Home made double-glazed casement windows.

With timber sashes crafted from time period hardwood, sourced from the demolition of a similar property in the area.

This was one of the more ambitious projects I’ve taken on during my own home DIY restoration.

It started when I removed an original window sash from one of the bedrooms and found that the window was close to being beyond repair. Not only were the stays both full of layers upon layers of old paint, but also rusted out where the paint hadn’t managed to get to. The timber sashes had significant rot in places with the glass in poor condition and the sealing putty rock hard, cracking and falling out.

At this moment I thought I was looking at choosing between 3 options to move forward with.

• Option One, being the cheapest option of following the trend of the last 50 years of simply adding more paint to the windows and attempting to clean out the stays so the windows would at least become operational again.
• Option Two, staying fairly cheap with restoring the original sashes, replace the old stays and re-glazing the windows with modern laminate glass.
• Option Three, likely to be out of scope costs to replace the entire 16 windows with new custom order timber sashes with double-glazed or high performance glass.

I wasn’t very interested in option One, as I wanted this whole exterior restoration project for the old home to be significant, and knowing I wouldn’t be happy with the same old poor condition glass and hard to maneuver opening mechanisms.
So I obtained a few quotes to have a look at option Three and as I suspected, it was wildly out of scope with the budget I had in mind for this phase of the whole restoration project.
Option Two was looking like the direction I would take, so I got some quotes for the re-glazing which was fine. Although I still had major concerns about the condition of the original sashes. What if one of the sashes is simply too rotted out to restore? If I cannot find an identical size and styled one second hand then I might have to make one from scratch.

I thought that would be a nice challenge and learning opportunity to make one from scratch. But if I have to make one from scratch... why not make the whole 16 from scratch?

And so, Option Four was born. Make my own windows entirely.

I put together a plan and list of tasks I would need to complete in order to see if this was even a viable option. These included;
· Obtain quotes for IGU (Insulated Glass Unit) or double-glazed window panels for price and availability.
· Research the types of timber the windows could be made from, then source and price accordingly.
· Research heavy duty window stay types that could carry the heavier windows.
· Look into the joinery and technical aspects of crafting and finishing these windows.

I had to visit multiple glass companies before I was able to source what I needed, most of them didn’t want to talk to me directly as a member of the public and rather put me onto contractors in the industry who didn’t really understand, or weren’t interested in what I was chasing.

I finally found a great glass manufacturer who was willing to, well they were more than willing, they were delighted to help me. I walked in and explained my whole story up to this point to the receptionist there who upon my surprise lit up with excitement and called for the sales manager to come down and meet me. Huge shout out to G.James for their amazing service. Jason came downstairs to meet me and listened to my ambitious story then immediately jumped on board and showed me a bunch of sample glass types. He was a wealth of information and was able to answer all of my questions regarding double glazed Vs high performance glass and everything in between. He explained to me the differences in the different glass types and what I might expect from each as far as performance in their installed positions.

We settled on an IGU double-glazed panel with one side tinted in Grey to help lower glare and simply look badass from the outside.
A couple of emails back and forth later covering the dimensions I would need, I had a price and availability on the glass. The price was amazing and put this comparable to the Option Two of re-glazing my original windows.

My excitement was growing now at the thought of having new double-glazed windows in my old home.

Another great service I received that day at G.James was a recommendation to go and have a chat with Duce Timber Windows and Doors over in Milton. I headed over to the Milton showroom and to my delight was greeted in a similar way to my reception at G.James. They probably don’t often get someone walk in and straight off the bat say that I’m not here to buy anything, but I’ve got this ambitious plan... Again the floor manager who greeted me listened to my story so far and with excitement called in the sales manager. I repeated my story and in a similar fashion to G.James immediately got on board and wanted to help me out.

I was shown through their show-room to a set of double-glazed casement windows just like the ones I was setting out to build. They explained to me all about the timber species they use and what would be appropriate for me to use. I was shown the style of stay they use to account for the extra weight of the double-glazed panel.

They showed me the weather seal they use, which at this point I hadn't even considered, and just in itself would be a huge upgrade compared to my old sieve-like windows. Not only was I shown these parts, they also gave me some supplier information of where I can source them!

I was absolutely elated after my visit to Duce Timber Windows and Doors that day. Having the confidence that I will be able to overcome any technical hurdle in the actual design and construction of the sashes.
All that remained was to source and price the hardwood timber I would need, and it didn’t take long to find a supply of old hardwood house studs from a demolition job for a great price. Given I was always going to be painting these windows I wasn’t concerned with nail holes and imperfections in the lumber.

That was it. All boxes ticked!

This is a viable option to have new double-glazed casement windows for my house at a comparable price of a simple clean up and re-glazing of the old ones.
And so the 18-month-long project began. One of the great selling points of this was the fact that I can achieve this on my own time schedule. Making these one by one in my shed over the weekends. Having life and other projects happen in between without any concern.

When it came time to install a set of windows into the house, I designed a way to securely board up and weather seal the opening while I had the old windows out. There was a lot of work still required to be done to clean up, seal, repair and paint the window sills and frames before fitting the new windows in place.
This boarding piece could be moved between window bays and stored away when it was not required.