Replacing our Windows
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It’s no secret that taking on a project the scale of the Farm has at times left us scratching our heads, and nothing more so than making the decision to replace the windows at the Farm. When we purchased in April 2021, we did so with the knowledge that every window and door here needed to be replaced, but that didn’t make the practicalities of doing so any easier! When we moved in, each of the properties had a different style of window, with different thickness of frame and glass style, which left the property feeling somewhat higgledy-piggledy and disjointed. After just over a year of living here, we finally completed Phase 1 of our window replacements in April. We are now preparing for the next phase to get underway, and as we do that I thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss why we made the decision to replace, how we have gone about it, and what the future of the Farm looks like.
Why did we replace, not repair
I’m often asked “but why didn’t you just have them repaired” when referencing the windows. Not always, but usually this is asked in a semi-critical tone, and tends to be a statement of disapproval at our decision to replace the existing windows with modern alternatives rather than really being a question at all. This query is usually routed in the belief that we have ripped out original, historically appropriate windows and replaced with something that the individual perceives to be ‘out of character’ with the age of the Farm. When I shared the new windows on Instagram for the first time, for example, a gentleman proceeded to tell me I had “ripped out the soul of the house by taking out the original windows”… a very dramatic (and unnecessary) response to something that simply wasn’t true!
Let me assure you firstly that we did no such thing, and had we had original 1800s windows, our decision to replace them would have likely been different. In reality, what we had at the Farm, and still have in places, were softwood mass-made, off-the-shelf windows from the 1980s, which don’t fit the openings, had rotted through more than they were sound, had broken panes of glass and gaps in places big enough to fit your hand through. In some openings, the stone lintels had been cut away with an angle grinder to force an incorrect sized frame to fit (think square peg, round hole, but with more permanent damage!). Likely the reason for this was that whoever fitted these windows did their best, but either didn’t see the need to have bespoke windows made, or perhaps didn’t have the money to do so. Safe to say our first winter was a little ‘breezy’ and on the cold side - my best friend came to stay in November and didn’t remove her bobble hat for the entire weekend - and we knew the windows had to go. If you’re in that positing heading into this winter, I feel your pain! Have a look at my £5 double glazing hack using Wickes Secondary Glazing Film for a temporary solution.
The reason many are so passionate about the restoration of original windows (not what we had, to clarify), such as Victorian sash or older mullion, is that the quality of the timber in these windows far surpasses what is available to us now. Wooden window frames were traditionally made with old-growth timber, which would have been taken from trees over 100 years old. This timber is incredibly dense and strong, and for the best frames, heartwood was used, which is from the centre of the tree and takes many years to form. As demand for new windows has increased, old-growth timber simply isn’t available in the quantities needed, so modern windows are made with timber grown on tree farms. Typically the trees grow for 10-20 years before being harvested, meaning the heartwood doesn’t have time to develop, and the result is a less strong wood. So, if you do have original windows in your home, do consider having them repaired rather than replacing if at all possible. One wood doesn’t equal the other! If you live in a listed property, chances are you will be required to repair rather than replace your windows, as they will be considered to be of special historic interest. Equally, if you live in a National Park or a conservation area, there will likely be specific criteria you will need to follow, designed to protect the vernacular in your area, and you should thoroughly research this and seek necessary approvals before proceeding with repairs or replacements
Finding a joiner
Once the decision to replace had been made, we then opened Pandora’s box of windows, starting with finding a joiner. When finding trades, I always take the view that a recommendation is often the best indicator of someones work. But living in a new area and not yet knowing many people locally, we were pretty reliant on what we could find on Google. I looked over so many websites, and immediately ruled out anyone without any pictures of their work on their website. Next, I checked the reviews, from Trustpilot, Facebook, and Google- reviews aren’t always the most accurate (we all know we’re more likely to leave one if we’re not happy than if we are), but I do find them to be a useful indicator. This gave me a shortlist of around 20 joiners who’s work I liked, and this list was further reduced when a few of them didn’t cover our area. In the end, we had a list of around 10-15 companies, and received quotes from a range of local and national companies, most of whom quoted wildly different prices depending on where they were based. I spent hours with various salesmen either on the phone or in person, as they viewed the Farm and measured up for quotes. It might sound a lot, but it was totally necessary with a project of our scale - with 53 windows, 2 barn doors and 8 external doors, we needed to be 100% confident in who we chose!
We met James, of James Wilding Joinery, mid way through the process, and immediately hit it off. Mostly because he met with me and my Mum (let’s be honest, we’re not always the easiest of customers), and immediately steered us in the right direction for the property. He was professional, clearly well experienced, communicated brilliantly… and put his foot down any time me & Mum got a bit carried away! Just what we needed. Before making any commitments, we visited James and his team in their workshop in Skipton, and had a good look around. As someone who works with manufacturers in my day job, I can honestly tell you that someones workshop is going to be a pretty good indicator of their work. If it’s a mess, everything is in disarray, and there’s dust and dirt everywhere, often that translates into the end product. Maybe not always, but that’s certainly been my experience! James’ workshop, by comparison, was immaculate. Even though the team were working on builds as we looked around, you could see that this was just how it is - clean, tidy, everything in it’s place, and it was obvious that they are a team that takes great pride in their work. We knew leaving the workshop that we had found our joiners.
Choosing a material
Once we had found James, the next step was deciding which material to build from. By this point, we had already decided that UPVC or composite wasn’t going to be the route we would take this time, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the right option for other settings. There are several choices when it comes to material for window frames, such as UPVC, Composite, Aluminium, and Timber.
What’s right for you will very much depend on your location, the age and style of your property, and your budget.
For example, in our last house which was a Victorian terrace, we replaced existing UPVC casement windows with… new UPVC casement windows. I would have loved to be able to replace the existing UPVC with traditional wooden sash windows, but as it wasn’t our forever home and very much had a value ceiling if we wanted to make a profit on the renovation work we were doing, our budget simply didn’t allow it. Plus, as the rest of the neighbouring houses also had white UPVC windows, it wasn’t detrimental to the look of the street for us to fit them.
Conversely to our last project, there isn’t another house visible from the Farm for a good 300m. Whilst UPVC would be by far the cheapest option, and there are a few properties locally with UPVC windows, for the most part it is ‘suggested’ that homes in our area should have timber windows. This is because we live in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), falling just outside of the jurisdiction of the National Park. The regulations for the AONB aren’t the most stringent, but we didn’t feel like UPVC was the appropriate choice for us (for a myriad of reasons, including environmental and aesthetic). We had also had a slightly disappointing experience with composite doors in our last house, where we had spent out on a specialist composite door, and had found it warped within a few months, so that was a no-go for us either. That left us with 2 options: Aluminium or Timber. We felt Aluminium was too contemporary for the Farm, which left us with Timber. Timber in itself offers a myriad of options, from softwood to hardwood, the added confusion of treated softwood, and then the individual varieties each with their own benefits. I’ve outlined a few of the most used below:
Softwood
Softwoods like Pine are often used for windows, but the lower density of the wood means it can dent and be damaged easily. Even slow grown Pine still contains less heartwood than hardwood. Softwood does tend to be cheaper than hardwood outright, but I would argue that the long term benefits of hardwood or treated softwood make the extra cost worthwhile.
Sapele Mahogany
Sapele is a large tree which grows to around 45m tall. It has a cylindrical bole, a diameter of around 10m, and is much harder than African or American mahogany. It is often used in external joinery such as doors and windows, and has superb resistance to indentation, bending strength, and resistance to shock loads. Sapele is reddish brown in colour with a wavy grain, and is suitable for either staining or spray finishing. If you want to leave your doors or windows unpainted, Sapele might be a good option for you.
European Oak
European Oak is an attractive hardwood that is versatile, durable and blends in incredibly well with its surroundings. This wood is an extremely popular choice for both interior and exterior joinery due to its traditional appearance, and has a straight grain. It is a durable and versatile wood that is light tan to biscuit colour, and is often stained with UV protection to emphasise the character of the wood. Like Sapele, Oak is beautiful left unpainted, but it does come at a price.
Treated Softwood
Treated Softwood is a major development in wood technology which enables the consistent supply of durable, non-toxic and dimensionally stable wood. Accoya is an example of a treated softwood, made from Radiata Pine which is put through a chemical process called acetylation. This changes the chemical structure of the wood - James first described this to me as ‘pickling softwood’. The process increases the strength, durability and weatherproofing of the wood, resulting in a high performance timber, which is rot resistant, insect repellent, and offers superior thermal insulation. This provides additional energy conservation advantages when used in applications such as window frames and doors. The treatment of Accoya means that it is more dimensionally stable than hardwoods, so it won’t warp or twist. It is ideal for spray finishing, and all Accoya wood is produced from well managed sustainable sources including FSC®, PEFC™ and other regionally certified woods
After some deliberation, we felt that Accoya was the best choice for us. We live in a very exposed environment, almost 800ft above sea level on moorlands. The weather here is very diverse, and we have been snowed in several times over the past year, not to mention the wind and rain we that can hit without warning! The dimensional stability of whatever we chose was important to us, and as the existing windows were so so so rotten, we felt this was the best choice for our environment. Whatever you choose to go for, make sure the timber you are buying is from an FSC (Forestry Stewardship Council) certified source. This ensured the source of the timber is regulated to manage their wood in a sustainable way.
Choosing a style
This was perhaps the easiest element of the process. The existing windows were a mixture of mock sash and casement, with a mishmash of glazing bars, sash bars and grilles. There was so much going on, and they were so dark brown, it was near impossible to admire the amazing views from the windows, as instead your eyes caught every aspect of the frame. We discussed the possibility of sliding sash windows, but due to the variation in opening sizes, we decided the simplest, least fussy option was going to be the best for us. We wanted the Farm to present as one property - neat and tidy, and the myriad of different sized glazing panels in sash windows just wouldn’t have achieved that for us. Alongside this, although appropriate for the period the Farm was build, sliding sash windows would never have been fit here as originally, as before its conversion to three houses, the Farm consisted of a modest farmhouse, and two barns. These buildings would have had extremely simple windows, if they had them at all, as glass was expensive and not to a luxury to be wasted on agricultural buildings. With this knowledge and a little research into the region and appropriate styles, we decided flush casement was right for us.
Phase 1
When we first moved to the Farm in April 2021, we naively thought we would be able to have windows ordered, made and fitted by the winter, how wrong we were! It took us until October to find James and confirm we wanted to proceed (a lot of dragging of our heels as we researched and deliberated over styles and materials). James then visited with a test window at the end of November, which was fit to check the condition of the stone under the existing frames. As so many had really been butchered to fit incorrect sized frames, this extra step added some time onto the project, but was really vital to make sure the remainder of the order would be perfect. Thankfully the stone was in acceptable condition under the wood rot, and hadn’t been hacked away too much. We decided to recess the windows further into the openings at this point, as we have very deep cills (our walls are 60cm thick in places), and this would allow the new windows some additional protection from the weather rather than sitting flush to the external face of the stone.
Once the test window was in, James remeasured again (poor James, he’d had to come to us about 6 times by this point!) and set to work on the initial order, which was for 36 of the 53 windows we have to replace, and 3 external doors. A huge order, in my eyes, but he’s since told me we haven’t been his biggest project so far! Every element of the order was then handmade by James and his team in their workshop, sprayed in our colour of choice - Little Greene Portland Stone Dark - and fitted with double glazed safety glass, and hardware from Coastal Group. We visited the workshop again in April to check we were happy with all the windows (clue: we were delighted!), and the installation process began the following week.
The installation of Phase 1 took around 2 weeks in total, with a team from James’ workshop here every day working hard to get the best fit against the stone. I’m sure you’ll agree that the finished result is absolutely everything we could have asked for and dreamt of, and we are absolutely thrilled! As part of Phase 1, we replaced all doors and windows in the Cottage other than the barn window, all but the back door in the Mistal, and 16 windows in the Farmhouse. We now have 17 windows, 5 doors, and 2 barn windows left to replace, which we’ll be tackling with smaller phases over the next few years. James has already begun work on Phase 2, which will see the barn window in the Cottage replaced by the end of the summer, along with a new front door and a couple of windows for the north elevation of the Farmhouse.
Working on a project like this takes time, but as my father-in-law says, the best way to eat an Elephant is one bite at a time, so step by step, window by window, we’re working to transform this wonderful home!
