Single glazed sash windows

[Houseqqq]

How freezing will we be in winter?? We’ve seen a beautiful house and its grade ll listed. Sash windows with shutters. Are they as bad as everyone says?

Don't underestimate the awesomeness of double glazing. We moved from a 10 year old insulated box to a draughty 1930s house with retro fitted secondary glazing. We moved in late October.

Every morning I'd have to slide the secondary glass back and dry the insides of the windows. When it was really cold, I had to de-ice from the inside. It's not just the windows in older houses but the lack of cavity walls and potential damp that just adds to it. We replaced all the windows and it is amazing now. Our house wasn't listed obviously so was fairly simple to replace our windows.

We have single glazed sashes. We have to Karcher the bedroom windows every morning in winter. But our bills aren’t horrendous - 4 bed Victorian terrace and we pay £190 a month year round and we both work from
home which I don’t think is that bad for a house of our size. You will need to keep on top of maintenance though.

Tbh shutters make a huge difference so it might not be too bad. We also have secondary plastic magnetic glazing which is just about thin enough to fit and still be able to use the shutters.
We also close a couple of rooms in winter and only heat one or two rooms during the day at the weekends to help a bit with bills.

We have huge single glazed sash windows. It’s not as bad as we thought. We have shutters in the living room which helps a lot with condensation and keeping heat in. I do need to wipe the bedroom windows down on cold winter mornings but needed to do that in the last place which had double glazed PVC windows. We also don’t get any mould which we did with the plastic windows. Also my heating bills are not higher. If you go for it ask the surveyor to check the windows - half of mine were painted shut!

We are in a Georgian house (so typically 6 panes of glass to a sash). We had the sashes refurbed and fitted with draught excluding brushes, which helped a lot. Some of the windows have the PVC magnetic double glazing. That made a big difference, but the seal isn’t perfect. A very cheap version to try while you ponder options is the plastic “clingfilm” that you shrink on with a hairdryer. We’ve had it on a window we open and close a lot. Admittedly we are quite gentle, but it is still going strong after two winters (no window vac required!).

If you aren’t listed, there is some very expensive gas-filled replacement glass. It seems to be working well on a house near me.

Working shutters will make a big difference (and are useful for keeping summer heat out as well as winter heat in).

I live in a Gr2 listed Georgian house.
My conservation officer agreed that it was reasonable to double glaze my sashes when I had them refurbished, but I did have to have a specific type of double glazing (I can’t remember what it is exactly, but the gap is very very small and therefore they don’t look double glazed). A sash specialist will know what this is. I also have shutters, as my windows are huge, and my house opens straight onto the street. So this overall is far more in keeping with the listing than what was in place before, which was hideous plastic 1970s retro fitted secondary glazing. Speak to your conservation officer. Mine is very reasonable; my house is listed and in a conservation area but their position is that sensitive modernisation is preferable to not improving just to keep ‘original’ fittings.

I’m in a G2 terrace (listed mid-70’s, from memory). We’ve lived here for yonks. The Cons Officer’s view seems to be:
Original glass - keep the stuff (even if wafer-thin and appalling for heat retention). Hence the secondary options.
Unapproved refurb that they didn’t notice decades ago, but can be proven: Go ahead!
Inappropriate refurb that did get through a decade ago- yes, because you can make it nicer.