straight and everything needs to be cut to suit, they are very handy to ensure items are packed out to the right depth - and of course will never rot. Yes you can use bits of oak of course, but these are a good time saver.
Fast forward to the end, and here's the complete bay all prepared and ready for painting. There was a lot of incidental repair to do to sections such as the mouldings near the top, I had to make some sections to replace missing ones. The preparation for painting is definitely the worst part, but vital to ensure a decent finish.
It's difficult to capture in pictures just how bad it was at the start, it really was very rotten, it looks better in the pictures than it did in reality. The bay was built so that the side windows were always fixed shut, once stripped back I found there had never been sash pockets or pulleys fitted. Even though it's not original I decided to convert them to be opening - luckily there was enough room in the sash boxes for the weights. Quite a bit of extra work to do but worth it I think.
The draftproofing works very well - not only does it keep the drafts out but it stops the windows rattling, reduces noise coming into the house, and means that the windows glide open and shut very easily.
As we stand now it's had 2 coats of paint, will hopefully get a third at the weekend - I'll post up a picture in due course.
Thought it might be useful to others to post up what is hopefully some inspiration that you can repair your original windows yourself, even if they look to be in a bad way - it's time consuming but really not that complicated.
First off, this is not a masterclass in how to repair windows - neither is it a demonstration of the best craftsmanship & joinery techniques. That is the point - whilst I'm a reasonable DIY'er I'm certainly not a time served joiner, the only formal woodwork training I have had was an O Level at school 30 years ago - and I've not had any guidance in window repair. If I can do it then so can others........
I've done a few sash windows here, but the "Nemesis" that was hanging over me was the big lounge bay window, bottom right of the picture below. I knew it was bad - I knew that when I bought the house - but it was potentially such a big job that it was an easy one to keep putting off, for fear of it turning out to be a massive can of worms once I started cutting into it.
I really couldn't keep putting it off forever - gaps around the main sash were so big we had a problem with bees getting through them one summer! Only the bottom sash of the big centre window opened, that was a real effort to get open as well. The frame had obviously been repaired in the past, badly - and those repairs were rotting - plus the side sashes were not original and were badly made, they were rotting too! A couple of sample images but the rot was widespread, all the wooden cills had been badly replaced and all were rotten at each end:-
Then one day Mrs F provided the prod I needed to finally bite the bullet and start work on it, courtesy of her going to swat a wasp with a rolled up newspaper:-
The wasp did die so it wasn't *completely* in vain....
The glass was holding the sash together, so really no other option but to get on with the repair! Starting with the big centre window, which is 8' tall x 4' wide, both sashes were taken out - carefully, it turns out the top one was being held in place in the frame by paint alone. Someone had nailed it in place through the horns, and threw away the original sash weights. That was clearly some time ago as the nails had rusted through, so it was only the paint holding it up!
What quickly became apparent was the whole window was a long way out of square, even the sides of the frames were not parallel. The Victorians never did seem to be any good at putting decent foundations beneath bays - the whole thing had clearly settled and moved, almost certainly in the first few years after the house was built. There is no sign of any movement now and it's noticeable that the neighbouring house also clearly has a bay that has settled.
The bottom sash wasn't too bad - regluing the loose joints was all that was really required, plus fitting some metal brackets to reinforce the bottom joints, which I fitted into routed grooves on the internal side and then filled over to hide them. However, the bottom rail of the top sash was rotten:-
So that was carefully replaced with a new hardwood rail, as the bottom rail will always be vulnerable to rot. The rest of the sash was salvageable, the tenon on the bottom of the glazing bar had disintegrated, but I was able to secure it carefully to the new bottom rail with a dowel drilled into it. I cheated slightly - I got the joinery firm that supplied the hardwood to me to machine the blank rail to size, for me to then cut the joints into and fit. Luckily the old rotten bottom rail came out easily leaving the joints to the side rails in good order - I could copy the ends of the old rotten bar:
Trimming the sashes to size was a pain. After much procrastination, and the realisation that the whole bay was so far out of square that nothing would ever be level and compromise was the order of the day, I decided that the mid-rails of the 3 windows would be level and would align properly across the bay - before they were well & truly out of line - and everything else would fit around that. This necessitated having slightly different size sashes on the smaller side windows, and cutting the sides of the middle sashes at an angle so they would still slide OK. Visually it's all a compromise but I think it looks OK. One of the existing sashes was too small, but cutting it back to good square edge with a circular saw and then gluing a hardwood strip on took it up to the required size. By the time it's been sanded to blend the size in precisely and painted it's invisible.
Whilst it would have been lovely to go for "wobbly" tatra glass, when I checked how much it would be it was just eye-watering, more expense than could be justified. So I went with modern float glass
- the bottom sash being toughened for safety as the window sits very close to the floor. I went with single glazing, the rest of the house is single glazed, and fitting DG units would have raised a whole host of problems - too heavy for the weights in the sash boxes, and no room for larger weights, for starters. I'm not convinced DG makes a big difference anyway, it's one more thing to fail in the future, I think most of the extra benefit comes from draft-proofing.The sashes were draft-proofed - the parting and staff beads have brush seals in them, but I also machine the top of the top sash and the bottom of the bottom sash (which doesn't strictly need doing - but it stops water blowing under the sash) with a tiny groove with a router and put a bubble seal in them:-
The meeting rail also had a carrier machined into it for a brush seal.
Next job was the roof. It was an unattractive felt roof but the main problem was it sloped the wrong way - it was supposed to slope to a rear gutter but most of it sloped forward, so the water was dripping over the front edge and onto the stone cill below, where it bounced back onto the window frame, causing I suspected much of the rot.
This was one to call the professionals in for, as detailed in an old post I got a leadworker in who did a fabulous job, we corrected all the past butchering of the roof structure so it now sloped the right way - and insulated the roof properly for the first time.
Next step then was to start cutting out the rotten sections of frame and splicing in new timber. I made the decision to only use hardwood or Douglas Fir for this - these were all the more vulnerable parts of the window, this was so much work I wanted this to be a job I did once and once only, the aim being that by the time it needs doing again it won't be my problem by default!
I got the joinery company to machine me some sections of hardwood to profile for the cills, and roughly to size for the frame sections I would need. As the 4 smaller side sashes were in such a bad way and weren't original anyway, I also got the joinery company to make me up some new ones in hardwood. It was a job I could have done myself but it saved me some time.
This where the leap of faith is required, once you start the major cutting out of the rotten sections - for example, Mrs F was a little shocked to come home one day to see that what started the day as this:-
Ended the day as this:-
Some of the outer sections were cut back further on another day.
The remains of the original cills were still in place underneath the boxes - the previous repairer had just chopped them out at the edge of the sides of the frame, thereby putting a joint in exactly the most vulnerable and rot-prone position.
For cutting out the rotten timber a decent oscillating multi-tool with a curved and straight blade is a must-have I'd say, I know you can do it by hand but it's so much easier with one of these. I tried to make all my cuts on a 30 degree diagonal, as it them makes it easier to cut the new sections on a mitre saw. I've also been very careful to make it so that the angle of the cut pushes any water that runs down it to the outside of the window - the last repairs pushed it to the inner edges of the sections and has caused some of rot. No matter how carefully you splice timber in there may just be enough of a step in a joint to cause water to run along it.
I cut all rot out - there's no point in doing half measures. For jointing new sections to old, there's no fancy joints required, I glued new sections in and used stainless brackets hidden within the box frame to reinforce it all. Not very purest but effective - and unless you are daft enough to post a picture on an internet forum, no one will ever know.... I also used stainless screws throughout. Toolstation do some good stainless angle brackets quite cheaply.
The frame was originally secured to the stone cill with iron brackets, which had almost completely disintegrated. Likewise, steel screws used in previous repairs were rusting and had caused problems.
Part way through repairing the frame, all the cills and sides of the frames were in, just the front pieces (which serve no structural purpose - purely decorative) to go. I used an epoxy repair system to glue the sections in - it acts as a filler as well, much harder than the usual 2-part fillers you can buy. Seems like good stuff if used in the right way, certainly sticks firm and goes very hard but still with a little flexibility. Green paint at the top is the old stuff waiting to be stripped off.
I have no qualms about using modern items such as plastic spacers if they are hidden. If you're working with old timber that is not straight and everything needs to be cut to suit, they are very handy to ensure items are packed out to the right depth - and of course will never rot. Yes you can use bits of oak of course, but these are a good time saver.
Fast forward to the end, and here's the complete bay all prepared and ready for painting. There was a lot of incidental repair to do to sections such as the mouldings near the top, I had to make some sections to replace missing ones. The preparation for painting is definitely the worst part, but vital to ensure a decent finish.
It's difficult to capture in pictures just how bad it was at the start, it really was very rotten, it looks better in the pictures than it did in reality. The bay was built so that the side windows were always fixed shut, once stripped back I found there had never been sash pockets or pulleys fitted. Even though it's not original I decided to convert them to be opening - luckily there was enough room in the sash boxes for the weights. Quite a bit of extra work to do but worth it I think.
The draftproofing works very well - not only does it keep the drafts out but it stops the windows rattling, reduces noise coming into the house, and means that the windows glide open and shut very easily.
As we stand now it's had 2 coats of paint, will hopefully get a third at the weekend - I'll post up a picture in due course.
