I have a very large window, single glazed, wooden framed. The window is made up of 96 individual panes of glass, each roughly 300mm square. The window is bowed and is in a conservation area so must be replaced with 'like' window. It needs replacement! I have had quotations from a number of very competent carpenters, who all agree that the replacement window will require larger astragals than the original - to accommodate the double glazed replacement panes - otherwise the gold or silver sealant strips will be visible. I would rather not have wider astragals so would like to consider foregoing the double glazed replacement panes and reverting to single glazed panes. I have two of these large windows in the room, so with the instalation of double glazing I was looking forward to considerable heat saving and also much reduced window condensation in winter. Would thick single glazed panes, say 12mm thick be as effective as 4-6-4 double gladed panes?
I don't think that the single pane of 12mm glass to be effective as the 4-6-4 as this unit contains and air gap. 96 panes? that's some window...
If your house is listed you can replace it with single glazed, if it not it will probably have to meet current building regs. The weight of the glass governs the size of the wood so 12mm is totally impractical.
http://www.thinsealedunits.co.uk/ I remember watching an edition of of Grand Designs where there was a company that made 10mm double glazed units for period propertied. Can you apply for a Historical Buildings Grant from your local council? Plus there are still some company's that make old float glass, will be expensive.
Yes, the windows are fairly large - and heat lossy I guess. 4 panes high and 12 long times 2. The current glass is 6mm. I sort of thought that double the glass thickness would increase the U value to approach a 4-6-4 double glazing performance but I don't know how to do the sum. What I hadn't considered, and what Chippie has brought to my attention, is that the glass weight of a 12 mm pane would be 30% higher than a 4-6-4 pane, and twice the weight of the existing glass. His word 'impractical' really means that I am stuck with the more robust astragals. Too bad!
Although not a particularly good conductor of heat, thick glass will surely still be a lot less effective than a proper double-glazed unit with an air gap. For peeps wishing to keep the exact 'correct' appearance of the original windows, the usually option is to fit secondary glazing inside. However, as Jit Gang says above, you can now get much thinner DG units for chust what you are after - eg: http://www.thinsealedunits.co.uk/ That looks pretty nifty to me.
in my opinion single glazed will not do good in space of double glazed windows. Though the double glazed will cost you more but still it will worth the spending.
I know this thread is kind of old but I've been doing alot of research lately on double glazing and there is 4 main factors you need to take into account. I'd say it's definitely worth it. First of all you need to take into account the value it will add to the house. Granted it won't be the exact cost of the double glazed windows themselves, but we haven't considered the rest of the benefits yet. Secondly there is the noise reduction. If you are on a main road or busy street or if you have loud neighbors with kids and barking dogs, the noise reduction really does improve your quality of life. My friend has double glazing and we tested the amount of noise that can get through them compared to the single glazed windows at my house. I was impressed, and we do have noisy neighbors. Then there is the security factor. They have got to be way stronger than normal windows so it would be harder to break in. All this is even before we look at the cost saving on air conditioning. I found a good article that explains this better than me but I think I'm going to go ahead with my purchase. You can read in depth about what makes double glazing worth it here Double Glazing Benefits
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