Our house had PVC windows almost throughout that were ill fitting and really didn’t suit the property. These have been replaced with new Building Regulation-standard double-glazed sash windows. The front ground floor bay was the only remaining original sash window and it was in need of some care and attention.
Replacing it wholesale was going to be very expensive and as new sash boxes need to be thicker to hold the larger cavity in a new double glazed window, a lot of changes would have been needed.
We also wanted to retain some of the original features and it seemed a shame to take out wooden sashes to replace them with new wooden sashes.
- stripping 140 years of paint
- repairing any timber joints and damaged areas
- removing the old glass
- installing new thin double glazing
- routing-out for brush draughtproofing system
- applying putty
- repairing the glazing bars
- priming
- reweighting, cording and hanging the sashes
- Radiative losses can be reduced improving thermal comfort. Or more simply, this bay will now not be an uncomfortable place to read a book on a winters day. Radiative loses are what causes a whole side of your body to go achingly cold when sat next to a single glazed window for a while.
- Uncomfortable draughts. Air movement greater than 1m per second is recognised as a draught and of course cause heat losses, but they are also pretty uncomfortable. Draughts will be reduced both by the brush system but also by reducing convective draughts from cold air dropping down the inside of the windows.
- Condensation. Anyone with single glazing knows the downside of cold nights. As the glass temperature drops lots of the moisture in the inside air condenses and by the morning there is a puddle on the frame. This can be worse with draughtproofed houses and insulated walls. The draughtproofing can lead to higher humidity levels indoors if controlled ventilation is not installed, and the wall insulation raises the inside temperature of the walls so they don’t absorb as much of the water varpour. These windows should now be free of condensation.
- Noise. These windows are on the street side of the house and will now be a lot more sound-proof.
- Security. The windows will now be a lot more secure.