leaded light windows need replacing. Help!

[Feltwell]

Yes, that secondary glazing panel is easy to remove, though it is quite heavy. It's a non-opening window so apart from the occasional clean it doesn't need to be removed, I just leave it in place all year round.

If you're putting in new frames I'm sure a good joiner could make them even more unobtrusive if the secondary glazing was designed in as an original part of the frame.

Couple of points to bear in mind though:-

- You'd have to convince Building Control that what you're doing gives sufficient insulation for the regs, and that you are maintaining background ventilation. Others on this forum are much more knowledgeable than me on this! Bear in mind that your local BCO may well be used to just seeing UPVC with trickle vents. I have to say though that my BCO here is a nice bloke and very pragmatic, he's quite open to alternative ideas.

- Escape in the event of a fire. Don't compromise your escape routes by fitting glazing that is hard to remove.

 

[Hatster]

Gosh - just wanted to say how great that looks, Feltwell!

 

[Hatster]

Oh yes, and that if you are repairing an existing window, it does not need to suddenly become double glazed. (We're doing this shortly, and I had a nice long chat with the lovely Cambridgeshire COs.) So if you announce strongly that they are being repaired (and this is the case), you should be ok.

On the other hand, we may be trying to persuade the COs to let us fit a small extra window in the front of the house, which would be (supposed to be) identical to a window on the back. I'm not sure whether at that point we would need to go double glazed, as then it wouldn't be quite identical to the existing window.

 

[Feltwell]

Gosh - just wanted to say how great that looks, Feltwell!

Thank you! We were lucky that even though the window was badly sagging when we bought the house - in danger of imminent collapse in fact - and had many broken pieces of glass, the previous owners elected instead of ripping it out to put that secondary glazing pane in place. And what's more, they appeared to have got someone in who made a nice job of it (there's no way the previous bloke did that himself! It would be cling film stretched across the window if he had!)

We had the expense of getting the window repaired properly, but we do like it a lot as a feature, even though it's nothing unusual or remarkable.