Hi
My new home has gigantic sash windows in all the rooms. The light is great, but with colder temperatures fast arriving, I've realised how draughty they are. Does anyone have any advice on how to minimise the wind blowing through all the gaps? I've not tackled this problem before and want to consider all the options...
Thanks very much for any tips you can give.
Cheers, Ben
You can buy clear plastic sheet and make piggy back double glazed units that fit on the inside or outside of the main frames. If it's fitted properly, then it seals the actual window sashes from outside world and stops anything getting to them.
I have loads of sash windows and it is very satisfying if a long job to renovate them completely. With the windows out of the frame I have fitted a product called Atomic strip to the vertical frames where the windows move up and down. This is a flexible metallic strip that will keep out draughts and which can be oiled to make the windows move more easily.For the top and bottom edges I use E section flexible rubber strip. For the joint in the middle where the windows meet I do not use draught proofer but make certain that there are strong catches that will pull the two windows together. John Chapman
Get some brush draft-excluder and fix it between the meeting rails, adn each sash and the parting beading.
I think that sliding sashes have to be the best looking windows going. Pity they are so draughty. They were designed to allow a certain amount of draught through though. But the trouble is over the years they deform slightly and paint makes it all worse.
People tend to seal them with paint and filler. Morons! The best long term double glazing for them is secondary glazing if you have enough of a reveal inside. You can't add much to the weight of the sashes without spoiling them.
If you have to separate the sashes:
Take the beads that separate the sliders out with a chisel. The outer bead (inner?? -the beads that go all around the frame on the inside) is fixed with 1 1/2" nails. They will be sticky with paint after many years neglect no doubt.
The parting beads -the two separating the sashes, are (hopefully) only pressed into a groove some 1/4" deep. They may feel like they are glued and screwed. Parting bead is fairly cheap if you can find a supplier. You may need to put it back with 1 1/2" nails. Once you have it apart the sashes will hang freely. Don't be tempted to take maintenace further than that as fiddling around trying to replace cord is a time consuming business for anyone.
If you are not going to take them apart at all, just rub the edges that you can reach with a candle. Don't paint the channels they run in if you don't need to. You'll be amazed how much difference spraying some furniture polish in there makes to the way they run. What ruins them is paint on the cord. If they are heavily painted and won't run and you really want to fix a problem like that.......
To be continued.
You can improve matters on the bottom sash just by re-positioning the staff bead on the inside. If the catch isn't forcing the meeting rails together, that's another source of draughts. If the top sash rattles there isn't a lot you can do without dismantling the whole thing. A couple of rubber wedges between it and the parting bead will force it outwards against the edge of the box.
Whilst googling for said "Atomic strip" I cam across:
Barley Twist (Please put out the cats to reply direct)
If you don't fancy DIY and are in a hurry - give a company called "Ventrolla" a call (prolly web too).
They quoted 2500 inc vat to renovate all our sash windows - but on closer in spection they were too fargone to save "sensibly" so we removed tehm and had sympathetic UPVC replacements (as the sash replacements were one arm, a leg, a kidney and a re-mortgage).
Cheers Dan.
In article , Dan delaMare-Lyon writes
I'm surprised Dan, I bought a set of 5 wooden replacements (8'x4') for about 250quid each plus about 400quid to glaze the lot in low-E DG units. Ok, it was about 5 years ago, but I was amazed how cheap it was. Not cheaply made units either, all have draught seals fitted in routed channels.
In article , John Chapman writes
I haven't seen Atomic strip, but have used 'flexible V-seal' in a similar way. I got mine from the local sheds and it has been very effective. As with John's solution they fit to the edges of the sliding sash, under the parting (middle) bead and the staff (inner) bead. The negative bit is that you need to remove the beads to fit the seal but on the positive side this is a near permanent solution. I also chose to replace the beads when I fitted them as they would have been ripped to pieces by the rough over-painted articles that lived there before.
As someone else said, the quick fix it to apply wedges to the sashes to close up the gap to the parting bead, the ones for the upper sash will need to be fitted to the outside to achieve this.
HTH
No such animal exists. Also the life expectancy of uPVC is shorter than that of seasoned wood. Ulitmately, no matter what witless planners think, it doesn't really matter because the uPVC windows can be removed and replaced with something else in future, but IMO they're a really poor choice not only looking vile but not even coming close to living up to the overpaid salesmans claims.
See here
Well I got several places to quote - and the cheapest to my suprise was John Carr. The units were 1.6M high by 1.2m wide. I faxed them drawings (sketches) of each window - and they came back with prices.
They were of the order of 900 quid *each* (given that I'd asked for replacements of 1930's windows to the "closest" possible style) - excluding glass and the hassle of fitting them.
Needless to say - 12 windows at 900 odd quid each - then glazing - then fitting - then decorating - it's got pushed aside in favour of the £5100 on 12 windows - plus a new back door - all made to "look" like sash style windows.
They are a lot more in keeping with the "look and feel" than the crappy ones fitted by the council - nuff said.
I'd have loved to gone the real wood route - preferably being able to repair the windows that were in the house - but they'd suffered from
65 years of council "maintenance" (ie painting over problems), and then 10 years of being maintained by an architect (ie painting over problems and making bigger problems).Cheers Dan.
This salesman was a lot less overpaid than many of the others that wanted 10k for the job. I looked at sliding sash UPVC's too and they were lovely - but as expensive as wood.
If we had had the funds to replace all the windows in wood we would have done - but at the time we had 2k to play with - and managed to stretch to a loan of a further 3 - giving us 5.
Job done in UPVC as a function of cost.
Cheers Dna.
It's not just me, then!?
And used /reclaimed sash windows are around £70 a go. Glazed as well.
Regards, NT
In article , N. Thornton writes
Good point, but not a goer for me:
The 5 windows form a corner oriel window. When I did the loss calcs for the CH I realised that single glazing just wasn't going to work; 14sqm of glass /6.5 sqm of floor :-/. The 'new' ones are DG so a lot better from that point of view.
The rest of the windows in the house are SG and just fine, I'll check out reclamation if they get too bad.
wow. Now thats what I call glazing.
NT
In article , N. Thornton writes
:-)
Ok, that is just the oriel, but it wasn't half a huge heatsink for the rest of the room (~25sqm).
The oriel is my favourite place to sit & read or do paperwork, very bright all day, even in the depths of winter.
Hi! This was a message from 2003 that I found when searching for Atomi Strip. Does anyone know where it can still be bought? Another messag refers to www.chandler-akehurst as a possible source, but that seems t be a dead link now. Cheers, JA
-- peat666
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