Yay we have gone to council with our house plans ...finally!! It will be worth the wait as the design stage of a high performance home is really important to get right but we are finally in council! But lets talk windows today...
Exciting stuff, I am hoping to catch up with our window supplier (Fabian) and our energy efficiency consultant (Claudia Kaltenstadler) this week as they are both up from the South Island. So seen as Fabian is up this week seems like a good idea to go over why we picked his windows.
I knew we had to get thermally brocken windows but I had to do a fair bit of research to look into what that meant and in laymen's terms... thermally brocken window frames are insulated aginst cold and heat conduction. This is done by seperating the outside metal parts from the inside with a product/ material which reduces the amount of cold or heat transfered through the frames. This is know as the " thermal break".
We also wanted to have really good airtight windows. We ended up getting about 5 different companies to give us quotes, some giving us a couple of window options and one company gave us 4 different types of window quotes. We went with the German windows from NH Design and Project management as the quality is superb and the prices were realy good too, even though there was frieght from Germany involved.
So we the quotes Fabian did for us were for UPVC, Wood, Wood and Aluminium and Aluminium
We would of liked to have gone for the wooden windows on the inside and aluminium on the outside (because they were the best) but that was out of the budget. So even so we didnt go for the cheapest as personally I am not yet convinced UPVC is right for NZ sun even though it probably is as it is far superior than the old days PVC and allthough I love wood I dont want the external upkeep even though they come as a finished product your choice painted or stained or clear natural finish. So we opted for Aluminium. Depost has been paid and they are being made as I type this up. Fabian has also organised shared frieght with others to bring price down. All the windows are tripple glazed and you dont save much by dropping down to double glaze but as we are on a very tight budget we saved about 10 percent opting to drop down to double glaze. Than can be used elswhere in the build.
If you need really good windows for a good price and super service check out Fabians link to his website and ask him about his windows and judge for yourself.
NH Design | Wellington area based design & project management
When we have our open home part way through the build you will be able to have a look at what products we have chosen to use.
Now I must get some sleep!! Till next time. Ooh by the way feel free to comment or ask me questions, there is a comment button below.
As someone from the Uk, where just about everyone has UPVC windows, and as someone who is considering changing all my windows ( a lot) to double glazing, This has raised some questions for me.
ReplyDeleteI would very much prefer UPVC windows, not only for low maintenance, but for the thermal qualities. Given that, as you said, it has come a long way, not only in colour stability, but also less bulky, I wonder at what stage we would start to feel comfortable with it being able to withstand the NZ weather!
I had Aluminium double glazing installed in my last home, and wasn’t overly impressed with the powder coating on the frames, seemed very fragile, but, that may have been the manufacturer I went with. 🤷🏼♀️
Was thee much price difference between the two types?
Hello Viv, Thank you for your question... You can get varied pricing here in NZ and after lots of research I chose to go with NH Design as they import superior german quality and they have really good prices Through NH Design UPVC is the cheapest option and Jade and Ben have ordered the UPVC and are going to use it on the Tiny home they are building.
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