BEFORE THE ARCHITECT – BACKGROUND – HOME DESIGNING ARTICLES
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One of a kind HoME Plan Window Schedules – the Good, Bad, and Ugly.
By
Before The Architect
Copyright 2005 Before The Architect
http://www.beforethearchitect.com
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DATE: February 21, 2005
TITLE: House Plan Window Schedules – the Good, Bad, and Ugly.
TEXT: A home plan is not complete without a window schedule, a table of information about the greater and lesser house plan details of window selection and installation. Before The Architect, nationwide home designers, sees the good, bad, and ugly in window schedules, and shows you how to get it right the first time.
The good of a window schedule comes in need for specifics about windows to be installed in a new home or a home remodel. Windows are always amazingly important and often amazingly expensive elements in a home design. Windows are an integral part of a home plan. They are identified throughout a home plan in sleeping area emergency egress, home design style consistency, adequacy of natural home light illumination to interior spaces, visual elevations, floor plans, wall framing plans, electrical plans, and, possibly, even roof plans. Get sloppy with a window schedule and you’re sure to regret it as an owner.
The bad of a window schedule comes in not being specific about your windows. There are many ways to identify a window to owners, framers, manufacturers and suppliers, finishers, home light professionals, and others: maker, model, type, materials, number of units, color, mulled units, rough or masonry opening, height over floor level, home level for installation, width, height, location, features, e.g., muntins, and special features, e.g., tints. Leave out some of these identifiers and who knows what you will get installed.
For example, it used to be that plan set elevations specified header heights, generally intended to make sure that window tops and door tops were more or less on the same horizontal plane. But window designs aren’t necessarily so simple anymore. home design, particularly in Craftsman Style or any of the Country Styles, can involve window sizes and sites varying widely even on the same façade. Before The Architect specifies individual window sill plate height at top of face over rough floor as the window height metric; there’s no mistaking where the window frame will sit and there’s no guessing about the finish floor build up.
The ugly of a window schedule comes either with its not being done at all or its being done poorly. Before The Architect reviews and repairs home plans, and bears witness to botched window schedules done by others. Recently, a stock plan set done by others and sent to Before The Architect for review specified a well-known window maker that no longer made those window models….not for years. At this moment, Before The Architect is working with a stock plan set done by others the window schedule of which refers to windows apparently none of which was ever made by the clearly referenced manufacturer. Then there are home plan sets identifying windows that could not possibly fit in the spaces home-designed for them, indications of double-hung for single-hung or some other type or no type, unsafe siting too near exhaust vents or casements opening into walkways, kitchen windows set behind and below countertops, and much, much more.
A window schedule can be difficult to develop with its wealth of worthwhile, useful facts and figures. A home plan’s window schedule well done delivers a wonderful payoff – client satisfaction in getting a vital home design element done right without all the kinds of problems that show up down the road of bad home design poorly done.
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BYLINE: Before The
Architect’s principals Ralph & Jean Pressel design, draw, review, and repair
home plans nationwide, based on their combined 70+ years of design and
home building experiences. Their content-rich website is
http://www.beforethearchitect.com.
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