Fiberglass Windows
I will try to convince the Landmark Preservation Commission that a double hang fiberglass window painted black on the outside on the third and four floor of a brownstone it’s totally impossible to recognize from the street. It looks like painted wood and looks better than the aluminum clad that covers the wood windows. Anybody…
I will try to convince the Landmark Preservation Commission that a double hang fiberglass window painted black on the outside on the third and four floor of a brownstone it’s totally impossible to recognize from the street. It looks like painted wood and looks better than the aluminum clad that covers the wood windows.
Anybody has had any luck trying to convince LPC that in 2010 with the rising costs of energy, installing a fiberglass window is also OK if it looks like wood on the outside? We are not any longer in the late XIXth century, when these houses were build. Did I mention that will look like a regular double hung window. I don’t even want to try to convince them that casement windows are way more efficient.
I asked just for the top floors since I was thinking to get the wood on the parlor floor, since the windows are oversized and have to be custom made anyway and since the windows are closer to the street and maybe an expert could notice the difference between fiberglass painted black and wood painted black.
Please, any advise in this matter will be appreciated. If you are a big fan of wood windows, I am sure you have plenty of reasons, but I am not looking for a debate about quality, I am trying to get some idea in how to deal with the LPC.
Do they allow wood windows to be aluminum clad on the outside? When my (then) coop replaced our windows in 2001 we were only allowed to put in wood, not aluminum clad. Oddly enough we were allowed to put in sash kits (Marvin) which have a white plastic strip running down the side. To me all aluminum or fiberglass in historically correct colors would have looked better than that.
You might look at other repairs in which they allow material substitutions – such as fiberglass cornices (?) or concrete repairs to brownstones. Read the guidelines very carefully. That said this is probably a losing battle. LPC has created guidelines so that they can quickly and uniformly reply to most alteration requests in landmark districts.
Oh, and I get rid of the unnecessary commentary of why casement windows are more efficient. its a big turn-off and reveals a misunderstanding of why we have landmark districts – which is to preserve the historic fabric (materials) and look (design) of certain neighborhoods. If you want to convince a staffer of something you have to frame it in terms of achieving those goals, not in terms of how you can understand why they won’t let you modernize.
With this post and a pair of knee pads you might have a chance.