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Cuttings from the Newsletter- July 2004 |
To uPVC is human; to forgive is divine
This article might finish me off. Twenty years of devoted, selfless service to the Society's Planning Applications Group could be at an end. Yet I cannot deny or conceal what I have done. The consequences for me are clear just two options: either group members hear my confession, absolve me and pray for me or they dine on me in a cannibalistic orgy at the next meeting, serving me up as 'long pig' marinated in olive oil and brandy with shallots and red peppers, and with a Bramley apple in my mouth. (I reckon I'd go well with a full-bodied Aussie cabernet sauvignon, but chambré‚ it first).
I live in Redland's upper reaches, close to Westbury Park, in a 1930s semi. The original wooden windows are draughty, rotting and festooned with security locks. I got some of the windows replaced with wooden copies ten years ago and they are rotting at a faster rate than the original windows. My wife tells me something must be done.
So here goes [deep breath]. We have installed uPVC windows.
There, I've said it.
And now I should like to call my first witness for the defence. It is Waterways, a new residential
development in north Oxford's leafy academia where visiting Harvard professors stay. This recently completed scheme is just off Woodstock Road and just outside the conservation area. It's pretty impressive - very third millennium but with an understated historical elegance. Three and four storeys with rendered walls or brick with freestone dressings; slate or tiled roofs, high gables and big chimney stacks. Frontages have low planting and spiky metal fences. Parking is on-street as well as on drives of little crunchy chippings. There are enough German cars around to give it a hint of Bavaria.
Overall, there is a pleasing variety to the development but it resonates one jarring note. All windows are uPVC and what is immediately apparent is that there is a discord in their proportions there are thick and thin bits to the window sections.
Now this brings us to the fundamental problem with uPVC windows. Those that open have a
different width to those that don't. Opening uPVC windows don't slot in to the frames like wooden ones, they stand proud of them, rather like a picture frame mitres itself around glass. The solution is to install dummy vents. They ensure that you cannot distinguish between windows that open and fixed windows because all the windows are installed like picture frames proud of the actual glazed frame. You can walk down any street and see the difference houses with dummy vents have a more regular appearance than those without them. Dummy vents cost more but the benefit is clear as you can see from my house. I paid extra for dummy vents and the front of my house presents a well-proportioned and harmonious arrangement of fenestration to the street, although as a material, uPVC does look somewhat sterile and over-white. Bit different round the back, though. We really
couldn't afford dummy vents for the rear elevation and so I suppose if we ever sell up an estate agent, with that developer's short cut in mind, will describe our property as having 'a hint of north Oxford at the rear . . .'
We cannot ignore the benefits of ultraviolet-protected Poly Vinyl Chloride it is low maintenance and it presumably saves trees as it replaces the use of timber. But we need to start a dialogue and ask questions why does it have to be so starkly white? Can the sections be made slimmer to match those of the timber they replace? And why does it cost so much more to have the dummy vent solution?
I still crave absolution. In September I plan to walk St Michael's Way, the medieval pilgrims' route directly across Cornwall from Lelant to Marazion. Now although I'm from solid Presbyterian stock, will group members forgive me if I vow to do the last half mile (it includes the causeway to St Michael's Mount) on my knees?
Gordon Young
[address withheld]