We use high specification materials to ensure the quality of all our windows and doors.
Our timber
We use kiln-dried Siberian Larch as our preferred wood, because it’s the best timber we can source:
- The slow growing season in a very cold climate means that the grain is really tight and smooth, making it essentially rot-proof (Venice and St Petersburg were built on it) with no nasty chemical treatment required before painting;
- The tight and smooth grain gives a really smooth painted finish (unlike a raised-grain tropical hardwood such as Meranti) and has a beautiful appearance if you prefer natural finish;
- Our larch comes from sustainably-managed forests in Poland. The natural growth rate of Siberian Larch is more than five times the current rate of harvesting – it’s one of the very few old growth woods produced by sustainable forestry;
- Siberian larch is 45% harder than the hardest pine and has 90% heartwood content.
Our glass
Our standard argon-injected sealed units use two panes of 4mm low emissivity soft-coat Saint-Gobain Climaplus Ultra or Planibel Clear glass either side of a 12 or 16mm warm-edge spacer bar. Other types of glass (eg 6.4mm acoustic, laminated, leaded, etched, coloured, sandblasted, etc.) are available at additional cost.
- In line with the latest building regulations (October 2010) all our replacement windows meet a minimum energy efficiency requirement of U-value not greater than 1.6W/(m²K);
- The default way to achieve this is by using a 16mm warm-edge spacer and any variety of 4mm soft coat glass, but this gives you a very chunky, inelegant window. Our glass is very high-end so we can get away with a graceful 12mm spacer bar in sash windows and still achieve impressively low U-values of 1.3W/(m²K) on sash windows;
- We automatically toughen all glass free of charge at all heights below 800mm off the floor and in all common sense vulnerable areas (children’s bedrooms, behind kitchen sinks, etc).
Sash units
Standard sealed units in our sash windows are argon-injected with a 12mm warm-edge spacer bar between two panes of low emissivity 4mm AGC Planibel Clear soft coat glass, giving a U-value of 1.3W/(m2K).
Casement units
Standard sealed units in our casement windows are argon-injected with a 16mm warm-edge spacer bar between two panes of low emissivity 4mm SGG Climaplus Ultra soft coat glass, giving a U-value of 1.lW/(m2K).