Art Deco windows and secondary glazing

[parkqueenie]

Thinking of putting an offer in on a beautiful Art Deco house. My one concern is that all the windows have secondary glazing. My memory of this from when I was a kid was that it made the windows really hard to clean and it caused a lot of condensation. Is that fair?

The windows are Art Deco which I think would be quite hard to get double glazed copies of without them looking cheap, so I imagine that's why the owners went for secondary glazing.

Anyone have any experience of secondary glazing or replacement Art Deco windows??

If the secondary double glazing is good quality it should be fine. It would be a travesty to remove original windows.

Secondary glazing should stop condensation if fitted correctly.

Should be nearly as good warmth wise as new upvc double glazing. And should be better sound proofing wise if small gap or much better if large gap.

In regards to cleaning it’s double the work but if it has full opening or tilts it shouldn’t be hard work just annoying. But they may be lift out units and if they’re large windows they might be a bugger to get out.

I’d ask the seller if you can test them out.

To replace the windows wouldn’t be cheap. Proper good quality metal or wood windows are crazy money. Cheap wooden windows are so crap and will be worse than old single glazed and upvc mostly don’t suit and could devalue the house if it’s something special.

Check if the house is in a conservation area. This might affect what you can do with the windows.

Our surveyor (conservation specialist) was singing the praises of modern secondary glazing so things have probably changed since your last experience of it.