Cavendish Hardware - The History, Continued.

Steel windows and specialist glazing were our bread and butter, during the early 1980's but as with everything that evolves, more and more work was carried out on Horizontal and Vertical Sliding Sashes, with one example being a whole estate of Horizontal Sashes.

This gave us a huge amount of experience on sliding sash windows which continues to the present, as it allows us to picture the issues that window repair engineers come across.

Some older aluminium VSS windows date back 60 odd years, with an increasing amount being fitted during the 1960's and 1970's, when their popularity gained momentum and were fitted in office blocks, schools and colleges, hospitals and many other buildings, during that period.

Companies that majored in this type window included Heywood Williams, Crittall, Percy Lane - Planet, Hinchcliffe, Archital Luxfer, Alcan, Kawneer and quite a few others that don't spring to mind at the moment
but I'm sure will do, later on in this blog.

The regular things that started to fail on them were the balances, panel guides, catches and keeps, so we were always kept busy repairing vertical sliders.

Could be a simple couple of pairs of wind-up spiral balances or if you were lucky - could be a whole building of pre-tensioned balances or block & tackle cord balances. I can honestly say that after a week or two on a job like this. . . . you were ready to move onto something else!!

There are still a huge amount of Vertical and Horizontal Sliding Sashes in circulation, some of which date back to the beginings of these systems in aluminium and are still being used today.

One of the first products that Cavendish stocked in large quantities were the Block & Tackle cord balances that were used on Avdon and several other manufacturers, who favoured that type of balance and today, we still carry large stocks of them.

So, if you are stuck with a problem on a VSS window - whatever it may be, give us a call on 0116 2742195 and we will do what we can for you.

Cavendish Story Part 4 

Cavendish Hardware - The History.

My experience of  being involved in the repairs and maintenance of Steel and Aluminium windows, helps me picture what the repair engineers are seeing and trying to achieve.

Covering a large area in the East Midlands, meant that we came across all sorts of projects, that allowed us to gain new experience.

For the next few posts, I shall be putting quite a few images of the sort of work that I was involved in.

This is to illustrate that when you are on site, staring at a problem or trying to locate an unusual part, you can get an idea of the sort of things I have seen and worked on, over the years.

At Cavendish, our advise is largely based on actual experience on site and therefore this gives us a much better understanding of what you are trying to achieve.

This is a sort of before and after - Steel frames into stone mullions, at Youlgreave Hall Farm.

I can't remember the date exectly but I think the install was about 25 years ago, in a beautiful part of Derbyshire.

This is what it looks like now.

Another steel window into stone mullions job.

Art Deco frames.

Steel Window full overhaul.

School Steel Window - full overhaul

Steel Doors with Georgian panes.

Uppingham School Constable Building.

As my heritage is in steel window frames, I thought this would be a good start and will show some of the more architecturally pleasant buildings I used to work on.

Back with more, next time.

Cavendish Story Part 3 

Cavendish Hardware, back to the begining!

Where do I start?

Well, in reality, perhaps back to 1950.

1950?
Yes!

A very long time ago!

In 1950, a gentleman called George Large, set up a company called Metal Window Repairs.

Having worked with Crittall windows, he had spotted an opportunity to set something up to repair and maintain Crittall/Steel Windows, which had been fitted in the 1920's and 1930's boom of steel windows.

By 1950 these windows were 30 plus years old and had been painted several times, had a broken hinge, stay or handle and generally needed some TLC!

What has this got to do with Cavendish Hardware?
 
Well, after a change of ownership in the 1970's, some years later, I arrived there "to help out" and ended up staying for 27 years and running the place!

During that time, the company grew bigger, diversified more and found many more new customers and
projects.


I'll be back with more, next time.

Cavendish Story Part 2

Friday April 1st - 2016 and the new website is slowly rolling to  completion. . . . . so in order to keep up with modern times. . . . here's the blog that goes with it! 

This is the first post of hopefully, many more to come, so pop back now and again and to keep yourself up to date.