I’m looking to milk the stw’ers knowledge once more. I’m looking at getting a glass box type extension to the front of my house to replace a rickety wood/glass structure. Brief is that it looks frameless. I’ve had a few indicative costs from an architectural glazing company and I was a little bit surprised of the costs.

I’ve since been looking at sky frame windows, with minimal frames. Any other solutions to look at?

How wide do you consider minimal to be? True curtain walling will start at 50mm sight line (face width). If this is OK then it will open up a lot more options.

I believe some suppliers do a 35mm system.

Bolted or bonded frameless glass looks great but costs a fortune, especially if you go down the double glazed route.

One of our facades with a bolted single glazed entrance lobby. Pretty expensive!

is that Chester?

Cheers for replying spaceman, 50mm or even a wee bit more would be ok for me. The space I’m trying to fill is approx. 9.5m long by 3.5m high . So if it was 3 sections of 3m with a low profile frame , would look good in my mind.

I work for Fineline Aluminium Ltd. Google them see what you think.

If anything you look at buying says Alumco on it, run away screaming….

You might struggle to comply with Part L on a dwelling. Shop front doesn’t have to comply (or didn’t the last time I did retail).

Yes that is Chester. Which part of part L do you think might be an issue? I only deal with commercial so am not up to speed on the domestic requirements

smart aluminium systems do this type of thing, made in UK.

There are loads of options for aluminium framed glazing, if you’re ok with a 50mm sightline curtain wall system, you could look at the toggle glaze type systems which have the appearance of structural glazing from the outside but a traditional curtain wall box on the inside? The key with these kinds of projects is getting the right installer, some of the products are quite specialist. Have a look at Reynaers, SAPA, Schuco or maybe Smarts but they’d probably be bottom of the pile and try and find a local fabricator/installer as they ‘should’ have the knowedge and experience to do the project justice. Good luck, email in profile if you want any more info, I’ve worked in this industry for a few years…

Oh, and Doc L was mentioned up there, I doubt that would be a problem, u values on sealed units are pretty good with the right spec glass and curtain walling actually performs pretty well thermally.

Your local building control should be asking for sap calculations showing energy loss in current and proposed dwelling as your extension has over 25% glass to floor area. This will help too choose what level of u value you will need to achieve for both glazing and any other build elements.

Ignore the above if your extension is technically a conservatory. Have you got planning permission. When you have glass box and front of house in same sentence it is likely the planners will take some convincing.

Large glass panes and a typical modern Low E coating should see you at around 1.4/1.6 overall with the framing which is well be low the 1.8(?) in doc L for dwellings. Just don’t buy Pilks K glass as it performs poorly, and has a brown tint.

As above there are plenty of companies who will be able to help. Having had experience of Smart Systems before, I personally wouldn’t pay my own money for it (i’d go for Schueco if I could afford it).