A Hardware Curiosity
These odd bits are only on some windows. The diamond-paned pantry windows, for example, each has one such bit, at the bottom, right side window casing. So, one bit per window.
What are they for?
15 Comments
Leave a Comment
Your email address will NEVER be made public or shared, and you may use a screen name if you wish.
It looks as if they are a little recessed on the top end, maybe, as if to receive a hook? I’m betting that they are catches to hold back blinds or some other window treatment.
The little recessed bits are outside.
That happens to be the female half for the tongue of a bulldog latch that holds a screen or storm sash in place.
I don’t understand how one latch per window could hold a storm in place. A latch in every corner? That would make sense to me.
Take a look at Fastener F on page 10 and see if it is a match.
Here.
Oh! Cool! Thanks, Bo!
Yes, that seems a match!
But, as I asked Chaz, I don’t understand how one latch per window could hold a storm in place.
I expect there was a different sort of retainer on the opposite side, like a pair of pins or a retaining strip of wood or something. Then you slot in the one side and “swing” in the other before latching.
OK. I kinda get it. But what would hold to top in place? I mean, the odd bit is at the bottom. Shouldn’t there be another one on top?
Fair point.
Guys? are we not overthinking this? The page before the fasteners SAYS that these fasteners are for *hinged* screens. Unlike today’s windows, screens didn’t come off the windows prior to the 1960’s when “storm windows” came to be in fashion. It was the same with screen doors…they were a permanent fixture. The only reason that you even opened them was to wash the windows in season. Plus, they helped stop naughty little boys from breaking windows when playing baseball.
When the Cross House was built, it was common to have two sets of outer sashes for each window:
1) Screen sash.
2) Storm sash.
Each fall, the screen sashes would be removed and replaced with storm windows.
Each spring, the process was reversed.
This seasonal ritual fell out of fashion after aluminum single-unit screen/storm windows were introduced after WWII and became ubiquitous.
Fair point. I had a flash of reason on the next post. I had forgotten about that feature.
A mount for an early version of an Indow?
Are there storms and screens for windows in the Cross House? Will you be able to open some of the windows with screen to let in fresh air but not bugs? I don’t see any screened windows! Also noticed numbers like the brass tack in the archival site Bo sent for storms and screen hardware.
There are no screens on the house. And none stored away.
I was planning to seal all the windows so have been unconcerned about this.
But now?
See my post of today…