Island challenge
30th January 2018

Converted fishermen’s cottages on a series of remote islands off Jersey have been upgraded with REHAU PVC-U windows by local installer Alan Gicquel.

The properties, now used as holiday homes, are around Les Ecrehous, a small archipelago of islets that hold Ramsar status as a protected waterfowl habitat.

Alan said: “The holiday cottages on the islands are in a fantastic location, surrounded by picturesque scenery, great fishing waters and an abundance of wildlife. However, because they are in the middle of the open water, the homes are constantly being battered by corrosive seawater and winds and this makes them difficult to maintain, especially during the winter when they aren’t occupied.
 “The windows in particular suffer from exposure to the elements, and in winter they are actually boarded up to protect them.”

“We started on one of the smaller houses first, just replacing three windows and a door, and this led to a bigger assignment working on the adjacent house to replace 12 windows. A few years later, we were then called back to the islands to do a third property. By this time, Rehau had launched its Total70 profile, which is an easy swap for old timber frames because of the 70mm width.”

 He continued “The glass, sealed units were the biggest challenge as we couldn’t put them down anywhere until we got into the house. We also needed to plan the job really carefully, making sure we hadn’t forgotten anything because for the larger jobs, we had to stay on the island while we completed the job over a number of days.

 “All in all, the Les Ecrehous installations have been our most challenging to date purely due to the logistics, but they have also been the most satisfying and we are very proud to have been a part of the preservation of this very unique corner of Jersey’s landscape.”

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