upvc windows in conservation area.

"legin" typed

AIUI they would be on to you like a sack of bricks if you tried this in Hampstead Garden Suburb. Don't know about other areas though.

do what he says or do it twice, and second-hand new windows are worth very little!

mrcheerful

If you have the vaguest interest in buildings at all then plastic windows can be spotted from half a mile! They may be low (no) maintenance but they are also highly obsolescent and will need replacing in from 5 to max 20 years. Lots of studies show that trad joinery is cheaper and lower maintenance than plastic, in the longer term. Higher initial cost but lower cost overall over time. Also adds to house value: estate agents "retaining original features" means higher value. Plastic windows are also an environmental disaster - not only spoiling the built environment but also using oil reserves and creating a waste disposal problem due to being unrecycleable and short life. The more conservation areas the better for all of us!

cheers Jacob

See for example:

And if you're in a conservation area, it's an absolute certainty that someone will dob you in to the council if you go ahead and fit them.

David

The planners can make it a condition if they wish. You then have the right of appeal to an independent inspector. Mind you that will probably be rejected.

'retaining original features' is generally regarded as estate agent speak for 'in need of modernisation'.

The vast majority of people viewing a house on seeing wooden windows would adjust their offer to compensate for the fact that they would be replacing all the windows.

She might find that once in jail, her front door was even more difficult to open!

You are of course talking out of your behind.

I have no problem with someone disliking uPVC windows, but don't try to argue that they are more 'environmentally friendly' - not by a long way.

What evidence do you have fort hat?

Mary

This article is typical journalistic hyperbole, it has more holes in it that net curtains.

Mary

What a total pile of opinionated crap. Do you design for "Changing rooms" in your spare time?

PVC windows have a life in excess of at least 30 years in the British climate and designs can be far superior to wood. In all probability they will last for well over a century. Maintenance is normally only a case of replacing the sealing rubber when it shrinks. Wooden windows are yesterdays technology and far more expensive when total cost through the life cycle is considered. IME they all warp, rot, become draughty and generally are a typical British unreliable high maintenance product. Having seen the wooden product in the USA with exactly the same problems, there's no way I'd go back to high maintenance wooden windows. I think they come under the same category as Aga's, trendy at the moment, but functionally obsolete. The pvc is recyclable, the US does it. Anyway, why would you want to recycle something which is perfectly functional? Whenever I see a house without pvc windows, I immediately knock £20K off the asking price to allow for replacement windows. Conservation areas?, the Americans have a much better system, they tear it down after 40 years and rebuild it with todays fittings and technology. Not many real people want to live in museums, hence the demand for new houses, sadly built with cheap and nasty wooden windows to reduce the developers initial costs, so the buyers have to replace them with pvc

Regards Capitol

But worth doing, just to upset them!

Regards Capitol

To drag this off on a tangent (or allow it to fly free).

If your carpenter and installers are living in a modern society, then they are also using oil to get to work every day, to grow their food, ...

You can't simply say "wood and lime good, cement and UPVC bad".

Yes, wood and lime may use less energy to produce than UPVC and cement. But if they take more people to install, and those people use more resources when installing them, it's a net loss.

Per capita UK emissions of CO2 are about 2500Kg.

I'd really like to see some numbers broken down accurately by building type.

However. Use cement, and build rigidly, and you've pretty much got to build on a rigid structure, meaning hugely extensive foundations.

Use lime, and allow the building to flex, and you can reduce these.

The 'right' way to solve this I suspect is prizes.

Set goals, which might be CO2 emission, operating cost, price, ... for a house.

Scrap _all_ building/fire/planning regulations for these, and instead rely on a detailed engineering survey to ensure they meet the spirit of the regs. Rewrite the regs if required.

Award a prize for the 'best' house of several million.

Copy.

What a sensible post!

Mary

The energy regs change in April. A quick and dirty summary of the requirement is: work out the CO2 emissions for a house of your proposed size built to the 2002 regs. The estimated CO2 emissions from your house have to be 20% less than this. How you achieve this is up to you - more insulation, better windows, condensing boiler, solar panel are all options

One of the changes is to allow manufacturer's certified figures for windows: the very best windows now have a negative energy figure - the solar energy they let in exceeds the heat that leaks out.

More on this at

That's interesting.

Our solar panel was connected last Sunday and it's working!

I think our windows must be like that even though we have a lot of glass. At night, when they could leak heat perhaps, the curtains are drawn in heated rooms.

Mary

Not half as much as it will upset the appellant if the appeal fails and the council, quite rightly, ask costs and get them!

Peter Crosland

The only thing full of holes is the argument that the defendant put put up. The bottom line is she will end up in prison with a far bigger bill than if she had the sense to obey the law.

Peter Crosland

The daft prat could have got a joiner in to ease the door at a fraction of the cost of a replacement, and it would then keep going indefinitely just given a bit of normal maintenance.

cheers

Jacob