Sash Window Restoration, Sale

An Edwardian terrace in Sale, six original sash windows, the previous decoration starting to lift and crack on the south and west elevations after years of layering. The build-up of paint had got to the point where the sashes were sticking and the lower rails on a couple of windows were starting to show the early signs of moisture damage under the trapped layers — exactly the failure that a non-breathable finish on original timber will always eventually produce. The job was scheduled across two weeks and worked room by room so the property stayed weatherproof throughout, with one window opened up at a time rather than removing all the sashes at once. Each window was carefully burnt off down to the bare timber, with the heat managed carefully to avoid scorching the wood or affecting the glazing putty more than necessary. Any soft or damaged timber was repaired with a two-pack wood filler matched to the original profile, and joints where the original putty had failed were raked out and re-puttied. Knots were sealed with shellac-based knotting, the bare timber was primed with a microporous wood primer that lets the wood continue to breathe, and three coats of a microporous satinwood went on in the agreed period off-white. The system allows the timber to release and absorb moisture naturally with the seasons rather than trapping it under a sealed paint film — which is the difference between sashes that last another fifty years and sashes that need stripping and repairing again in five.