The windows will be the bright areas on the Infra red image even if they’re state of the art tripple glazing, I very much doubt you’d see the difference between the latest double glazing and twenty-year-old double glazing. You won’t see the heat loss through the floor at all with an IR cmaera and most British homes have no insulation under the floor at all. Sure, heat rises, but it’s only when you insulate the floor you realise how much heat you were losing before.

insulating the walls on the inside, insulating under the floor between the joists, insulating the roof to a higher standard

Yeah, if your loft insulation is below ‘reccomended thickness’ that’s an easy and reletively cheap place to start for good gains…. basically a no-brainer, so to speak.

Friend of mines landlord recently put interior insulation on interior walls where practical/suitable.. makes a good difference and doesn’t really make the room feel much smaller tbh…although you do obviously loose a bit of space, his house was quite cluttered so he de-cluttered at the same time and it really doesn’t feel any smaller due to that.

I would echo what others said and refurb the current windows. If they are quite well sealed I wouldn’t think you’d feel much of a difference if you replaced them all unless you had gaps all over the place.

When I insulated the walls I took out the radiators too which compensated the loss of space.  I heat using a wood burning stove but an air/air heat pump blowing warm air would do the job just as well now heat loss is much lower.

A UK cavity wall with bead insulation in the cavity has an R value around 1.5. 100mm of polyurethane is R=4.5 and 100mm of wood fibre is R=2.6. 100mm to tripple the thermal resistance.

I chatted to some eco building folk about our house, and the advice I got was that windows wouldn’t make the most difference to heating costs but they make a big difference to comfort. The reason being that they have the biggest temperature difference with room temperature so you can feel the cooling effect they have on the air. Ours are also poorly installed (apparently fairly common in early 90s Inverness) so there are some huge uninsulated gaps between the windows and the walls.

We’ve ordered some fancy triple glazing for our worst offenders and are paying a specialist to install them. Might not be the best financial move but we’re confident it’ll improve comfort.

I had a rep from a Bristol based family company call and check out my windows. They were originally fitted when the house was still a council house, so budget driven. That was roughly forty years ago, and they were never very good – one back bedroom window never shut properly and you could hear traffic noise through it.

I was shown an example, and it turned out the actual frame is made by a company in Calne, when I worked for a print company there, and we did all their print. They’ve been going for twenty-thirty years, so well established. Several features stood out, three-way venting, plus the actual window can be pushed out at 90° so I can properly clean both sides of the opening part from inside the room, and I can easily reach the other side as well. They’re replacing 11 windows in total at a bit less than £10k. As has been said, the outlay will never be recovered, but I’ll have decent windows for the first time in nearly half a century, so I’m ok with that. There was a discount on that which helped as well. I’m also looking at new front and back doors too; what’s fitted are uPVC replacements for the original wooden doors, and while they were quality wood, they were what were fitted to the house when it was built, which is pre-WW2. What’s there now is OK. Ish. The house hasn’t had anything much done for years, so I think it’s now time.

I very much doubt you’d see the difference between the latest double glazing and twenty-year-old double glazing

Doubt away.

How would you get down there?

I’d love to.get under ours, there’s a good 80cm but no acces. I’d have to make a hatch in the wall outside the house.

The hatch we use to hide bodies left in the hall cupboard from an old central heating system update.

@molgrips There should be plastic or wood strips covering the hole between frame and wall on the outside of the frame. If your windows are reasonably modern these will be held on with mastic.

I can’t for the life of me see any kind of removable trim.  From what I can see, the frame seems to consist of a single extrusion which is recessed into the wall both outside and inside a good few cm.  There is a hole in the inside of the frame where I’d been experimenting with closing blocks, and if I poke a 14/16 double butted spoke through I hit what seems to be solid PVC on the other side.

How would you get down there?

I had a little hatch in the floorboards in the understairs cupboard. Horrible job though, reminds me why I always stayed clear of caving.

I can’t for the life of me see any kind of removable trim.

Older installations don’t necessarily have the trim. The windows I had replaced didn’t have the trim (from 1994). The later ones did though.

I’ve searched and this would appear to be the best thread to help us. We’ve a small 1920’s semi, we’ve got cavity wall insulation and as much as 600mm of insulation in two thirds of the loft and 12 year old UPVC double glazing. Our house is actually quite warm in winter but in summer as the rear faces SW, it gets too hot. We’re contemplating replacing the patio doors with a triple glazed half size window and also the other windows too with glass that reflects heat away rather than allowing for heat gain. I know that this plan will be expensive but we’re trying to get the house into shape in a “love it or list it” sort of effort! Does anyone have experience of triple glazing or expertise in the advanced glazing available?

I got a whole range of options when I searched “triple glazed top hung widows”!

Last year we replaced our 25 year old double glazing.  We got new triple glazing windows to the front of the house, this was recommended by the sales rep to reduce noise as the front faces a main road, the rear of the house was double glazed.

Did it make a difference to the bills?  I’m leaning towards yes but no empirical evidence.  It did eradicate condensation in the front and back rooms, reduced noise in the front and the windows have a much cleaner and nicer look.  The new front door also has multiple locking points so feels very secure.  It was a messy job and you end up having to sand and paint all around the new windows.

I also put my money where my mouth was.

New windows being fitted in 6/7weeks.

I had the wind coming in and at various points the rain because the windows are beyond their best.

Suspect I’ll be seeing my benefits quickly.

We’re contemplating replacing the patio doors with a triple glazed half size window and also the other windows too with glass that reflects heat away rather than allowing for heat gain.

Consider shading too. Shrubs, trees, climbing roses, a ‘sail’ etc. Replace patio with shrubs and ground cover. Add a pond. Think shaded and cool. Makes a huge difference.

I’m currently on a project around using nature based solutions to climate change – one objective is reducing overheating in schools. Glazing is the biggest issue…so hide it and the ground around a building from the sun and heat

Found the original receipts for the D/G that I’ve just had replaced, and it was done in two phases, ‘93 and ‘94. I was expecting mine to be done in March, but I had a call last Monday to tell me the windows had been QC’d and passed inspection, and could they start the installation tomorrow (Tuesday)! 😳

I arranged for Thursday, the scaffolders turned up Wednesday, the upstairs were all done Thursday morning, the downstairs Friday morning and the scaffolders came and took down the steelwork while the windows were being finished off. They were gone by lunchtime!

They’ve done a great job, watching them doing the downstairs windows I realised why the old ones were noisy – the frames were just fitted into the wall apertures, with a thin bit of plastic trim either side, the frames were set right on top of the wall cavities, with no other sealing! The new ones have thicker glazing units, the frames have draught barriers spaced throughout the frame cavities, and they squirted SoundFoam in between the frames and walls to give a draught and sound barrier, they used six big cans on my windows! The plastic trim around the frames themselves are about three times the width of the old ones. The difference is startling, the traffic noise from outside has dropped right down, it’s pretty much silent at night now, which I’m just not accustomed to after forty years!

The frame manufacturers are Deceuninck, who’ve been around for years, place I used to work at was just down the road, we used to do a lot of their printing, so I knew of their quality before I ordered them.

Nothing beats that new window feeling 🙂

had my windows changed on friday – lads did a quick and tidy job.

Went from 30 possibly 40 year old hardwood timber double glazing with 18mm glass.

The frames were fairly rotting and they had certainly been repaired in my tenure with a fair bit of fibreglass  as well as being jotun demidekk’d every other year

since we insulated the eaves walls and coombed ceilings we started to suffer condensation on the windows due to removing hte fresh air ventilation passing through the living space(drafts) – which compounded the timber rot and through out the winter storms they were starting to pass water through.

fitted Vika profiled 28mm double glazing – double tilt and turn egress approved windows and matched the existing windows downstairs (low glass so toughened etc)

wiser usage and temperature monitoring says despite it being between -2 and -6 at night we have had the central heating on for less than an hour a day compared to 4 or 5 hours at night to maintain sleeping temperature in the kids room as we did most of the winter.

whole house generally feels significantly warmer* – and this morning we had condensation on the outside of the window :O

wouldn’t expect to need to do any work on them in my life time anyway.

(*1950s build with cavity wall insulation  / the rear of the house removed and extension that exceeds current regulations across the back  – and the roof space is fully insulated to the best that it can be while maintaining required ventilation – Need to do the dormer cheeks when i have the tiles off the roof on the outside when i’m fititng the solar thermal panels.)