This current house of ours has inspired me to recall the past in a matter which didn’t really seem to be important: construction of windows.
A basic difference between these and Nordic counterparts is the selection between sliding vs. hinged. Besides single-glazed vs. double/triple/quadruple. Of course, as with electricity, practicality dictates the hinges up north – you couldn’t open sliding windows there for months as they’d probably be frozen.
Typical two-part sliding window with a mesh on one side (sorry, not from our house).
All windows here normally consist of two parts: a fixed window and a sliding one for ventilation. Most sliding windows are usually fitted with some sort of burglar protection. In our new house they are fitted with external Crimsafe screens which makes it possible to leave the windows open even while we’re away. But since the Crimsafes cannot be removed we can’t access the fixed window’s outer side. This means that here are windows we can’t wash. Most interesting arrangement!
Contingency plans for reaching them anyway are “in progress”.
The previous house had an unreachable window, too, but it didn’t really matter as it was in a toilet and you don’t spend much time marvelling the views to the neighbourghs fence there, do you.
All the other windows were very handy to wash and the work could efficiently be done by two people. In a lowset house all windows were easy to reach from the ground. I washed the outsides using a hose: this was very quick way to rinse them. The sliding windows, in their part, could simply be lifted off the frames, so I carried them to the backyard and washed them there (again, with the help of a hose).
Being able to carry a series of window screens out and set up a washing station for them was much more efficient than opening (and many times supporting) multi-layer windows hinged to the frames. I’m very lazy with the windows but I reckon it took as long to wash 5 sets (of 3-layer windows) up North than 11 sets (single layer with removable screens) down here.
Let’s see how can I wash the external screens upstairs. I don’t really fancy ladders (heights are OK, unstability not) and stuff. Perhaps I need to borrow a lift form the fire department to reach them. 
