In their pile ‘em high, sell ‘em cheap adverts, plastic window makers imply that wood windows don’t last. So how do they explain all those Victorian streets with their original sashes, or the fact that we’ve just had ours refurbished and only needed a couple of cills replacing? Not bad after 107 years’ service!
More dramatic evidence that the PVCu firms are economic with the facts is the Palace House in Newmarket, Charles II’s racing retreat. During refurbishment builders discovered a near intact timber sash window bricked up in a wall. It dates from the 17th century and may have looked out from the room where the king entertained his fruiterer Nell Gwynne. Visitors can peer through the greeny glass and try to imagine the original view.
But the plastic brigade are not about to amend their advertising to say ‘timber windows don’t last more than a few hundred years’. It’s down to the wood window producers to make their case. And that’s precisely what they’re doing. The British Wood working Federation’s Timber Window Accreditation Scheme has already made headway in getting over the consumer-confidence-boosting truth. Now its research project in association with the Building Research Establishment is a key step closer to producing a 15-year maintenance-free guarantee on wood windows.
More grist to the timber window mill is coming from the preservative and treatment sector. Their latest developments are simultaneously enhancing timber’s inherent durability while making wood treatment increasingly environmentally benign.
By combining their products with high standards of design and manufacture, one treatment firm says the timber window can become a ‘symbol of aspiration’.
It also seems plastic windows may not be as maintenance-free as we were first led to believe. Why else would ICI make a plastic window paint?
