Would you buy a house with single glazing? Help me decide which house

[bananamonkey]

I have totally lost all perspective :(

We accepted an offer on our flat, found somewhere we liked, all was proceeding well till our buyers started messing us around and pulled out. We lost the house we were trying to purchase.

Now we have a new buyer and need to find a new house, there's not as much on the market now as a couple of months ago. We've seen 2 houses this week that we like but I can't decide which one I like more.

1. [Link removed at OP's request]

This street is not so pretty although it's in a great area, is in great school catchment, has 3 generous bedrooms and just has a lovely feel to it.

1. [Link removed at OP's request]

On paper this looks like my dream house but it didn't grab me as much as I thought it would and I just don't know why. DH loves it but likes both houses. This has fantastic living space downstairs (an extra room vs. house 1), is on a prettier street in the same area as house 1, is not in the great school catchment but in a decent one. The small 3rd bedroom and single glazing are putting me off though. It wouldn't have been so bad but the bedrooms had additional plug-in heaters in them and there was black mould in the bathroom which set off alarm bells. Is this house going to be drafty and damp? It's right at the top of our budget so we couldn't afford to get new windows and I'm anxious about the money as it is.

We've seen so many houses now I have house blindness!

Single glazed windows are rarely the cause of damp etc. They do benefit from secondary glazing (preferably removable in summer) but many had shutters originally which are great. Or blinds and thick curtains. Cold and damp tends to come from inadequate air circulation, cold bridging (Crittall windows sadly aren't great for that, I know these aren't Crittall, but look elsewhere as well as the windows), rising damp, leaking pipes and gutters and roof tiles or flashing, inadequate wall or roof insulation, extensions, inadequate venting of damp activities like drying washing or showering or cooking, etc. The windows are not the greatest source of heat loss, they're just the most obvious source of draughts when poorly maintained.

Once they're gone it would be daft to reinstate single glazing except for inappropriate changes to listed buildings. But upvc has a very short lifetime of about 20 years, and it actually takes about 50 years to recoup the financial outlay of upvc from reduced heating bills, so they never pay their way. I'm about to move into a late Victorian house which has been upvc-d. I've had to mentally budget to replace the windows with decent double glazed wooden sashes as the upvc ones fail, but this will enhance the value and looks. And the upvc windows obstruct the shutters, which have been painted shut, so I'm looking forward to restoring those.

One note on the house with more downstairs rooms: the lounge in the middle isn't pictured, but from my experience is likely to be very dark, effectively making the addition of a significant extension like that a bit pointless. The very useful independent access to the back garden has been blocked too, so I would avoid that house for those reasons rather than the glazing.

I'd go for house 1. House 2 is very beautiful but looks overdone and I couldn't imagine actually living in it. House 1 looks easier to live in and hopefully warmer and less maintenance as well.

House two looks much nicer to live in. The kitchen is lovely and the garden is better. Have you cooked on an aga? If the extension is insulated then that house will be warm as the aga will keep the house a nice ambient temp.

You can interline the curtains with a lovely thick wadding and you could add thermal blinds in the winter. You could seal any major draughs. This would then be warmer than double glazing.

However schools....a good school would be the decider for me, just how much better is the good school?

Cornopean - excellent post, thank you.

I don't want to derail the thread further but will say that we have one, horrible, UPVC window where a sash window used to be, and I can safely say it is the most useless, stuck, ugly and ineffectual window in the house - even having it open in the summer you don't get any air flow. It creaks in the wind and sometimes the handle won't budge at all. It's 5 years old.

The sash windows in the children's rooms are like fans! and they work much better. Thankfully they left the box in place so one day it's going to be wooden again.

Sophie I agree wooden windows are much nicer, all I was saying was that if OP didn't have the money, not to beat herself up about existing windows if she couldn't afford to change them.

Some people genuinely don't have the money to get wooden windows, they are shockingly expensive. Say you're on a salary of c. £20k with children to support, it's genuinely unaffordable. I would love to have them, but could never afford them.

So to sneer at someone for their lack of taste is not really nice over things that are so out of reach for many people.

I'm not sneering, honestly I'm not. I hope it didn't come across that way.

The houses in the OP both have wooden windows I thought? Why would I be criticising someone's taste or budget by explaining why it isn't necessary to change them?

Sorry I'm a bit confused.

BTW - we could never in a lifetime afford to replace our windows with new wooden ones. There is only the one UPVC which I want to replace one day before I die, but the rest are sash and we've had a few of them overhauled a bit so the sills aren't rotting and they can be closed properly.

I would never, ever dream of telling someone to go and buy new wooden windows in a house with UPVC already installed.

That's so far from my point it's ridiculous. When you have already got wooden windows that can be sorted though - surely that is sensible to try and retain them rather than replacing them at all?

House No. 2 is gorgeous.

House 2 shows an aga in the kitchen, but the details say "space for an aga". Are they removing it? Huge expense to replace it, although they are fantastic. I would go for house 1.

The dining area in house 2 is nice but I don't like the kitchen it's laid out strangely and there doesn't seem to be wall units, which may be fine if you don't mind that but is there enough cupboard storage?
It also has 2 front doors???
If I saw electric heaters in bedrooms I would assume the house was cold because why else would you need them that would put me off.
I like house 1

Sorry Sophie - my mistake. I had got confused and thought one of the houses had plastic ones

That bathroom in house 1 could be completely re-done and maybe create an en suite for the bedroom next to it too - exterior house 2 but interior layout, which is where you're spending all your time and doing all your living definitely house 1.

you could also - with house 1, if you wished, close off the double doors into the dining room and create a doorway in the hallway into the living room instead, make it a completely separate room for grown ups when there are kids running around :) (long term plans of course)

really, you are right. House 1 has UPVC (plastic) DG windows. House 2 has original wooden sash, SG windows.

I'm sorry, I really just wanted to address the OP's concern about living with single glazed windows long term and reassure her that there was no need, probably, to change or replace them.

I wasn't aware that one of the houses already had double glazing. I should have read properly but I stand by my arguments that keeping the old windows is probably a good route to take whatever they are.

At no point did I think I was being critical of her taste. I am sorry for any misunderstanding. But really sneering isn't something I do so that was an 'ouch' to read

Thanks again, we'd never choose to replace sash windows with upvc, house 1 has them already, they're not pretty but it's probably not something I'd rush out to replace. As I understand it to replace wooden sashes with like for like double glazing would be tens of thousands which we wouldn't be able to do anytime soon for house 2.

Great ideas to improve house 1 over time, thanks. There's a similar one come up today on the same St that is over our budget but beautifully done so we can get some style inspiration!

Have reported the OP to request the links are removed in case anyone is concerned, although I've seen other threads containing Rightmove links with no issues raised.

On balance OP, windows notwithstanding I actually prefer house #1

I hope you manage to decide which you would be happiest in. I don't see windows as the be all and end all but taken as part of the general picture I suppose.

Sometimes we all have to compromise - they are both really nice houses, anyway.

No worries Sophie that's the thing with the written word - so easy to misinterpret nuances!

Agreed - both are actually lovely, and when you compare to what they'd cost in London...