These large, modern sash windows, despite being less than 20 years old, were showing signs of damage and rot. The sashes wouldn’t close correctly, there were some areas of rot around the bottom of the weight boxes and the sashes themselves were damaged.
Believe it or not, all of these issues had the same root cause: a poorly fitted sash cord. Being the wrong length when the window was fitted, the sash had never closed correctly. This in turn had allowed weather into the area around the box and a frustrated previous owner had tried to force the window shut, causing the damage to the sash itself. Perhaps we should have been detectives rather than Conservation Carpenters!?
We started by addressing the problem with the sash cord, replacing it with a cord the correct length.
With that done, we turned our attention to the weather damage on the weight box. After carefully removing the rotten area, we jointed in a new plank in Accoya, matching the moulding to the original.
The damage around the sill was relatively light, so we chose to remove the rotten timber and apply a specialist resin to the sill.
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