Fooferfish

WE are about to have our house retro fitted with double glazing we have aluminium windows but have the usual 3-5mm glazing and as we now live in the countryside and in an area where it does have more frosts than town, so we looked at that advert on TV caleed Dual glaze,yes the advert looked like its so easy, a chap just putting the glazing in, well its not that easy, i called the company and they came out , a chap from a local firm came with all the extrusions and tried them in the openers, checked all the windows and we have alot of them in a 4 bed 220m2 house, a lot of glass that lets the heat out, well because our openers are sealed units we need to replace them all, arrghh i hadnt even had the quote yet i thought 14 huge windows with 2 openers in most of them plus triple opening ranch sliders x2 was going to be expensive , but the cost would be a good investment , so we waited for teh quote to come in, so for 14 big windows plus x2 ranch sliders, with new rollers, $14k i even managed to get them to throw in some opening restricters to 8 windows for free, i did call then up and try to get them to sharpen their pencil, but they wouldnt budge, so we bit the bullet and went with them, so i will do some pics of the before and after and let you know what the warmth factor is like as soon as they get fitted.

Next stage is to insulate under the floor with that new Snugfloor.

pestman

nice one mate hope that all goes well!

If you change your mind im ready to give you a quote I have my clingfilm and a hairdryer all ready to go will do it for mates rates but will have to charge travel

george

BEVS

I'm really interested in this Nige and will look forward tot he before and after pics. I'll also be following your reports through the winter as to how good you find the retro-fit.

Wooly_Cow

Do the windows need replacing anyway?

Whilst I am an advocate of insulation and good heating for comfort and health, the sums for a retro fit of windows that don't need replacing are hard to stack up.

I reckon it'll be well over 10 years before you recoup the initial investment, not taking into account net present value. (I think you have to assume that the windows won't add to the value of the house substantially).

On the other hand, if it's a case of being snug and warm rather than spending the money on say a car or holiday.....

Robbie2010

I always think fitting double glazing is more about comfort than saving money and will be watching this thread with interest.

As for adding value, I agree it wont add greatly to the house value ... but it will make it far more attractive to a buyer than the same house next door without DG.

pestman

mate down here in Dunedin putting up thermal curtains would make a house better than 'next door'

mac917

Changing the subject slightly but still talking warmth, i discovered at the Tauranga homeshow you can get central heating oop north.....

I know we are supposed to have a sub tropical climate but its still bloody cold in the winter. Well, i nearly passed out with excitement when i discovered this AND you can have gas, diesel or log burning boilers - ideal if you dont have mains gas !!!!!!!

The only down-side is that it costs 12 -16k but you can pay monthly ....

Yipee, just need to persuade him indoors to flash the cash or put up with my whinging about being cold !!!!!

SidNZ

Sticking with the change of subject we had gas warm air central heating fitted in our last house. Thermostatically controlled and timed so the house (and I mean the whole house) was roasty toasty when I got up for work in the morning.

We liked the system so much we had it installed in our new house when it was built last year. Taking off the builders margin, it was around $10,000 to install.

Cheers,

Sid

RobClubley

That sounds very reasonable. Can you provide more details please?

Wooly_Cow

I think I read somewhere that CH is about $1000 per vent (air) and about $1400 per radiator (hot water).

To me that is reasonable.

We have CH in our rental and pay a fraction of what we used to for electric heaters. I guess the house is sunnier and insulated but we are talking the price of a nice holiday every winter difference in running costs....and the whole house is warm and useable.

So if I had a spare $15000 I would get CH rather than DG.

SidNZ

The system heats a 200 square metre 4 bedroom house (exc. garage). The furnace is in the loft which pumps hot air through ducts to vents in the ceiling in all rooms including the bathroom and en suite. There is a return vent that allows air to return back to the roof space.

You can get full details of the system at warmair.co.nz

www.gascentral.co.nz installed our current system and also the one in our previous house. In our previous house they took 2 - 3 days to install the system.

Cheers,

Sid

RobClubley

Cheers

BEVS

Poo. We have no loft.

SidNZ

Don't quote me on this but I think that the furnance does not have to go in the roof space. It could go in the garage.

cleverchap

Any further news on this or has rain stopped play?