GrahamH

There are two issues being confused here: heat and air.
Double-glazing does not prevent the existing flow of air from seeping through the windows – glass is glass, whether it be single-glazed or double. However it does help prevent heat loss.

What does prevent the flow of air is entirely different, sealed replacement frames like PVC or aluminium, and indeed timber in many cases – models that can completely seal up the edges of the window frame and the opening parts.

Fitting double-glazing will not necessarily cause any changes to the house’s ‘eco-system’, however the usual sealing up in the form of rubber seals around the sash frames could; it depends on the severity.

Personally I don’t understand this drive for double-glazing in old sash windows – often done in an eco-saving frame of mind as part of a house renovation, and then the owners go cap it off by adorning the new patio with a gas heater. Of much greater importance is adapting heating systems in homes, with the installation of more efficient boilers and crucially, room thermostats.
I’d love to know the true statistics surrounding double-glazing and its installation in older sashes where ventilation must be maintained regardless. I suspect the environmental and economic benefits are neglibible, while the damage done to architectural heritage is enormous.

For my part Imu, I’d strongly suggest you do not install double-glazing if the original Victorian glass is intact. It is a priceless feature that adds character and individuality to your home and is a part of engineering and social history. Obviously not everything can or should be preserved for such reasons, but if it is doing little harm and is a pleasure to own and value, and for others to observe, why meddle with it?

This is one of the unseen aspects of damage to architectural heritage in this country – increasingly windows are being preserved so on the face of it it looks like a certain building has been saved from PVC, but then you see spanking new, often double-glazed, flawless panes in place of the original glass.

Great stuff – especially to see that it’s still in use! I’d love to have a fire in my bedroom 🙂

Yes it’s nice the way mini versions of the front room model were peppered all over the house as a complete set, just as you get standard, if horribly functional by comparison, radiators in every room in houses today.

Exactly the same prevailed in my house above too – a mini version in the back bedroom, a mini version in the dining room (though I think with some form of decorative or functional metal features), and a middle-sized one in the master bedroom. Alas the bedroom ones were removed in the 80s and 90s, and the dining room replaced in 1973 to be precise with a ghasty rippled tile clad yoke :(. Says it all that it’s to be replaced shorty.

Any more Morlan?!

The tide appears to be turning with people just beginning to open their eyes to these features. Nothing spectacular in most cases, but decent craftsmanship was employed and they’re interesting relics from the days before central heating. Most people of a certain age don’t realise that it wasn’t until the 1960s that central heating was fitted in new houses as standard, and the 1970s before it became a regular feature in older houses.

lol

What a nice piece (the fireplace :)), and in good condition too (save the replacement tile at the front of the hearth 😉 – they were always the first to go). Late 40s perhaps? – going mainly on the skirting though!
Interesting to see how the hearth is designed at the bottom to accommodate the thickly-piled carpets and underlay of the era.

A close relative in Dublin has one of these too – they’re as rare as hen’s teeth in good condition nowadays unfortunately. This is perfectly preserved since installation in 1952:

Alas with more eh, ‘muted’ ornamentation 🙂

Some lovely detailing:

This fireplace survived a family of seven in a 3-bed semi for two decades perfectly intact. It really goes to show how times have changed; instead being careful now you just hack things about and chuck em out when they’re damaged, out of fashion or when you’re just got tired of them. This fireplace is in the state condition as the day it was installed 50 years ago. Similarly yours Morlan, even older, also seems perfectly intact. Not even the exposed hearth tiles are cracked.

Wow, how do you always manage to do that?!! Especially around the dome – extraordinary.
I see you ditched the floodlighting pole for good measure 🙂

A and B are still neck and neck up there. The ‘closely guarded’ shortlisted two routes are due to be announced in a matter of weeks now :rolleyes:

What really makes you smile is the fantastic array of 1940s fireplaces on display; some modest bedroom models, and others more elaborate in reception rooms.

A nice little bedroom one here:

And the same model with an inverse colour scheme:

More elaborate decoration here:

A wonderful glossy-tiled Art Deco inspired surround:

And what seems to be a magnificent Bell fireplace, who were based in Glasnevin. They still seem to be there today on Botanic Road. What a fine piece – the design and tiles used match precisely the late 1940s date of these buildings.

Unfortunately it seems none of these fire surrounds are being salvaged, not even the finer ones, as the floors have already been knocked 🙁

It seems the floors in the original Georgian sections as pictured below have timber joist floors and ceilings while the wholly 1940s-50s sections at either end appear to be of cast concrete panel construction. Not 100 percent sure as I didn’t have time to check properly:

Back outside and the 1940s doorcases are being numbered 🙁

As yet there is no numbering on the 18th century doorcases.

Just looking at an aerial view of the area, it is interesting note how this whole part of the city was earmarked for social housing, built up over the course of thirty years in a range of architectural styles, no doubt replacing many a tenement not least on York Street itself.

How depressing that Mercer House and York Street, built during the depths of economic stagnation and some of the worst times this country has experienced, still stand as the highest architectural achievement in the midst of everything else that has been built in this area in the intervening sixty years.

And York Street is the first to be demolished.

Just about Caster – only these are remaining on the west side:

All the supports from the central span are gone and the bridge looks great – it’s so refreshing to look down from O’Connell Bridge and not see all that clutter anymore. Looks so neat and tidy compared with the gaudy muck that predominated there. Painting it will make all the difference.

It’ll be some job tackling these fellas:

@PDLL wrote:

aesthetics are a major part of the issue and what is considered ‘appropriate’ by urban dwellers for rural life. As I pointed out, rural one-off dwellers do not endlessly harp on about the socially-destructive form of apartments being widely built in Irish cities that meet no long term purpose other than the gross accumulation of wealth for a few.

Well they should PDLL – they should be concerned, and they should harp on about it. Again you’re propagating an urban-rural divide. Any person, regardless of where they live have a right to hold opinions on structures being built on a commonly shared area of land, in this case the island of Ireland. I don’t live in Dublin yet I still harp on at mind-numbing length about things that happen in Dublin – the same with Dundalk, even though I don’t even live in the town. Most rural dwellers probably have opinions on their local towns or villages, or developments in their capital, and hold a similar right to scan a critical eye over them just as urban-based people have about the countryside.

If one-offs are horrendously ugly by nature and the McMansion is an eyesore, then don’t blame one-offs per se, blame the aesthetics of these houses. Would it be different if all of the houses were truly one-offs in terms of their design – each carefully and uniquely modelled by an architect? I reckon it would be a different issue as then they would meet the aesthetic standards of the architectural profession. However, as they stand they represent the actuality and reality of what the Irish rural dweller desires socially, culturally, economically and aesthetically – they are the physical manifestation of the Irish rural dwellers domestic ideal. Fair enough, if that aesthetic is awful then blame the Irish psyche for a lack of good taste, don’t blame the concept of the one-off house. There are as many aesthetic abominations in our cities. Believe me – most of Dublin isn’t exactly pleasing to the eye.

Indeed – domestic development across the country is getting worse rather than better. We’re without doubt sinking to the level the UK reached in the early 1990s. You can see all the mannerisms creeping in – a gradual dissolution of any form of distinctive style, the ubiquitous use of red brick with basic over-door detailing, the elimination of window reveals, the rampant spread of PVC, the reduction in size of residential units, the constant replication of the 1930s semi model, watered down in every conceivable way that it can be, the ‘build to contain’ ethos where quantity of floorspace and number of units takes precedence over everything else etc etc etc.

Yes it is rampant across all areas of residential building in Ireland. But that does not mean that one-off building must not face its responsibilities the same as developer-led construction. And the sad reality of one-off housing is that by its very nature poor design stands out all the more harshly in rural areas. In urban centres it fits in to the general ‘developed’ scheme of things, even if woefully designed.
By contrast, a rendered, painted and PVC-adorned house is to a rural landscape is the equivalent to a plastic milk bottle tossed in a ditch. It is simply incongruous by its very nature. Out of context. And ugly.

That’s not to say that all rural housing development is like that, nor has to be. And this is where, generally speaking, there is a genuine case to be had for the argument that older buildings fit in better in rural areas. They tend to be clad in natural materials, or materials sourced locally. They are rendered in dark sand render or they&#8217]Aesthetically[/b], that is to say don’t start jumping on me that I’m suggesting we should all live in shacks again. Of course there’s an element of cultural perspective to it all – there’s no doubting that most people would find a typical 19th century three-bay, two storey, whitewashed house standing proud on an untouched landscape remarkably appealing. Yes there is an allure to that as it is picturesque from a contemporary cultural outlook. But what remains from the past does not give us an automatic right to replicate it fifty times over, and with all the attendant bells and whistles that modern living brings.

Today we live in a highly developed, modernised world. A large element of the appeal that older houses have for us is that they are the first physical manifestation of Ireland modernising and developing into the country we have today, with these remnants standing as the prototypes of the buildings we currently live in, with rooms set out for individual uses and architectural norms established etc etc. This will not be the case in 100/150/200 years time with the current crop of one-offs. If anything they will stand for how primitive we really were in 2006. But more importantly, we cannot possibly equate the underdeveloped every-man-for-himself civilisation of the 18th and 19th centuries to what we have today. We know better, and pride ourselves on how ‘developed’ we are. Interpreting historical precedent down to the letter is simply na