I was chatting with the guy who installed my new windows last week (super nice dude, btw), and he casually dropped this random fact: apparently, back in medieval times, windows were taxed based on how many you had. Like, the more windows your house had, the richer you were assumed to be, so they taxed you accordingly. Crazy, right? He said that's why some old buildings in Europe have bricked-up windows—people literally sealed them up to avoid paying extra taxes.
Made me wonder what other weird or interesting window-related trivia is out there. I mean, windows seem pretty straightforward until you start thinking about them... like, did you know that glass is technically a liquid? Well, sort of. It's actually an amorphous solid, meaning it flows super slowly over centuries. That's why some really old windows look thicker at the bottom than at the top. I always thought that was just bad craftsmanship or something, lol.
Anyway, now I'm curious if anyone else has stumbled across any random window facts or stories. Maybe something historical or even just a quirky thing you learned when replacing your own windows. I'm all ears—er, eyes.
Actually, about the glass flowing thing... I used to think that too, until I got really into energy-efficient window upgrades a few years back. Turns out it's kind of a myth. Glass is an amorphous solid, yeah, but it doesn't really flow at room temperature—not even over centuries. The reason some old windows look thicker at the bottom is usually just because of how they were made back then. Glassmakers spun molten glass into discs and then cut panes from them, so they'd naturally end up uneven. Installers would put the thicker edge down for stability.
I learned this when replacing my own windows with double-glazed ones. The contractor explained it all while we were chatting about insulation and heat loss (yeah, I'm that person who asks a million questions about efficiency ratings). So, while the medieval tax thing is totally true—and pretty fascinating—the glass-flowing-over-time story is more of an urban legend. Still, it's funny how these little myths stick around, isn't it?