GrahamH

It’s a great shame how so many modernist houses, albethey not overly remarkable by international standards are left to crumble away, while older ‘heritage’ buildings are the only ones considerd worthy of restoration, or even just basic care and attention.
As you say there’s some real gems out the Stillorgan way – always laughed at how more liberal the architecture becomes the closer you get to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown 😀

Geragh is a design classic.

Nothing?

Small peripheral countries tend to be influenced rather than influence others.

😀

But it’s so true, anyone that suddenly becomes interested in windows for whatever reason just gets hooked on them!

That’s brilliant news about the pantry window, sure you’re as good as done now!
If the shutters have been removed from all the other windows it’d be great to be able to reinsert them – though money money money is always lurking in the background…

If you do go for the timber sashes they’ll be worth every penny. As soon as they’re in you will cringe at yourself for ever even looking at anything else!
There’s nothing more delightful than a brand new or restored perfectly operating hand-crafted sash window – without getting too hung up on it 😮 they are a pleasure to use, and offer so much flexibility in terms of how you want to air rooms etc.

And the architectural contribution to the house will be substantial, both externally and internally, and no doubt will add a few bob to its value too…

Anyway, the best of luck with your new windows (what a strange thing to say :o). If you could post a picture or two upon completion that would be great 🙂

I’m sure there’s a witty response to that….

Yes telephone kiosks would rate as street furniture in most people’s books, whereas such large scale structures restricted to use at only certain times generally are not. How can a closed up cube be called street furniture when it serves no function at all, not even decorative like lampposts can be?

That pantry window was a great find – always very exciting to find original features!
This should act as a very good guide for the other sashes – especially the horn detail, if any, which could be copied exactly assuming it is original. Also the thickness of the timbers and the design of the overall frame etc could act as an excellent guide for your joiner.

As for the ‘fittings’ you talk about, is it the windows themselves or the hardware such as catches and locks etc that you’ve been told are available in PVC?
Either way, it is true that PVC is available for imitation timber sashes – indeed the poor horn picture posted last time is that of a PVC sash. To be truthful to you, PVC is becoming increasingly better at replicating traditional sash windows, as much as I’d like to say otherwise – from a short distance in fact some are simply indistinguishable from originals.
Even so, up close you can always tell the difference – the corners are sharper and harsher, the joins are more evident, and the majority still tend to be clunky in design – like these ghastly yokes :rolleyes:

Fundamentally though, can anyone say that they prefer what are at the end of the day plastic windows in favour of natural, sustainable, handcrafted, traditional timber?
In my view at least there is simply no competition.

As for the hardware of traditional sashes such as the catches to lock the sashes and pulleys or wheels, there are plastic versions available, especially for the pulleys which are hidden from view:

But it is always best to go for brass where affordable as they’ll last forever save the odd bit of oiling, with little risk of ever breaking:

Saying that, there are severe cost implications – on the internet the brass are about €10 each, while the plastic and steel ones are about €2 each!

As for the window catches which are in view, it is a matter of personal taste really. Personally I think very bright modern brass versions like these are a bit much:

…whereas toned down models like this Edwardian one can look very elegant:

I’d guess that simple iron or brass ones similar to that above were common on most simple house sashes like yours.

As for the pane layouts, it’s quite simple how windows developed ‘through the ages’.
When sashes first came to Ireland (quite late by all accounts) in the mid-late 1600s, glass could only be made in very small panes, blown by hand. So to make up a large window, it had to be divided up into six or nine panes per sash. Though processes became more refined, this is how windows were made for the next two centuries or so in Ireland, until a new form of making glass made larger panes more affordable by 1850, resulting in two-over-two windows for about 15 years. By the 1860s, large one-over-one sashes became affordable, though still expensive until the 1870s, when they became standard in cities, but not until the 1880s before largely standard in all areas of the country.

Even so, two-over-two design often remained in rural areas as did the Georgian sash design, which regardless made a comeback everywhere in the 1890s through to the 1930s, often seen in school and institutional buildings & railway stations etc. So rural houses like your own can never be guaranteed a certain style, unlike cities.
As always, rural areas tend to have their own way of doing things 🙂

There are loads of pictures on the internet via a Google image search if you want to print out better pics for the previous owner to look at.

Be warned though, from now on you’re gonna become a window fanatic – everywhere you go you’ll be looking at windows and annoying everyone in the car everywhere you go 😀

On a related (okay not at all) issue – does anyone know what site it is that the DDDA offered to the Abbey two weeks ago?

John O’Donoghue said it had a lead over other proposals being considered.

To be honest I haven’t had any experience of ordering new sashes myself, but even from looking through the Yellow Pages etc on previous occasions you can see the dedicated window and door joiners, and then those that make stairs and roof-joists etc with windows on the side. I presume it is the latter that tend to churn out the clunky yokes, but that is not to say that a good all-rounder local joiner isn’t more than capable and experienced to make wha tyou want.

Definitely shop around – as with everything the cheapest price doesn’t necessarily get you the better deal, nor do more expensive joiners result in a better product. Looking at prvious jobs done is usually the best way to assess their work – look at samples at their workshop and ask for any buildings or houses nearby that they’ve worked on and have a look.

Good on you for asking the previous owner, I would’ve found it most difficult without offending him deeply 🙂
Certainly I’d chase him for a photograph – any pic at all that even has a bit of the house in the background is all you need, as long as some of the window is in shot. All you need to find out is whether each shas was a single pane of glass or divided into two panes, as pictured above.
It’s very likely they were single panes, but if you can confirm this you’re flying.

Also the horns of the sashes are very important. These are quite literally little horns that were added as part of the vertical timbers of sashes from the 1820s onwards to help strengthen the window with the newly invented heavy panes of glass installed. Originally they were largely decorative, but by the 1850s were quite important as a structural support. They survived ever since until the ousting of the sash altogether in the 1930s and are an importnet feature of most sash windows.

Some modern joiners can make a complete muck of them, especially PVC sashes which just can’t seem to do them properly at all.
This lovely very simple rounded horn is probably identical to the ones your house had – as seen on so many early 20th century windows:

They’re sited on the outside of the window on the bottom of the upper sash, and mostly inside the window, though not always, at the top of the lower sash like that pictured.

Horns to avoid by a mile are angular, overly decorative modern ones like these:

Your windows probably wouldn’t have had decorative moulding around the edges of the main timbers like this either.