Owning your own home

@neu feel your pain. I was in this exact position in the place we've moved out of last year. All non-original sash and case windows in a Grade B (same as 2 but up in Scotland) and we were refused. The only reason I didn't just replace them is that the house was in a very central part of the village and being a village some arse would defo have reported us if they'd seen the planning app refused #villagelyfe.

I solved it by speaking to the planning officers multiple times and convinced them with the help of the window firm that repairing the windows would essentially leave us with less than 50% of the original, so why bother when we could get "identical" double glazed units to replace them. I had to take numerous photos of astragals and details to explain that none of the windows matched and if they actually gave a shit about pure aesthetics (which I believe was all they cared about) then new matching windows would be best.

I had to get creative with drawings and slightly alter some measurements all to appease their tiny brains that we would infact have like for like windows, albeit double glazed sash and case, we're talking mm's here. Eventually, I think I just wore them down. And, on the energy efficiency side of things they pretty much said they couldn't give a fuck. Annoyingly this was a phone call, if it was in an email I would have made a thing about it.

So TL:DR:

• Try and talk to them on the phone, educate them on the actual issue and how you're making the property better by doing this work, but doing it sensitively.
  
• Use drawings from the window firm and explain that sizes will be the same (might need to get creative here)
  
• If there are differences in some windows, use this as evidence that things are not original
  
• Don't worry if things don't match exactly, they will never come and see the work (they never did for us anyway)
  
  

Good luck, I loved our old house but I was slightly worn down by the efforts we had to go through to improve it given it was listed.