Secondary Glazing
What is it?
Secondary glazing involves adding an extra (generally slimline) window inside your existing window that is usually a single pane of timber, leaded or crittall window. The secondary frame is normally made from Aluminium, and is generally suitable for conservation areas and listed buildings. Whilst clearly not as effective as replacement double glazed units (PVCu or Aluminium Windows), it is a cheaper option and preserves the existing windows - see our testimonial page for reference.
Benefits: Providing Draft Proofing For Windows
Old single glazed windows can provide insufficient insulation, poor and sometimes ineffective seals and may not even close properly (due to swelling of old wooden frames). These failures in old windows can lead to cold draughts that are hazardous to your health and damaging to your pocket (high heating bills). You can try fitting standard draft proofing bought from any DIY shop, but many find the results disappointing. For listed properties, conservation areas or rented accommodation where you cannot afford or are not permitted to replace the old windows, many recommend that you fit secondary glazing. Our Secondary Glazing has twin brush seals ensuring a highly effective solution. Our secondary glazing will help prevent the draft from your prime windows entering the house for years to come.
The Optimum Air Gap - Simple Yet Effective
A simple yet effective way to optimize the reduction of both heat loss and external noise is to install your secondary glazing to allow around a 100mm air gap between the Secondary Glazing and the existing windows (glass to glass). This is due to the length of sound waves and the rates of transferal of heat through air.
Additional Benefits: Noise reduction and Sound proofing
Noise from traffic, whether that be road, rail or air can be a real disruption to the quality of your living or working environment. While fitting sound proofing strips in the window surrounds, hanging heavy curtains or other DIY fixes will reduce external noise, it will only give an overall noise reduction of around 10 - 20%.
The best way to reduce noise and sound proof your windows is to fit secondary glazing, which can reduce external noise by around 75%, up to even 90% when high specification glass is used. For example using Laminated or Acoustic glass can really reduce the noise pollution heard from the outside world . These types of glass are thicker and heavier than ordinary glass and will go along way to improving thermal performance as well.
The reason for this is that like all good sound proofing (i.e. in a recording studio) the best results are achieved where there is an adequate gap/ cavity between the two points of contact - i.e. the cavity between the primary and secondary window. | 
