I was chatting with someone the other day and they said their double glazing cost them about 8K for the whole house.

Suppliers were A&L Windows (Chevron glass did the glasswork) and Southern Glass and Glazing who did some of the larger windows.

Steve

We got the costing for our house. Not cheap. But we had to double glaze about a third to meet five star so thought we may as well bite the bullet and do the whole lot. Otherwise it just seemed pointless.
So we double glazed everything right down to the sidlight on the front door.

Jo

Just don't do what my parents got talked into doing.... aluminium framed double glazing....

Positively useless that is. Aluminium is such a good heat/cold conductor, and with no spacing in the framing, the outside temperature is transferred inside quick smart. So in the middle of winter you can almost feel a draft as you approach the inversion layer created by the heat transfer of the aluminium.

Wood framed all the way.

$8000 for the whole house !? Sure beats the $4500 I was quoted (installation extra) for *one* window from Titane in Tasmania.

I have been quote 4500 whole house for double glaze.. sound cheap, but i am yet to find out what products will it be... i believe it is dowell..

As parawolf has pointed out, just make sure you check the frame construction. Standard aluminium window frames are very poor insulators, in fact a double glazed window with a normal aluminium frame, whilst better than a standard window, has a similar U value to a single glazed timber window.

Try to get thermally broken aluminium or uPVC or timber frames.

Check the WERS rating.

http://www.wers.net/

http://www.awa.org.au/energy3.htm

i heard something about energy efficent glass is cheaper and easier looks like ill prolly be going 10mm with the EE coating, just got to get some prices now that the number of windows has been decided on..

my glazer/installer is in adelaide (golden grove) Yak_Chat if you interested pm me your dimensions and ill see what he can quote you up if your interested, either 6mm or 10mm

-Nathan

We have 'improved' (thermally broken) aluminium double glazing. Very happy with it (no draft from the windows). Ours are A&L windows, costing about $4500 for double glazing all the windows in a 32square house. Doors were extra, A&L can't/don't do double glazed doors in the sizes we had ... so had to upgrade the glass instead.

The WERS rating website that 'chelle quoted is your very best friend when it comes to choosing glazing. Our double-glazed aluminium windows out-rate some double-glazed timber windows - therefore, timber is not always better (well, other than from an environmental point of view).

Lyn,
We have been told we can't upgrade our sliding doors to double glazed. I was going to live with it until they could be changed but no-one said anything about upgraded glass. Could you explain this to me.

Jo

Hi Jo, you can put in a thicker laminated glass with a lower U-value. We used Sunergy Clear, a lot of builders use ComfortPlus (available clear or tinted).
Find out which company makes your windows, then look up the WERS website to work out the best glazing options for your house.
If you are planning on installing external blinds don't put in a tinted glass - may as well maximise winter heat gain.
Upgrading to Sunergy glass cost a couple of hundred dollars per door, not sure how that compares to some of the other options.

Thanks Lyn,
I'll look in to it.

Jo

Just found out from the builder that we will be having the aluminium improved window thoughtout.. is this ok with double glaze?

From what I've read, thermally improved windows are better than normal aluminium, but not as good as thermally broken and therefore not as expensive.

I just googled some info on U values for window frames ( www.aibs.com.au/aibs_docs/vic/march_2007_seminar.PDF )...

normal aluminium - 12.7
thermally improved Al - 8.0
thermally broken Al - 3.8
wooden - 3.1
uPVC - 3.1

These figures are for the frames alone not the windows as a whole. The link I mentioned in my previous post should be able to give you the U values for your particular windows.

Hope that helps

A U-value of 8 is simply a joke
Thermally broken aluminium is the minimum acceptable if you want to do it right.
We do now U 1.3 PVCu window frames.

Our double glazed aluminium windows have a U-value of 3.7 and 3.8.
The standard U-values for double glazed PVC and timber framed windows are 3.0 and 3.3, depending on gap size.
Considering we were quoted an extra $10,000 for timber windows I'm fine with the cheaper option. As everyone knows, I'm pretty happy with the solar heat gain (winter, what winter?!).

What sort of price are they Windowexpert for a standard size that you sell?

Steve

At a tangent, but worth mentioning - I've visited Home Ideas Centre in Perth yesterday and there're 2 new double glazing outfits there, one offering PVC, another thermal break aluminium frames. Looks like double glazing is (finally) taking off here in Oz, and the competition will (hopefully) bring down the prices.

Chris

From the 5 stars report, i managed to get all the window/door id, so just compare to the webpage (thanks to chelle), my windows either have 4.899 or 5.075 Uvalue (for single glaze).. so it doesn't sound too bad and hope that it will be even better once i upgrade to double glaze..

Hi Steve
for a single sash tilt and turn window with U-value 1.3
800 wide and 1400 high you are looking at about 680 Kiwi $ plus Gst
We have extremly hight costs for glass here and also the import duty
for the extrusions and hardware add unnecessary costs, but we are about the same or cheaper than double glazed and thermally broken aluminium windows but we are offering superior thermal insulation plus hardware which is a world apart from the ancient non secure stuff used in the aluminium joinery

Thanks.