Owning your own home

The police actually recommend painting them shut! Not very good for my business restoring them.

What's the best middle ground? Sash bolts that you unscrew are a fiddle when you want to open the window and you have to remember to put the things back in. Something like https://www.reddiseals.com/product/sash-window-restrictor/ looks reasonably secure although maybe harder to install?

The window restrictors are more useful for childrens bedrooms where you want to vary window opening but also stop small children from opening the window. In lower security situations they can be enough.

There's really no middle ground. Sash bolts are 101. Centre bolts (brighton fasteners etc.) as well, more for show than anything else since they're easy to defeat. Even then there are security issues with sashes, especially at ground level in London.

Sash windows are a security nightmare full stop. Even ones in good condition, which a lot aren't, have major vulnerabilities but if a robbing bastard is determined to get into your place they will do no matter how much you spend on security.

Realistically the best you can hope for is to make your home less of an obvious target for an opportunist, so visible security measures work well.

first thing on the list when we move is aluminium triple glazing/low-e glass and a stainless/composite front door.
Sash windows belong in the last century.

Sash windows belong in the last century

Tell that to the local council of a conservation area

I've worked on some that belong in the century before that!

Don't forget the plantation shutters, I know I didn't.

Ha this.
We live in one, none of the buildings are fancy, its just that there is a lot of them and nothing >1950 in sight. So not allowed now to change to anything but sliding sash, you are allowed double glazed but must be in wood frames! Since approx 2016
Would kind of get it if 80% of the street isn't already a total mix of white/green/brown, UPVC double casement, tilt and turn, wooden single glaze casement, some original ones and some original ones that have been taken apart and double glazing unit let into them, then totally rebuilt at massive cost (a £1k per window probably). So nothing in the street matchs and hasn't for likely 40+ years, so why now are they putting restrictions on staying warm and using less energy to heat? Mental.

Pointless conservation areas are one of the many things I don't miss about working in London.

@Mr_Smyth do keep me posted on prices and installers, it is on my list (but will have save £££ first)

we have the restrictors plus a lock with small key in the middle horizontal section. Something like the ones in the link but less chunky. Seem to work well so far as a deterrent. Happy to send you the number of our installers if you are SE https://www.locksonline.co.uk/Sash-Window-Locks/Federal-Sash-Window-Security-Lock.html

P.S: apologies should have condensed both replies on a single post

I'm not going to be changing much in a hurry. My parents have sash windows. I have nasty uPVC.

Partners place is (built 1853) in a conservation area.

Part of the reason for moving is the cost of heating/insulation in the future.
a heat pump will do bugger all in a place like that. Not that you would be allowed to fit one anyway.

Just started reading about having to move from D to C in 2024. Not really sure how that is going to be achieved in the london housing stock, specially in tiny old houses with very little space or savings for heat pumps, solar panels… will pebbledash 2.0 save the day?!

Fuck.... presumably the waste pipe from neighbour's kitchen.... The wall on left is external to rear, one to right is my internal dividing wall for my kitchen.

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Yep. I researched f&p when looking for induction hobs last year. Love the company and most of their products I just don't see the benefit of drawers for a dishwasher.

Ive had occasion in the past to wash large items by removing the upper basket. Cant do that with the double drawer system.

I just don't see the benefit of drawers for a dishwasher.

When they're installed low down there are fewer. But with a normal dishwasher you have to fold a door down to the ground and pull out an internal drawer. Then for the heaviest items you have to bend down to put them in the bottom. If you want to put on a half load you have put the whole thing on.

If you think about it, that's a very clunky design that would have originally come about due to the limitations of the time when dishwashers were first popularised. It's only continued out of convention.

Pulling a drawer at waist height and putting something in without bending is much easier. Just try it on a normal drawer, then put something in your dishwasher.

I just don't see the benefit of drawers for a dishwasher

The big benefit is being able to run half of the dishwasher rather than the full thing. Each drawer is independent. Lots of these will be installed in flats where you probably won't have families filling the dishwasher every day.

Surly people don't run the dishwasher every day if it isn't full though? When there were just two of us and we had a dishwasher we sometimes only ran it once a week IIRC.

Surly people don't run the dishwasher every day if it isn't full though?

Depends what is in it in my experience. If it's got an item in it of which you only have one then it's gonna get run, maybe on a lower temperature cycle.

Leaving it for a week tends to fix on whatever food was stuck to the stuff in it requiring a hotter cycle to get it off.

Genuinely did not know drawer dishwashers were a thing though.

if it's got an item in it of which you only have one then it's gonna get run

user howard, just fish this item out of the dw and clean it manually u monster

My mother has a upper & lower drawer dishwasher - for a small household, they are insanely practical.

Also not particularly energy efficient, as it's multiple small loads.

Boomers gonna Boomer.

Most people I know end up either setting it off half-full or not using it at all. Running once a week just sounds like there'll be loads of crusted on food.