Replacement windows and doors, Crowborough TN6
Outside the small conservation area at the Cross, almost nothing in Crowborough limits what you can fit. The real questions are which windows will keep out wind-driven rain at up to 242 metres, and what a full set costs on a post-war estate house or a Victorian or Edwardian villa.
Crowborough is the highest town in the High Weald. Crowborough Beacon reaches 242 metres, the second highest point in East Sussex, and the town spreads across that ridge from the golf course and Crowborough Common down to the valley at Jarvis Brook. Locals call the open heath and pines "Scotland in Sussex" for good reason.
On Beacon Road, Warren Road and the streets round the golf course, the south-west face of a house takes the full force of wind and rain coming over the Weald. A window that seemed fine on a sheltered street in Tunbridge Wells can whistle and weep up here. That is why every page on this site talks about weather ratings, drainage and gaskets before it talks about colour.
The town's housing comes in a few clear types, and each one points to a different window. Prices are per window or door, supplied and fitted, including VAT. These are illustrative house types, not particular customers' jobs.
Plain pairs from the 1950s council estate on the southern edge of town, many now on their second set of windows. A chamfered white uPVC casement suits them and is the cheapest sensible full set in town.
From £815 Typically £815 to £1,200 per window
Semi-detached pairs built in the 1970s north-east of the station at Jarvis Brook. Flush uPVC casements sit level with the frame, a cleaner line than the stepped frames many of these houses have now.
From £1,100 Typically £1,100 to £1,950 per window
Railway View on Victoria Road (1895) and Ferndale Terrace on Western Road went up near the station and the brickworks in the late Victorian years. Many keep their sash openings, and a white uPVC sash is the usual replacement.
From £1,505 Typically £1,505 to £2,190 per window
Canted bays on the ground floor, sashes above. The bay is the biggest single cost, and the survey checks whether the bay roof is carried by the old frame.
From £3,380 Typically £3,380 to £5,430 per three-unit bay
The old Beacon Hill and Warren estate had 33 houses in 1932 and 177 by 2008, still mostly detached, most of them post-war houses on divided villa plots. Slimline aluminium suits them: narrow frames and a colour that does not fade.
From £1,200 Typically £1,200 to £1,950 per window
Some of the big villas on the high ground, such as the former Observatory off Church Road, have been divided into flats. Tilt-and-turn windows open inwards, so the outside glass can be cleaned from a second-floor room.
From £1,090 Typically £1,090 to £1,660 per window
Most Crowborough houses can swap their windows without planning permission. The exceptions are small: the Crowborough Conservation Area around the Cross, High Street, The Broadway, Croft Road, London Road and Beacon Road as far as Christ Church; listed buildings; and flats, which have no householder permitted development rights.
The villages are a different matter. Rotherfield, Mayfield, Wadhurst, Five Ashes, Eridge Green and Groombridge all have conservation areas, and the Rotherfield one carries Wealden's only conservation-area Article 4 direction.
Because most of Crowborough was built in a few big bursts after 1945, whole streets of windows reached the end of their life together. Replacing everything at once on a Poundfield or Alderbrook house usually costs less per window than doing it in stages, because the scaffold goes up once. On a small upstairs-only job, scaffold adds roughly £500.
Taking out the old frames and making good inside and out are in every price on this site. Rotten sills, a sagging bay and a cracked brick arch over a Victorian window in Jarvis Brook are the things that are priced only after the survey.
Tell us the street, the house and roughly how many windows. A FENSA-registered installer will arrange to survey and send a written quote.