The windows reflect the personality of the house. Is it an elderly person, still full of life and with a twinkle in his eye? Or a facelifted pensioner with a look of enamel? The life in the windows has to do with the window glass. The sparkling, hand-blown thin ones, with shifts and irregularities, that allow a sunset over an old farm to stay on the retina for the rest of your life.
Imagine that all window panes in Sweden were blown by hand right up to the 1930s! And that towards the end of the era, the skilled glass blowers could make panes of up to a couple of square meters without a difference of more than a millimeter in thickness from one corner to the other! This is the kind of glass we have been tearing out and throwing away for the last 50 years.
But don’t think that our poor treatment of old windows is just history. Vandalism continues. Old windows are still being replaced in the belief that new ones would be better. Theoretically, this is true. But in practice, it turns out that theo-reticular windows do not last more than 20 years! And what have they saved? As usual, overconfidence in theory and a lack of common sense are the biggest obstacles to a good choice. We in Gysinge may not be able to do much about that, but we can dispel all prejudices about old windows and window glass.
Do you know that there are still people who think that cutting hand-blown window glass is more difficult than cutting machine-made glass? Who haven’t understood that it depends on the tool you have in your hand. And do you know that there are builders who still believe that old window glass sinks in the arches so that cracks and draughts form over time?
If you’re just looking for hand-blown window glass, the kind that keeps a certain sunset on your retina for a lifetime – then Gysinge is the obvious choice. Ask about our prices in the second-hand warehouse! And let us know before you come to shop so we can pick out the right size for you. From 2004, there is also newly made hand-blown glass in Gysinge! From the 1700s to the 1900s.
For years, old windows have been downgraded. Replacing them with new ones has been the obvious choice for almost every renovation. A national treasure of fantastic carpentry, hand-blown glass, and high-quality timber – not to mention the aesthetic qualities – has been consigned to the dump. No houses have been spared, not even monuments and churches. Even in our World Heritage sites, which should be the finest of Swedish architectural art, there are hundreds and hundreds of coupled windows with dead machine glass and boring standard glazing.
For those who may have doubted the excellence of the new windows, the manufacturers have been able to prove through laboratory tests how incredibly good their energy values are. That the wood then lasts no more than 15-20 years before the panes fall out of the sashes is another matter. We learned that old windows are useless already during the golden age of energy saving hysteria in the 70s. So there was no need for tests! Who, by the way, would have any financial interest in paying for tests on existing windows? At least it’s done now! Lund University has tested both new and old windows from an energy point of view. Single-glazed windows from the 1880s, windows with coupled panes from the 1930s and triple-glazed windows from 1982 with so-called sealed panes have been compared.
After the renovation of the old windows, it turns out that the almost 120-year-old windows have the lowest heat losses, in fact significantly lower than the triple-glazed windows from the 1980s! Tests are also being carried out elsewhere on windows from a noise protection point of view. Even in terms of noise, the old windows with internal glazing are
clearly superior to the modern ones with their heavy special glass and special technical solutions.
