Owning your own home

(although we are going through a house purchase atm and will be knocking the wall through between living and dining room)

We knocked through kitchen to dining room, because we're putting a wall up between dining and living room, just like how the house was when originally built

I don’t think there is anything wrong with connecting rooms! How you zone the space and how it relates to the rest of the house. 6 bed house with 1 massive room seems odd.

I thought the kitchen also seemed a little under

I really hope that the terribly uninsulated looking roof has, in fact, been insulated...

My guess is that there is a layer of insulation between the internal (which was original and retained for "character") and the external roof, which is new.

Just had a planning application for double glazed windows rejected.

Anyone have experience of this?

Grade 2* listed property in Brighton with sash windows, albeit with non-original rotting sashes and sills.

I got a company which does "heritage sash window restorations" over to quote for new heritage slimline units and had an architect make drawings and submit the application. The property survey said double glazed windows are the primary cause of poor energy efficiency (they are full of gaps and the panes are ice cold in the winter).

The planning office guidance only has 1 paragraph on the subject and says

"Slim double glazed units fitted within existing frames are only likely to be acceptable where there would be no loss of historic detail or fabric and where uniformity of elevations would be maintained."

The response of the planning office was just to refer to this guidance and say that they resist double glazing in listed properties, no further detail.

Historic England on the other hand just published new guidance which says slimline double glazed units should generally be acceptable (link)

£400 for the application and £400 for the architect (who was open about the lottery in result tbf).

Meanwhile one neighbour has blocked in a window without permission and another has turned a window into a door to use my roof as a terrace also without permission.

I jump through all the hoops to fulfil the requirements as best I can and I lose £800, 3 months of waiting and I can't insulate my freezing cold flat with huge 3m high windows. And they don't tell me why!

another has turned a window into a door to use my roof as a terrace also without permission.

You’ll send them the bill when it leaks right?

Re. Council - Wankers. It’s like the climate crisis folk and the old boys in planning don’t talk to each other

option a - just go ahead and get the work done, they will do fa about it.

option b - appeal and win, slightly more costly option.

so frustrating that local authority planning officials still do this - massively counter productive and just gives them a bad name.

Yeah, I’ve got a fair amount of experience in this although admittedly focused in London and surrounding areas. All local authorities are slightly different in their approach to general alterations of listed buildings, but I have found most to be pretty consistent in their approach to alterations to windows. Whilst that recent Historic England guide seems progressive in it’s outlook for listed buildings, it is full of double speak or impossibilities that don’t move the dial forwards in any real way, and aligns with the planning officer paragraph being:

“Slim double glazed units fitted within existing frames (lol, not possible in the vast majority of cases) are only likely to be acceptable where there would be no loss of historic detail (general detailing including mm width of window bars, see above point) or fabric (window frames, potentially glass) and where uniformity of elevations would be maintained (width of window bars, especially if part of a run of similar buildings)”.

Real Historic England guidance is to repair what you have only replacing where absolutely necessary, and replacing seals/brushes to better seal your windows. Most local authorities are open to replacing glass, and something like Histoglass Mono RT+ (not cheap) sits between regular single glazing and double glazing u-value wise. Secondary glazing inboard of this helps you get to double glazing thermal performance levels, and some staff bead mounted systems aren’t that ugly if you squint really tightly.

If you can provide definite evidence that your windows are non-original, and your home isn’t neighboured by similar buildings of equal heritage merit with similar windows then you probably could get something better than the above through but tbh you are going to need to go money gun on it with a decent architect and planning/heritage consultant to argue it through.

In short, what @Howard said.

So disappointing but not surprising.
Send the planners a copy of this - https://www.architectscan.org/conservation-area-toolkit-retrofit-homes

Do you have a Green party local councillor? MP? Put pressure on them about how this totally contradicts national and local targets for net zero, and locally I think your council declared a Climate and Biodiversity Emergency long ago. It's a longer game than appealing your individual application, but until there is change to the local guidance this kind of decision is repeated everywhere. There's probably a local campaign group on this too.

In the meantime - secondary glazing which is reversible (as in doesn't damage the existing fabric) may be more acceptable and is very effective (for you to be more comfortable and leak less heat in winter).

Converting a roof into a roof terrace is sketchy AF.

Also...
with doing things to your house that require planning - you can (theoretically) do what the fuck you like.

Until someone complains.
Then you (sometimes) have to undo it all.

Sometimes the complainant can be an eagle-eyed planning officer, but more often than not a grumpy neighbour who wasn't allowed to do what you did do, or simply a jealous curtain-twitcher.

Listed buildings are a bit higher risk in that doing what you like can result in criminal conviction. Unlikely for some sensitive double-glazing action though.

Up on the roof, too high to fill in the cornice crack from a ladder? Render definitely blown. Coping stones to be covered.

Thinking - asap - cover coping stones in grade 5 or 6 lead

Try re render top section above cornice on the wall (about 1m down from the top of the roof) whilst also incorporating a led flashing over the cornice

Leave the main bit of wall and render to next year

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Looks fine. If any of it is rotten, they able to cut sections out/replace with hardwood?
I paid a a bit more than that a few years ago for 5 sash windows to be removed and fully restored / painted in dulux weathershield also in Bristol

that's shit. Think that's a very common issue in Bath too with so many of the houses being listed. Will need solving eventually

Until someone complains.

Or you want to sell it, which is especially tricky if you suddenly need to do that urgently because of an unforeseeable circumstance.

When my wife sold her maisonette, we didn't have any of the paperwork for tiny extension that was built way before she built it (not sure how/why it wasn't an issue when she bought it), but the buyer just wanted indemnity insurance that cost us about £14.

If any of it is rotten, they able to cut sections out/replace with hardwood?

Yeah this is based on an initial scratch and sniff test of the windows showing any rot seemingly minimal, so just a bit of 2 part filler needed.

Caveat was given about possibly discovering worse rot on further investigation, but don't think that's happening - I said yes and the guy is most of the way through prepping the windows

There's also vacuum glazing units (Fineo, Spacia etc) which are ~8mm total thickness with similar U values to triple glazing.

V spenny tho.

Fineo is an odd one. Great from a technical perspective but maintains a minimal spacing between glazed panels through small black plastic spacers at 1” centres so in reality looks like spotted/gridded paper. Great for industrial buildings, less so for more twisted traditional building stock. From memory, it also has a super wide seal around the glazing perimeter pretty much making it unsuitable for typical timber window frames.

I had a quote from LandVac which was £300 per sqm for their vacuum filled glass, the full quote was ~£8k for delivery of 56 panes to do the sash windows for the entire house (fitting not included).

Still thinking about it, but it's appealing.

tiny extension that was built way before she built it

@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.

@Howard @ChasnotRobert @Ben689908 @bobble

Thanks, I appreciate the replies.

@EstelleGetty In my case I think the biggest hurdle is that they are multi-panel sashes. The slimline "heritage" double glazing design I've asked for is a single 12mm think panel made to look like individual sashes. Otherwise the design is matched in the dimension of windows bars and design of mouldings.

We tried to demonstrate that one sash was non-original as it was 15mm too thin to fit in the frame properly (hence the breeze throughout winter), but it would take more effort to prove it I guess.

It's also a listed building on a crescent of Grade 2* listed buildings which along with the above makes it the full monty of listedness status.

@hoefla Yes my local MP is Sian Berry, who I'll definitely raise it with, but it's more for personal satisfaction than anything else! I don't think I could fit secondary glazing as the windows are not recessed, but googling suggest otherwise to me now. At least if I sell the buyer has that option.

@ectoplasmosis Slimmer vacuum glazing options are new to me, that's interesting. That sounds like more chance of success of approval but still a losing battle given the above factors?

I think the best option is to fit single glazing and sell the place, everything I try turns to shit in this place!

Unfortunately, I idiotically put down a £2.5k deposit for the work with a company, as they said permission would be a formality. It was so hard to find someone available I jumped on it. Finger's crossed they aren't dickheads about it.

Thanks all.