Irish say no to PVC windows

I’ve seen those inner glazing windows behind sashes you refer to MrX here and there in Dublin too – The Irish Times have them in their Georgian buildings on D’Olier Street. Needless to say, this is what should have been promoted and used on a large scale in Ireland years ago if people wanted the ‘airlock’ insulation effect, before the horrific PVC replacement blitz began.

Perhaps PVC does have its place – though its manufacture is an intensive chemical (and thus environmentally unfriendly) process.

Well spotted on the removed chimney stack on ‘The Wood Shop’ (above right), Graham – hadn’t noticed that myself. Chimneys are so important for punctuating roofscapes and giving visual demarcation between individual buildings – they should be maintained even if disused. Shame on New Ross Town Council for letting such unsympathetic alterations be carried out to these quayfront buildings, which are the ‘face’ of the town.

Interestingly, before it was PVC’d, the T. Bradley building (above left) had original sashes on the first floor and later, larger-paned sashes on the top floor.

New Ross has one of the highest survival rates of traditional shopfronts in any town in Ireland – there must be upwards of 50 in basically intact condition in the central streets of the town. The Wood Shop front is a beautiful fluted, Ionic-columned design – but looks pretty poor now that it’s been sanitised by the building next door. The curtain in the window display when a shop ceases to trade is a charming country town feature – but it’s seen less and less now.

Also, the old timber-boarded vehicle underpass doors in the earlier pictures of this building have been replaced by a sheet metal gate by ‘04 – not exactly traditional :rolleyes: . Ok, this is a minor enough change, but the loss of historic sash windows is grievous.
(Did my best to crop the PVC out of this picture 🙂 )

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Anyway, enough about New Ross. It’s happening all over the country all the time. This is an old pub in Portarlington in 2003 (top) and 2004 (above). A recent change of ownership meant the removal of the nice ‘P. Finlay’ lettering across the top – which harmonised with the pubfront and 1st floor window architrave detailing – and, more seriously, the replacement of the painted sash windows with open-out stained timber windows – almost just as visually damaging as PVC (sounds like the same situation as the Step Inn in Stepaside, mentioned earlier in the thread).

PVC used internally is not not just the devils work aesthetically but can suffocate a building just as quickly as it’s externally mounted relatives.

Lovely stuff! :rolleyes:

Collins Barracks Musuem also have PVC-coated inner windows facing into the square. Tut, tut. And it’s not like the traffic is roaring by outside…..I suppose they need them to help control temperature for the artefacts on show.
The inner windows I’m thinking of that should have been promoted here before would not be of PVC. Granted there would always be the problem of the relationship with the internal window lining….

The Dundalk shopfront is lovely. Is it mostly original?
I don’t know Dundalk as well as I should….

I’ve got a very-difficult-to-look-at before & after PVC-ing from Dublin coming up. I’ll post it in the next day or so.

Prepare your stomachs!! 🙂

Looking forward to the Dublin report Devin.
This thread’s become like a wonderful spot the difference competition.

Stop it! Just stop it! Haven’t we suffered enough?!

God – what can you say….the main facade of the mill house is an abomination, those windows would make you vomit.
What a loss, not least with Wyatts being so rare. There is now no character at all to the house, save the doorcase that might as well have been salvaged from elsewhere.
How can the owners not see that the windows were by far the primary architectural features of the house?! Without them it is nothing – it relied on them more so than most period buildings.

And is it just me or have they rendered over the front steps? Maybe it’s just the work of the old pressure washer.

House owners are really gonna love you Devin, going round snapping their houses before and after 🙂 – though admittedly I’ve had a tendancy to be doing the same over the past couple of years 😮

Yes the Wyatt replacements on the other house aren’t great either – I’ve seen smaller horns on bulls 🙂

Ah jaypers what are the councils or whoever is responsible up to, to allow this to happen. My jasus…the ”mullioned” type church window above is a laugh. This has to stop. The dopey ignorant thick local councils and councillors have to be blamed. Whats left of our old architectural stock is still continuously being ruined.

As you say Phil, whatever about the legislation, I’d love to hear what the PVC companies are saying – their spin on things. What I’d give to be a fly on the wall in a ‘non-obligation consultation’. Perhaps people here have had first-hand experience of them…

But as for the owners themselves, there’s numerous reasons why windows are taken out.
A lot, if not most people, don’t view their house in an architectural way – they just percieve it as home and don’t look at it objectively, certainly not architecturally.
Maybe the ‘rotton old windows’ have been there since they moved in, drafty, bottom rail rotting, difficult to maintain, the sashes stick or are jammed, and they rattle in the wind.
All of these problems that they may have, combined with a complete ignorance of their architectural merits, just results in people not giving a second throught to their disposal.

A lot of people like the fact that their house is ‘old’ but that’s about it – they don’t mind if there’s no period features at all – or at least they look for interior features but utterly ignore the windows – indeed most people probably go into standard red brick terraced houses when house-hunting and think – “oh great, the windows have been ‘done’ ‘”.
At this stage in Ireland, ‘having the windows done’ is just as common a topic of conversation now as house prices and traffic all the rest of it.

PVC ompanies are the real ones to blame in this – every single one knows exactly what they are doing when ripping out sashes – every one of them, yet couldn’t give two hoots.
I’d love to see them imbue their mission statements with the ethics of conservation as much as they wave about their ISO9000s in your face :rolleyes:

But of course it is, it goes without saying – but on the ground, in practice, if all companies refused to install replcement windows into period or listed buildings there wouldn’t be a problem. That’s naturally in an ideal world, but the fact that they’re out promoting and encouraging the practice to gullible consumers makes them the primary culprits on the ground.

I’m sure if homeowners were aware of how well sash windows work when fully operational – how if anything they’re more flexible than modern-day equivalents, can last longer, can be double-glazed if necessary, and perform as well if not better in some instances than the product being promoted to them, not to mention the now-widespread availablity of window restoration/replacement – that they would make the informed decision to avoid these companies, this practice and this material by a mile.
It is frustrating to see them taking people in like this, and wrecking the built environment for the rest of us in the process.

Yes it does – admittedly it is difficult to work out exactly what shows a lack of interest in the architecture of one’s home, and what just shows poor taste 🙂
But in general I do think that most people do not stand back, quite literally, from their home and view it objectively, as a newcomer to their street or area would, also taking onto account their surroundings etc.
The decorative order of their properties generally seems to be the primary concern, rather than the architecture or structure of the building.

I mean a classic is the arched window – why do people insist on botching up a natural curve with a rectangular opening. What is the point of even having a curve?

Okay these are replacement windows – but even in brand new homes where curved windows are installed, they’re fitted out with rectagular opening lights. This is an architectural issue, not just an insignificant decorative matter.
Window design is so important in most of our buildings, and whether it should be the case or not, they are generally the primary architectural feature of interest, yet only too often scant attention is paid to their design, in new builds even more so than period properties: at least with them there is a template to follow.

Look at this trash in Dundalk, inserted into a terrace of late 19th century houses – have the people no eyes in their head? Really, this type of blatent ignorance just beggars belief. Even the cheapest of the cheap hinged softwood windows would have looked a million times better than this rubbish.
There is poor taste, and there’s ugly.

PVC doors are equally ugly. Especially when people cant be bothered to remove the transparent plastic covering and leave it to the elements to gradually wear it away.

I think its true that many people just don’t think about the impact choosing PVC will have on the building when renovating and this is a pity. Plus the design of most of these windows and doors is horrible and doesnt even attempt to emulate the old style.

People just dont care about keeping the character of their old property. Its a Celtic Tiger Post Colonial Morderist thing I suppose.

As regards new houses with fake classical bits – I love them. They also represent the tackiness of Irish society today. We must embrace the tack.