Windows are placed in your house to allow light and warmth in, to ventilate your home and to give you a view of  the outside world. Which ever criteria you want to achieve with each window will determine its size and location in each room. If a window is purely there to let light into an often dark space like a hallway then roof windows might be used for example. Your architect/ designer and builder will be of assistance to you and providing you valuable insight into experiences to get you what you truly want.

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Here, we first look at the glass itself and the different variations they can be assembled in to make your window. Afterward, we will look at window frame materials. As always, we will be exploring the pros and cons of various products to help you make a decision that will work for you. Get in touch with us for high efficiency windows.

 

How is glass made?

Glass is manufactured by heating sand to up to 1700 Degrees Celsius. The cooling sand liquid then becomes easy to shape and undergoes a structural transformation to become glass. Glass is a natural material also fully recyclable although sadly glass does end up in landfills on occasion.

 

Most older homes like ours are single glazed. This means that there is only one glass pane in the window frame, letting in winter the heat from inside the house, escape.

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New houses do as a standard at least provide two panes of glass in the window frame- they are double glazed. In between the two window panes is a gap of a few millimetres, adding further insulating properties to the window.

As the windows are an uninsulated part of your house the heat loss through windows is high. Double glazing will make a significant reduction to your heating costs and comfort level in your home, often halving the heat loss compared to single glazed windows (1).

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Sources:

(1) Energywise EECA NZ, 'Double glazing', 19.12.2018