"Peter Taylor" wrote in message
...

"John Rumm" wrote in message
...
Pete Cross wrote:

This talk of support has got me wondering about our house, it's a red
brick
1930's semi with double bay windows on the front, if we took the lower
bay
window out to replace it, how would the curved section of brick above it
(
between the two floors ) be supported ?

By Acrows... assuming you want to keep the upstairs bay upstairs.

Yes, that's OK while the work is being done, but it's not a permanent
solution. I have been called in on many occasions to investigate why bay
window structures have shifted or partially collapsed after replacing
windows, and it's virtually always because the window fitters didn't do the
job properly.

Sometimes the bay structure is supported on the first floor joists, which
cantilever out over a beam in line with the main house wall - this is ideal.
You can sometimes check this by finding the direction of the first floor
joists, although you can't confirm it unless you lift the floorboards in the
bay. It's more common to find the bay structure is supported by the timber
posts in the ground floor windows, and then it's necessary to work out how
to support it permanently BEFORE the windows are removed. Window fitters
are usually not equipped, mentally or materially, to do this.

No modern window is designed to take any structural load. PVC window
manufacturers have worked out how to do it using aluminium structural posts
with jacking plates, which fit into the junctions between the frames and
concealed by PVC sheet, but the actual fitters are paid per window and
hardly ever bother to do this properly. There are very many claims and
court cases over this.

If you have any further info on the likely success of court cases I would be
very interested. My mother is trying to sell a bungalow where the wood/metal
frames were replace with plastic ones almost 10 years ago. The windows are
large, the potential purchasers surveyor has pointed out that there are cracks
above the windows which have likely occured because the plastic frames are not
as strong as the previous ones. The window installer is still trading.


--

Michael Chare