One window closes - another one shuts

Last night's marathon length housing co-op EGM on window replacement has got me to thinking about the best ways to make your home environmentally friendly and the compromises we all have to make in order to fit our ideal with what is actually achievable.

Our choices were simple but perhaps a little expert advice might not be misplaced, if readers are willing to chip in with their thoughts. We are coming up to a time when many of the doors and windows need replacing and, as part of coming up to the decent homes standard the co-op has collectively decided to re-do the whole lot. This will be an invaluable step forward for our energy conservation.

Of course, as we're part of the lunatic fringe the co-op tends to contain people who think climate chaos is something to be averted and want to replace the windows in an ecologically friendly way. Bloody communists. What next? Giving to charity?

But wanting to be good to the environment and doing that effectively with the resources available are two quite distinct things. Last night we heard pitches from a number of companies on the products they can provide and the materials from which they are made. Our choice essentially comes down to this. Eco-friendly timber sourced in a sustainable way or horrid PVC made from oil and dead penguins. Both materials perform pretty much equally in terms of heat retention / energy efficiency so, as windows, although wood looks a bit nicer there doesn't seem much in it.

However, there is a complication. The timber frames cost three times as much and, for a job the size of the co-op, we are talking a difference of £150,000. Which seems like a lot of money. In fact, whilst the co-op can afford timber we would be cutting our finances very tight, perhaps irresponsibly so.

For me the two key priorities are how the product performs in conserving energy and how long the windows actually last. Now the PVC might last forty years, whilst the timber may last eighty - but I do have my doubts about windows that last longer than the walls around them, but that's an aside I suppose.

There is absolutely no question that PVC is an evil material but is it so evil to justify spending a very significant amount of money that could provide decent insulation, solar water heaters and other improvements. Christ, even if we could afford it with £150,000 we could employ half a dozen full time environmental workers for a couple of years who could have a massive impact on reducing the carbon footprint of the local community.

Timber will make us feel like we've chosen the best, but in fact we'll have gone for perfection in one area whilst completely ignoring the glaring environmental deficiencies that lie elsewhere in the co-op. My question to the readers of this blog is this - is it better to go with the best available building material at the expense of other improvements that would increase the sustainability of the co-op as a whole, or compromise on the material, choosing an unsustainable source for our windows, which would leave us enough money to ensure we are coming up to scratch in other areas too?