Double Glazing: A Personal Adventure

We'd spent several years to-ing and fro-ing on what, how much, and how we would add double-glazing to our (older) house.  Should we go aluminium or uPVC for maintenance, and forgo the warmer look of wood?  How about the thermal properties of each? What kind of glass should we use?  Would I do the work myself?  Yes, some people do this.  While I'm a bit of a DIYer, I would be too scared of making an irreparable mistake - and if you really want to screw up, using power tools can give you a head start.

This year we bit the bullet.  Kept the timber, and had the windows retrofitted.  And what a job it was.  Each window was individually removed - even the fixed windows - routed, existing glass pulled out, and shiny new (and clean!) double-glazing units put in.  A team of two to five craftspeople whirring, cutting, routing, taping, beading and nailing their way around the outside of the house, occasionally cursing and swearing at how builders in the late 1950s not only nailed, but also sometimes glued their window frames in place.

I'm so glad I didn't do this myself.  I did, however, geek out a bit at the professional carpentry gear.  I'm a big fan of Festool kit, and was more than happy to see it being used. Not meaning this as a status thing, but if your woodworker is using this kind of gear, they're likely to look after it, and hopefully take the same care with your job.  I even took video (with permission, and they'll be getting a copy).

It was an interesting experience noting that as the team went around the house, we could feel the immediate difference in each room, and compare the amount of heat being sucked out of each room via the windows.  Note to salespeople: those shop displays with the infrared lights are useful, but I'd love to see a comparative display with a fridge on one side, and the prospective customer on the other - the winter cold is usually the primary reason they're there.

So - was it worth it?  Undoubtedly.  I imagine I'll have better data once winter is done, but in a very scientific experiment (meaning I did stuff and wrote it down) of moving some approximately-calibrated temperature and humidity sensors around the house, we certainly got better results than initially expected, and much better than we had to start with.  Without any active heating at all, the ambient temperature in the house first thing in the morning was noticeably higher, even with the latest cold front blasting against the windows.  We have yet to crank up the heat and then leave it off to see what kind of temperature curve we get over time.  More science!

Also as expected, the house is much quieter inside.  Not that the neighbourhood was overly noisy before, but quieter is always good.  If I want noise, I can always select my own via Spotify, or other sources.

On the morning after the job was completed, I staggered half-awake into the kitchen and saw some condensation on the windows.  Oh dear.  It wasn't on the inside, as was previously normal on really cold mornings.  Was it between the glass panes?  Had the seal on the panels failed?  Were the windows going to have to be redone? A couple more minutes of waking up, and it was determined that the condensation was on the outside - just where it should be.  To me, another confirmation that this was a good idea.

The upcoming job I'm not exactly dreading, but certainly taking my time over, is what to do with the internal timber window framing.  Do we keep them at their current darker shade, and touch them up, or take them back to bare wood and lighten them up a bit?  The entire removal, routing, and window replacement process was excellent, but for timber windows there is a bit of followup work required - and the installation team did prime the outside for us.  First up: a coat of paint over the primer.  Guess where you'll find me during Easter weekend...