Before The Architect - House Design Windows To-Do Schedule

Window Schedule

BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – DREAM HOME DESIGNING BACKGROUND – UNIQUE HOME DESIGNING ARTICLES

HOUSE DESIGN TO-DO WINDOWS SCHEDULE

[Dream home design and dream home building] standards have diminished; that is, both standards expected and standards delivered. Buyers focus on five-peak façades and not what’s holding them up, the drapes and not the wall on which they’ll hang. Home designers and home builders echo that superficiality. Minimum safety standards, a/k/a building codes, are goals to achieve, not grades to surpass. As for added safety, durability, convenience — forget about it.

Before The Architect

hOUSE DESIGN TO-DO WINDOWS SCHEDULE

Functionality, egress, lines of sight, daylight penetration, etc. - take care . . .

INTRODUCTION

In a designer's home plans

A to-do windows schedule comes late in the design and drafting enterprise.

Dust-ups of all sorts should be settled before the house design to-do windows schedule shows up on the flat-screen monitor, including but not limited to . . . .

	Apparent structure
	Balance
	Cross-ventilation
	Daylight
	Décor
	Emergency egress
	Fit
	Focality
	Function
	Glare
	Header height
	Heat build
	Lines of sight
	Maintenance
	Mechanical exhaust venting
	Overhang
	Over-window feature
	Privacy
	Proportion
	Regulating lines
	Safety
	Security
	Sill clearance to surface below
	Sill height
	Style in-keeping
	Symmetry
	Trim
	Type
	UV intrusion
	Weather
	Whimsy
	And so forth

WHAT ABOUT THE TO-DO WINDOWS SCHEDULE?

Expect a lot of answers from a windows schedule:

How many windows?

	By level or
	By type
	Etc.

What types of windows?

	Casement
	Fixed, or picture
	Double-hung
	Cottage style
	Awning
	Glider
	Bay
	Hopper
	Skylight
	Sidelight
	Transom
	Roof dormer
	Wall dormer
	Clerestory
	Etc.

What dimensions are the windows?

Always in inches

	Width first
	Height second

Referencing rough or masonry opening

What spaces get which windows?

	Usually also identified at least in the floor plans
	Sometime identified in elevations

Mullion or mull?

Comment: In this fine home designer’s opinion, a mulled window should be avoided in virtually all designing - diminishes, depreciates most styles and a frame can distort for insufficient window structure when mulled

Tempered or otherwise glaze-amended?

Always tempered in

	Child’s play,
	Child’s study, and
	Child’s bedroom
	Emergency egress
	Bathroom
	Recreation
	Subject to physical damage, e.g., out-swinging casement to veranda or similar

Consider amendments in high-heat and UV build

Consider amendments in glare lines of sight, especially in travel-sensitive areas, e.g., stairways, active traffic pattern interchanges, etc.

Manufacturer?

Pick a manufacture if at all possible and

Stick with ‘em throughout a draw

	By client’s stated preference
	Or, failing that, then by designer preference

Comment: Remember to site by window centerlines to avoid misplacing for differences in window widths between manufacturers

Comment: Before The Architect usually applies Marvin Integrity windows –

Pros – In the experience of this dream home designer, historically excellent reputation with clients in before- and after-market, excellent manufacturing reputation, benchmark durability and convenience of pultrusion manufacturing process; however, please see Cons’ entry below. At least they’re not Andersen.

Cons - Selectively limited product line; no true custom option; seemingly less and less attention to market in this dream home designer’s opinion.

Note: 1. While woefully lacking in transom alternatives in the Marvin Integrity line, there appears to be a workaround via Parrett Manufacturing Company, Inc., 810 Second Avenue East, P. O. Box 440, Dorchester, WI 54425-0440, PH=715-654-6444, FX=715-654-6555, http://www.parrettwindows.com; 2. At least one Marvin dealer – in Nashville, TN – offers custom options for muntins – especially notable in re Victorian and Craftsman Styles.

Comment: Note well that as far as Before The Architect knows, no two window manufacturers make windows in exactly the same sizes. Therefore, what could end up as windows in the final construct might well be different from those designed?

What to do?

	Identify each window applied by manufacturer (usually an omnibus statement, e.g., Window callouts are Marvin Integrity, Warroad, MN;
	Dimension individual windows or a mulled group [yuk] on their centerlines in order to support (slightly) different widths within a design gone to construction;
	Do the best you can in substantially (and consistently) offsetting windows from joints to crossing walls….This dream home designer prefers 8 linear inches minimum rough-to-rough, unless style and client point to substantially narrower or wider casings or crossing wall treatment as in deeply-moulded wainscot.

Model?

	Again, pick one-three for common applications and stick to 'em
	See above in re Manufacturer

Where on a wall shall the windows be set?

Depends

	Lines of sight between entrance and outside for depth and drama, e.g., on a diagonal, to far corners, etc.
	Lines of light between entrance and outside
	Secondarily, daylight to other spaces, e.g., straight or nearly straight across so as to secondarily daylight a hallway
	Lines of light and sight relative to specific, in-space function(s), e.g., where the bed or other furniture is to be sited, a window seat, etc.
	Style
	Overhang
	Proportion
	Exterior regulating lines
	Interiors' symmetry
	Exterior symmetry
	Physical safety, including but not limited to
	Child’s play area and similar
	Glare
	Security
	Privacy

Comment: Window height is best defined as the vertical distance between finish floor top of face and rough sill top of face, thereby compensating even for significant build in a floor as may arise in thick-bed finish clad masonry.

Window placement on the horizontal

On centerline

Particularly in Period Styles, though not necessarily to the exclusion of “community" styles and the like, the days of single-height headers seem gratefully fewer as time passes

If casements, which way shall they open?

The sideways “v" points to the hinge, or trailing stile

Generally, open to

	Interior corners
	Less noisy or sensorially objectionable direction

Give it up to distinguishing between left-hand and right-hand – almost as subjective as door hands.

Make sure the client understands these symbols and agrees.

Draw the sideways “v" and leave a record for the window supplier.

Colors?

Special considerations?

	Traveling clearance to balcony rail
	Remediation of encroachment on another space, as in an casement opened to a deck
	High wind-resistant
	Tempered in future play area, future child’s room, etc.
	Etc.

Muntins?

	Style
	Type
	True
	Simulated true
	Internal grid
	Exterior grid
	Interior grid

FINE HOME DESIGNER PERSPECTIVE

Windows are a big deal

In house design

	Emergency egress
	Lines of sight
	Daylight (a/k/a natural illumination)
	Styling

In owner investment

Can be the single most expensive individual element in closing in a House construction to weather

Comment: Oddly and unfortunately, window investment can be a most likely target for getting cheap [read euphemistically: economizing]

For an occupant

	Safety
	Convenience
	Durability
	Enjoyment of both indoor natural (read: changing in illumination, direction) home light and views of the exterior

Scheduling windows in a home designer's home plans

Takes time and careful thought to address all the points that the other Guys' might not be up to doing and should be and won’t be

Should be engaged late in a draw

	Window schedule elements can be still changing this way and that well into a project
	Keeping track and revising window schedules can be costly both in time and temper

Comment:

In working with stock plans, windows and windows schedules can be troublesome:

	Scheduled windows not in an elevation
	Windows not scheduled and in an elevation and vice versa
	Windows in an elevation and not in floor plans and vice versa
	Scheduled windows out-sized in an elevation
	Scheduled windows identified as to type – say, double-hung – and identified as casement in an elevation or floor plan
	Window identified as to a specific manufacturer which manufacturer either ceased production of that model years ago or never made ‘em at all [no foolin']
	Hopper window confused with an awning window
	Casement travel reversed
	Casement swings identified backwards

All true stories.

A windows schedule should be coordinated with and act as a cross-check to –

	Elevations
	Floor plans
	Illumination, or Daylight, Schedule
	Emergency Egress Schedule

ACTUAL HOUSE DESIGN TO-DO WINDOWS SCHEDULE

Take a look-see for yourself at a recently completed house plans Windows Schedule for a single level.

This pic is chopped from a plans set that was heavily cross-referenced.

	Witness the left-hand column “Code" tying those codes to each window so identified in the floor plans and elevations
	Witness “Space" referencing individual areas of the house as identified separately
	Also, note the inclusion of skylights in the last three line entries – There in order to daylight sleeping areas to code or above code which In this and other story-and-a-half structures can become a significant challenge, especially with sizeable sleeping areas on L2, shallow-sloped roofs, and short runs

House Design To Do Windows Schedule

KEY: ABV=Above; APX=Approximately; C/O=Callout; DBL=Double; E.=East; FIN=Finish; FL=Floor level; INT=Interior; N.=North; NLT=Not Less Than; RF=Roof; RFL=Rough Floor Level; S.=South; SG=Safety Glass; SHTG=Sheathing; SIP=Sill plate; TOF=Top of face; W=Width; W.=West; WDW=Window; WL=Wall

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