Hove Media College Sash Window Refurbishment Stuart House
This is phase 2 of a very big project that we are involved with at Hove College, 48 Cromwell Road, Hove. This is where we completed an 8-week project in only 3 weeks. The building was called Stuart House that was built by William Willet in 1870, who built a lot of the fashionable buildings in London and Hove. He made himself famous for being the promoter of DST, “daylight saving time” and got this passed in the Houses of Commons on 12 February 1908. This came about because he couldn’t believe that people from London stayed in bed for so long that they missed half of the day sleeping and he would have less time on the golf course in the evening – and so in 1905 he started to write a Bill to have this changed.
26 Sash Windows Restored To Their Natural Beauty
The refurbishment consisted of the restoration of 26 sash windows. Three of the main top and bottom floor windows had to be stripped and remade completely including the box sash window frames themselves- we will show you what we had to do later in this page. We had all the trades in at the same time and this took quite a lot of planning making sure that we kept to a strict deadline. Everyone worked from the same page because it only takes one thing to set the time back and this could have a knock on effect with the other trades which consisted of;- People preparing the windows
- Carpenters remaking different parts of the windows that are rotten
- Glaziers re-fitting the glass
- Painters priming and filling the box frames and sashes
- Plasterers rendering
- Carpenters installing the windows
- Painter’s final coating
- Cleaners keeping everything tidy at all times.
Refurbishing Sash Windows
We always save your original sash window due to the fact that if your property is Listed or is a Heritage building, the main criteria is to save and restore NOT to replace your windows. We show you how this is done in our photo gallery so please feel free to take a look – but here is a snippet of the page itself…
Sash Window Refurbishment Showing Hand Made Windows, Hove, East Sussex
We started on the top floor and worked down the building; this ensured that other trades could come and finish the rooms and the scaffolding could be dropped on the said time and date. We had a designated area that we could use for restoring the sash windows. The top floor itself took nine days to complete, rebuilding and restoring the two sash windows frames and sashes to how they were built originally and within this time we would send the sash windows upstairs where our carpenter would work a bit of his magic and within hours we would have the windows sent back down to us so they could always be installed that very day. He always made sure as well that if there was any splicing we would have the original mouldings put back into the windows because these window mouldings have changed now and with different thicknesses and widths. This made the job harder every day, because timings would be set back and then it would be a chain reaction with the glazier and then the painters. Timing is very important on every job with which we are involved.
The end result was perfect; the customers were thrilled that we had completed this refurbishment in the designated time – before the new term started. The new glass that had been installed and the fresh paintwork made a massive difference to the elegant building.
South Facing Windows And The Weather Impact On Original Sash Windows.
The property on Cromwell Road Hove is next to the cricket ground so it has no protection from the Sussex coastal weather. The attack of salt water on the property’s windows made a massive impact on the integrity and stability of the windows and had made them rotten to the extent that all the other companies that came to price the sash window refurbishment project insisted on new windows at quite a cost. This gets rid of all the charm of a period building that used to be part of a nunnery. The windows that were rotten were all repaired and restored to their original beauty, thus keeping the integrity of the period building. In total we had to only make one window from new due to the fact a previous company had just left a board there.
A Massive Thanks!
Lastly, we have to say a big thank you to the trades that were involved in this project for being so meticulous and very hard working and for the staff for being very helpful.