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G'day all,
OK, a bit of a head-scratcher:
I'm restoring an old cottage that has fairly unusual windows. There are very few at normal sash height -- most of the windows are actually tucked up at the top of the walls against the ceiling, in every room. The base of each window is roughly 3 metres above the floor, and set back from the wall in a horizontal well maybe 20 centimetres deep.
Each of the windows is mounted on pivot rods, one on each side of the window, that extend out horizontally halfway up the frame. So they don't lift vertically, they tilt inwards, down to about 130 degrees from the vertical.
I'm putting in insect screens, but the only way I can see to fix them is to place them at the inside edge of each window well, flush with the wall surface, so that the window is actually outside the screen. If I can't open the windows, I'll get very little airflow through the house. And without the screens, I'll just be eaten alive by mossies.
Now, my question:
As it stands, the only way to open and shut a window is to position a ladder and climb up. Once the house is complete and occupied, that procedure is going to expand to moving some furniture, positioning a ladder, climbing up, removing the insect screen, and opening or shutting the window. Then putting everything back the way it was, and then repeating the process for the next window.
What a pain!
So I need another approach. I was thinking perhaps some sort of counterweighted pulley system -- something in keeping visually with the 1840s era I'm restoring the house to -- might be the best solution, so the windows could be worked from normal human height, without the need for the ladder, but I've come to a standstill trying to devise the mechanism. It needs to both open and close the window, and fix it in place at whatever angle's been chosen. And it needs to work with the insect screen still in place.
(Long post, sorry -- just trying to explain clearly what it is I'm trying to do.)
So, has anyone got any suggestions please for how this might be achieved?
I'm happy to tinker bits together -- I just haven't managed to visualise a functional design yet!
Many thanks for any suggestions.
OK, a bit of a head-scratcher:
I'm restoring an old cottage that has fairly unusual windows. There are very few at normal sash height -- most of the windows are actually tucked up at the top of the walls against the ceiling, in every room. The base of each window is roughly 3 metres above the floor, and set back from the wall in a horizontal well maybe 20 centimetres deep.
Each of the windows is mounted on pivot rods, one on each side of the window, that extend out horizontally halfway up the frame. So they don't lift vertically, they tilt inwards, down to about 130 degrees from the vertical.
I'm putting in insect screens, but the only way I can see to fix them is to place them at the inside edge of each window well, flush with the wall surface, so that the window is actually outside the screen. If I can't open the windows, I'll get very little airflow through the house. And without the screens, I'll just be eaten alive by mossies.
Now, my question:
As it stands, the only way to open and shut a window is to position a ladder and climb up. Once the house is complete and occupied, that procedure is going to expand to moving some furniture, positioning a ladder, climbing up, removing the insect screen, and opening or shutting the window. Then putting everything back the way it was, and then repeating the process for the next window.
What a pain!
So I need another approach. I was thinking perhaps some sort of counterweighted pulley system -- something in keeping visually with the 1840s era I'm restoring the house to -- might be the best solution, so the windows could be worked from normal human height, without the need for the ladder, but I've come to a standstill trying to devise the mechanism. It needs to both open and close the window, and fix it in place at whatever angle's been chosen. And it needs to work with the insect screen still in place.
(Long post, sorry -- just trying to explain clearly what it is I'm trying to do.)
So, has anyone got any suggestions please for how this might be achieved?
I'm happy to tinker bits together -- I just haven't managed to visualise a functional design yet!
Many thanks for any suggestions.
