✔ Double glazing can save you £235 per year on your energy bills
✔ It can also add up to 10% onto your home’s value
✔ 94% of English and 93% of Scottish homes have double glazing
The price of double glazing is high, but it’s a constant in modern homes for good reason.
Just by replacing your windows, you can cut your energy bills by £235, shrink your carbon footprint by 6%, make your property much more attractive to buyers, and drastically reduce the amount of noise coming into your home.
It’s therefore worth considering whether the benefits outweigh the short-term costs – and fortunately, we can help you do just that.
If you’re keen to benefit from your new windows as soon as possible, just fill in this form to receive free quotes for double glazing from our trusted suppliers.
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Is double glazing worth it?
Yes. Whatever kind of home you have, however long you’re planning on staying there, and no matter how many windows you want to replace, double glazing and its costs are worth it.
It can reduce your energy spending by £235 per year, according to the Energy Saving Trust, which means you’ll see a return on your investment straight away.
Double glazing also adds up to 10% to your home’s value, and makes it much easier to sell when that time comes.
Homebuyers expect to benefit from the way double glazing makes your house warmer, cuts your carbon footprint, and reduces noise from the outside world – and you should too.
After all, 94% of English homes and 93% of Scottish homes have double glazing.
It’s popular for a reason.
What is double glazing?
Double glazing is an energy-efficient window made by sealing two glass panes inside a frame made of materials like uPVC, wood, aluminium, and steel.
The glass panes have a gap of around 16mm between them that’s either filled with air or an inert gas like argon, krypton, or xenon.
These noble gases are heavier than air, which means they conduct heat more slowly, and therefore keep your home warmer for even longer.
Increasingly, double glazing is also made with low emissivity (low-E) glass, which is coated with a practically invisible layer of metal oxide.
This enables your windows to act like a thermos flask, reflecting the hot or cold air back into a room, and keeping your home the same temperature whether it’s summer or winter outside.
What type of double glazing do you need?
Get startedWill double glazing save you money on your energy bills?
Absolutely. Double glazing can save the average UK home £235 per year on its energy bills.
Whatever your situation, replacing single glazing with double glazing – even in just one window – will immediately cut your energy bills.
It’s simply a more efficient version of your old windows, and practically perfect in every way.
Can’t afford to fork out a few thousand pounds for a new set of windows? You could also look into draught proofing your windows to cut back on costs.
Will double glazing cut your carbon footprint?
Double glazing can reduce your annual carbon emissions by up to 405kg of CO2.
That’s the same amount of CO2 you emit by driving 2,056 miles, according to European Union data.
Keeping more energy inside your home, instead of releasing it into the atmosphere, will always benefit the climate as well as your wallet.
Want to make your house even more energy efficient? You could consider getting triple glazing. Go to our page to find out which is better, triple glazing or double glazing.
What are the benefits of double glazing?
- Lower energy bills
- A warmer home
- Less outside noise
- A less draughty home
- A reduced carbon footprint
- A more secure home
- A more valuable home that’s more attractive to buyers
Can you get any grants from the government?
There are no government grants currently available for double glazing, unfortunately.
When it was launched in September 2020, the £2bn Green Homes Grant was meant to provide 600,000 homes with energy-saving improvements over 18 months.
In the end, it was cancelled after just six months with 39,000 vouchers issued – a paltry uptake of 6.5%.
And the other most prominent recent example, the Green Deal, ended all the way back in 2015.
Still, make sure you get in touch with your local authority, as they may be able to offer grants to help you pay for double glazing.
And although they won’t subsidise your double glazing costs, schemes like the Energy Companies Obligation, Nest, Housing Aid for Older People Scheme, or Boiler Replacement Scheme could also help you to heat your home more efficiently (depending on where in Britain you live).
When will you break even on double glazing?
On average, it takes about 41.4 years to break even on double glazed windows – but that’s not the whole story.
Double glazing can also increase the price of your home by 10%, meaning that at some point in the future, your investment is likely to pay off in a big way.
And for many prospective homebuyers, a house’s lack of double glazing is an immediate dealbreaker.
This is because double glazing doesn’t just save you money on energy bills. It also benefits you in ways that can be hard to quantify in financial terms, but which make a significant impact on your everyday life.
For instance, double glazing is much better than single glazing at keeping out the sounds of the outside world, typically reducing the noise level by 35 to 40dB.
That’s actually the difference between a petrol-powered lawnmower and the gentle hum of your fridge, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
How do different double glazing frames compare?
There are four main materials you can use to make a double glazing frame. In ascending order of average price, they are: uPVC, wood, aluminium, and steel.uPVC is an energy-efficient, weatherproof frame that requires practically zero maintenance, and won’t rust or rot – unlike wood or metal.
The only potential drawback – and the reason why it’s typically the cheapest option – is design-related, but if that’s a concern, you can always get an aluminium shell or a wood effect window to help.
Wooden frames are more eco-friendly to make than uPVC frames, can be recycled, and perform excellently in terms of energy efficiency, as they don’t conduct heat.
However, they require much more maintenance than uPVC frames, both to keep them clean and to stop them from rotting.
Aluminium is a good heat conductor, which is bad, since you don’t want your window unit to conduct heat – aluminium frames lose more heat in winter and absorb more heat in summer than uPVC or wood.
Steel isn’t as good at conducting heat as aluminium, so that’s a plus, but it’s still more conductive than wood and uPVC – and as the most expensive of the four, it’s only worth it if you’re especially enamoured with the look of steel.
If you’re (justifiably) concerned about your environmental impact, don’t worry – all these frames can be recycled.
Also, regardless of which material you choose, make sure you buy windows with a high energy rating from the British Fenestration Rating Council (BFRC).
The BFRC’s scale goes from E all the way up to A++, and produces a rating that accounts for draughts, heat loss, and how much solar heat a window allows in.
If you’re trying to save money on your energy bills by getting double glazing, you should opt for A++ windows. Go big and go home.
The verdict
Double glazing is an investment that takes a while to pay off, but if you’re planning to put your home on the market soon, you’ll definitely see the benefits – and if not, you may well break even before selling anyway.
In the meantime, you’ll be able to enjoy average savings of £145 on your annual energy bill, plus a few non-financial advantages.
You’ll have a home that stays warmer in winter and cooler in summer, keeps out draughts, and prevents many of the outside world’s noises from disturbing you.
If that sounds good to you, just fill in this form to receive free quotes for new double glazing from our trusted suppliers.
