So the windows started to go in today. The joiners turned up and went at it from 9am and made a good start despite hailstone and rain! they persevered though and got the back of the house fitted and the living room windows on the front.
As we're learning old houses kick up suprises, and we had a couple. It seems the original window in front of the sink was about a foot lower and has been bricked up, which is a bit of a shame. If we were rich it would have been nice to have the full length window, but they're bought and made now so no good! Also, the center mullion in the living room had a timber facia fitted covering up a badly corroded stone mullion (see photo). This looks like a job for a pro...
The windows that have just been taken out were very poorly fitted and were pretty much just pushed out of the holes by the workers today. Very poorly fitted and made windows... it seemed to keep the joiners amused! It was ineteresting that the living room windows were rested on parts of window frames from thw windows previous to the ones we've just taken out! A bit of a bodge job it seems. The windows previous were single glazed and had a very small rebate for the glazing, they looked to be very delicate, much more slender than the ones we have just fitted.
I have grown a respect for the conservation department at kirklees and I am happy to work with them, but I do think a lot of 'restictions' for want of a better word are simply guesses of what it would have been like and really they don't know for sure. Which is interesting when they are so stringent on their regulations. I think it's right that buildings of historic interest are protected, particularly when altering them structurally as that is un reversible damaging of the original fabric of the buildings, and for sure i can appreciate that PVC windows would be terrible in our house... truly! But would the difference between a 7mm single glazed glazing bar and a 13mm double glazed glazing bar really be damaging the buildings asthetics, historic value, original fabric or character? I suggest not. This is the frustrating part of listings.
How can kirklees be so strict as to ban all double glazing in Grade 2 listed buildings to protect historic value and authenticity, yet other councils permit the destruction of other listed buildings? At some point those used to be deamed to be of historic interest, but now they're not worth even being here. Does this make the whole subject of listing a farce? Surely subjective. Will one day our house be deamed not that interesting anymore and be demolished? or unlisted? If so, what's the point in it being listed now if it isn't preserved for ever. Are we culturally better off for having been graced by a building for a number of years, but now we are done with it? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people may think our house is beautiful, others may think it is a messy pile of rubble in the way of extending modern suberbia. So at what point does it become not culturally interesting enough to not even be here... or at least when can double glazing be fitted? I can't imagine in 50 years time the owners of this building still having to put single glazed windows in the property with the whole 'save the planet' crew shouting ever louder. So if they will be permitted in the future, then why not now. It is simply delaying the inevitable.
Specifically talking about the windows, it is an incredible contradiction that the council is happy to spend hundreds and thousands fitting free insulation to make homes greener in Kirklees, cutting emissions and lowering fuel bills, but I can't spend a few thousand of my own pounds to keep my own paid for house which I legally own (albeit on a mortgage!) warm and cut my fuel bills for the sake of 6mm on a glazing bar and a slightly different reflection in the glass.
It just all seems a little bit silly really and I think the government should realise this and think about reforming some of these silly rules which blight us listed building home owners... but then I guess MPs wouldn't understand, if they had these problems, they would just buy another house and stick it on expenses and have done with it. If only the people at the top who made the rules actually had some experience of real life!
Anyway, where was I... It's the weekend now so the workers are back on monday to neaten edges on the fitted windows, do the upstairs at the front and fit the door... as long as the weather holds off.
Great stuff.
It's really nice to see some progress.
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