Windows. UPVC or wood?

[Swedes]

Our windows are all currently UPVC - which I don't really like. Our rear windows need replacing and I want to change to wood. I know UPVC is maintenance free. What would you do?

Fair enough Swedes.
"my friend had her whole house fitted in a week. They measure up and come back with all the windows and fit them.. in a week.. a week.. in a weeeeeeeek..."

We ripped out wooden windows and put in upvc.
The wooden ones had rotted away because of maintenance mistakes (partly ours, mostly the previous owners). They were only about 12 years old, so much for 'lasting a hundred years'.
We loved some wooden windows we could have got in to replace, but they were

A) very expensive to buy
B) expensive to maintain
C) out of keeping with our modern house, and the area
D) very likely to put off prospective buyers (ongoing mainteance costs).
E) very likely not to be maintained by future owners, due to ignorance (like the people before us who painted white gloss on our old wooden windows).

I think wooden windows are a bit of an indulgence, really. Neighbours' wooden windows need bits of work every year (also only about 14 years old). But at least they are being looked after properly.

One warning: Wood grain effect upvC is likely to distort (expand or shrink). White upvC is more stable.

I have come back to this very VERY late (sodding AOL had some kind of mid-life crisis all day) but who on earth believes that old houses will get mildew from plastic windows due to lack of ventilation?????

All our Victorian rooms are wildly over-ventilated via floorboards, chimneys, airbricks and other random holes in walls; all uPVC does is slightly reduce the amount of excess ventilation!!!

Oh yes and, and, AND, our 25-yr-old uPVC windows are still condensation-free while our less-than-that-old (I forget) wooden windows have had to have the glazing units replaced.

WW
we have one upvc window at back and it is gunky with mildew, on the seals, can't get rid of it.

Our 150yr old sashes everywhere else are going strong.

Many people don't know that there is NO NEED TO GET AN ENTIRE WINDOW REPLACED if a part of it is rotten. A window specialist will just replace the problem rail/stile on-site, for a fraction of the cost of a new sash.

They don't know this because UPVC companies propagandize to the contrary - in every local paper - targeting the old, infirm, and anxious first-generation property-owners. They've put those craftsmen out of business.

UPVC is a huge con - like selling boiler-insurance to the elderly - and one of the curses of the Thatcher years of right-to-buy.

BTW, they are even easier to get into than wood windows - you just lift the seal with a penknife, and lift out the pane. Saw a burglar doing it on some scary doc.

I really think that plastic's longevity is questionable. A friend is a museum conservator and says that they don't even bother looking at these plastics, bcs they decay so quickly - she reckoned 8-10 yrs before the process begins.

In any case, dd's plastic princess castle will last forever, but I wouldn't want it strapped to the outside of my house..

This is a Great Divide: like Breast/Bottle, Fruitshoots/Organic goats milk, naughty step/Alfieism, recycler/4x4 driver...

We're just never gonna agree about upvc/wood

but wood still wins

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Our uPVC window seals are on the inside - completely secure. And no mildew.

LOL Actually one estate agent I spoke to said being sniffy about uPVC windows was predoninantly a young person's thing. I wanted to shout - but I am young.

When I lived in london (bought in my early 20s) I lived in a Listed Georgian building and had gorgeous floor to ceiling sash windows in the sitting room and dining room. I loved the run in the old glass. uPVC would have been hideous in that lovely terrace and in any case wouldn't be allowed. Once pregnant with first child moved to remote Highland farmhouse with timber windows (all replaced - hand made timber). Ten years later (with spells spent abroad inbetween) moved to lovely 3 storey Edwardian house which we gutted. We ripped out UPVC and wrong timber windows and replaced them with hand made new sashes to match the remainder of the houses in the street. A few years later moved to Georgian Listed house with some arched Venetian sash windows and some mullion casement windows, a few Victorian windows in the Victorian extension (sash). All windows were either restored (they were all painted in) or replaced saving the old glass where possible. I spent more time with the conservation officer than I did with my own family. All the windows were either replaced or restored, ditto stone fireplaces, and cobbled floors. I also restored a walled kitchen garden etc. I now live in a lovely street in London's wealthy commuter belt. The house is very boring but it is a lovely big family house with lots of space and a lovely garden. I prefer the look, feel and idea of wood windows - I am just so over being a slave to property. We have 26 windows in our house. You can be sniffy when you've got six to get repainted.

I think there are good and bad uPVC windows - some are poorly made and don't have trickle ventilators.

Ours don't have trickle ventilators (but our house does )

Wendy weber - quite. I've lived in enough old houses to know that ventilation is not really a problem. My hall curtains in my last house used to billow.

Ah, Swedes. You are right, we do have six.

getting rid of old upvc is very bad for the environment. This sadly wasn't a consideration when the world went upvc mad in the 1980s.

wood is enviromentally friendly if sourced from FSC forests.

unfortunately for most people the cost to them is the deciding factor.

swedes, trickle vents are nothing to do with the cost/quality of the windows. You can get cheap windows with and expensive ones without as they are only required by building regs on new build properties in England and Wales (or this was the case when we had some windows replaced in our old house). So if your existing windows don't have trickle vents, when you replace them you don't need to fit them. It's different in Scotland...all replacement windows need to have trickle vents.

I'm having exactly the same dilemma over my french windows. I really want wood. We're not sure we can afford it.

I really want wood.

I really want wood.

I have to find a way to get UPVC that doesn't look so EFFING clunky. As well as all the environmental concerns of course...

Danae, are you a burglar then?

You know so much...

I have 25 windows not counting the garage and all of them wood. They look luverly. Swedes, you can do it.

A french window is not a french window in UPVC. I don't know what it is mind you. But anyhow, for sure there are no lean bronzed frenchmen replaying the opening scene from Betty Blue in a house with UPVC ...

I have millions of windows too... I am not rich. But you'd still have to drag me kicking and screaming to the dark side.

Have I mentioned before I have a blog with just this topic...

Quattro - lan, bronzed French blokes with short bloke syndrome and their sad slip-on shoes?

and their enormous gallic pene?

I have 22 windows I think. We are gradually replacing/renewing them as we have funds and when we have a room replastered/decorated. Only the sitting room and ds's bedroom left to do now.

pooka - the dedication. How old are you?

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Isn't smashing glass in a big timber Victorian sash even easier?

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