Replacing tiled cills

[RogerS]

Three of the windows in our house have this horrible tiled detail.



and it has long been my intention to replace them to match the stone cills elsewhere. I debated long and hard whether to cast some in a mould or make up false ones from wood. Actually putting in a stone cill we felt a bit OTT and pricey. In the end I opted for layering up with wood. Fixed using pocket screws and NoNails.

So not much to say really. Got brownie points from SWMBO for getting stuck in with the large angle grinder and slicing off the tiles. Loads of dust and looked very spectacular but TBH not that hard or difficult but ..sssh...don't tell SWMBO.

At the moment they have a coat of primer on and we'll experiment to see what colour to paint them. I'm tempted to get hold of some sort of cementitious paint to try and match this stone cill



but think in the final analysis they will be too uniform and look false.






The dirty brown wall is where I spent several days removing a large ivy bush.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Robert]

Three of the windows in our house have this horrible tiled detail.

. In the end I opted for layering up with wood. Fixed using pocket screws and NoNails.

Layering up with wood? I'm not understanding that

Have you cast cement in situ or made the cills out of wood?

I'm interested as sometime I have tiled cills to deal with at my daughters place. Hers are plain tiles but with 10+ layers of peeling paint on them. You solution looks a lot neater than just repainting.

 

[RogerS]

Sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry to post.

I basically went with what I had to hand. The bottom one has a single piece 20mm thick that fixes to the existing window frame with pocket screws and No Nails and sticks out about 60mm from the wall. Underneath it is glued a single solid piece approx 60mm square and this completes the part that extends out from the wall as the 'cill'.

The top one was longer and because I hadn't got anything long enough to form the cill part, I glued two more 20mm pieces under the top piece. I assembled and glued both cills by first fixing the top piece to the existing window frame and then simply glue and clamping the other pieces in situ. Then once the glue had started to go off I unscrewed the pocket screws and took the assembly into the workshop to cure for the night in the dry without any dew falling on it.

The edge of the top piece was chamfered to a 6 degree angle to give me a slope. All the other pieces also were cut with the same angle so that the front of the assembly was more or less vertical. I was not too fussed with lining up all the pieces at the front as I knew that once the glue had gone off I could simply run the front face over the planer a few times until it was all flush. I also offered up the assembly and then trimmed a bit off the protruding cill thickness until it looked right.

Once this was all done I relieved all the corner angles so that the paint would stick OK.. Paint hates 90 degree angles. I also painted the inside surfaces prior to finally glueing and screwing into place.

Filled in the pocket screws with car body epoxy and then primed the surfaces.

A bit rough and ready but its functional and works.

Hope that helps a bit.

 

[billybuntus]

Good result. You'd be surprised as to how cheap stone would of been. I paid £150 for two new sills from our local quarry. around 9" by 9" by 8 feet for £150. All saw very neatly and square. You'd of needed a fraction of that.

Woods fine but stone means no maintenance.

 

[RogerS]

The existing cills are, IIRC, bath stone which down our way is not cheap. Probably £500 for the three cills. Plus I'd have had to do a huge amount of work cutting out a slot into which to slide the stone cill. High-impact drills not possible since the wall is made with lime mortar and high impact results in the mortar effectively falling apart with the vibration. Even angle grinding can upset it.

Then I'd have the problem of an effective seal between cill and window frame cill.

Mission impossible, i think. Way, way too much work.

Maintenance of the wooden cill is peanuts. I'll be painting the windows anyway as part of external redecoration. So a few extra brush strokes...job done !!