Is triple glazing worth it? Heatwave planning and noise considerations

[Windows1991]

We're looking at replacing all our windows (They're at least 30yo and we get a lot of water ingress when it rains amongst other problems). Getting mixed messages about whether triple glazing is worth it, mainly for heat (hello heatwaves) and a bit for noise. We're on a normal 30mph type road but it's a big route into the city so we get sirens at night a few times a week, it's a bus route etc.

Does anyone have triple and can tell me if it's worth it, or why whenever I mention we'd like a quote for triple the window people don't seem keen? None of them have managed to really explain why it's not worth it.

I have no experience of triple, but the frames are clearly a problem for you.
timber with thin double glazing and then magnetic secondary glazing will be financially sensible now and long term and solve all those challenges

My parents in law have triple glazing and I couldn't believe the noise reduction compared to double glazing. The first time I was in their house I was sitting on the couch watching the cars go past not able to hear them at all (granted, they were driving relatively slowly as it was a residential area, but it was impressive nonetheless!)

If noise reduction is important to you it may well be worth it.

Helpful! Yes, noise reduction is a big added bonus though the original concern was extra heat protection 😂

We had triple glazing installed at our previous house and we're very happy with it, I am sure it made a difference with heat & noise.

When we were looking we had s lot of companies telling us it wasn't worth it, hinges would not take the weight, openers would be too heavy to move etc etc but these were the companies that were unable to supply TG anyway!
Went with a regional company who were able to provide TG at 10% more than their quote for DG.
Installation was fine and in the 8yrs we were there before we moved, we never had any of the "issues" prophisised by the other companies.

One excellent thing we did (which is as relevant for DG as TG) was to have every fixed window manufactured as a dummy opener, meant that every frame was the same size and from the outside you could not distinguish an opener from a fixed pane. Much more aesthetically pleasing than most aftermarket windows where the openers & non-openers are clearly identifiable.

We have triple, it's been worth it for us. We live on a busy road and it considerably reduces noise.

We have it on our large patio doors. It certainly sound proofs very well and also insulates. My DH has a piece of equipment (?) which he points at walls (and triple glazed windows) and can tell the insulation is the same. (We thermally insulated our walls doing a refurb).

I do believe however that double glazing has improved greatly over the past few years (but have no personal knowledge)

I don’t have triple glazing. What I can tell you though that for dealing with the heatwaves in my south-facing top-floor flat, the absolute best thing has been a parasol clamped to my balcony railing - it is putting my window into shade. In your shoes I would stick to double glazing and put put any extra cash into shutters or awnings to provide shade. Also look into glass types - some let in more solar radiation than others.

Regarding noise - you need to look at the manufacturer’s specifications. Again some windows are better than others. And remember than decibels are logarithmic rather than linear, so if a window reduces 50db noise to 40db that is a 90% reduction (not 20%).

Interestingly we have had some quotes through today and TG throughout only adds about 5% onto the final amount. So I think we're going to go for it.

Definitely worth it for noise reduction. Not sure about heat.

Thank you @dizzydizzydizzy for the advice of stopping light hitting the glass in the first place - we already have a robust internal system of reflective film, fitted blinds, a thermal reflective roller blind and thermal curtains on all windows so I think we're covered for all non-structural add-ons 😁 We can't add anything else to the front because of where we are, so that's as far as can take it.

On the back however we also have bedsheets on the outside of the windows, as well as whiting chalk painted on the glass both internally and externally. We take heat seriously here 😂

This equipment sounds amazing btw

Triple is only about 0.2 W/m²K better than modern HR++ double so it won't make that much of a difference to insulation unless you've got an enormous surface area. We're debating it replacing our old 80s double, but we're in a quiet area so I'm not sure it's worth it.

If you want it for heat you can get heat reflective glass, we have it on our skylights and bifolds, you can get it on windows too. I would ask about that.

WRT noise I think double glazing these days is very good, you can get acoustic glass which we have in our loft conversion and it's brilliant

We put in triple glazing in our old house and the heat in the house was amazing. We don’t live in a heatwave or even a hot area of the UK so being cool wasn’t a consideration so I have no idea how it performs in a heatwave.
We also didn’t live in a busy place so we didn’t get it for noise however there was very little to no noise in the house.

He's in bed now but I'll ask him tomorrow. It's a little hand held inexpensive thing he bought when we were renovating. He's stopped going round the rooms now and testing all the walls, thank goodness.

He's in bed now but I'll ask him tomorrow. It's a little hand held inexpensive thing he bought when we were renovating. He's stopped going round the rooms now and testing all the walls, thank goodness.

Probably a laser thermometer?

So nowadays if you replace the frames you have to have trickle vents which in my opinion are horrible, they let draft and noise in (or at least the ones in our old house did). In our new house we had misted windows and it was the glazing at fault not the frame, we have no issues now we have replaced the glass. So you could look at replacing just the glazing for laminate (also called acoustic) or triple glazing.

Apparently laminate glass is better than triple for noise reduction but I’m not sure if that’s true. Laminate glass is basically 2 panes stuck together to make one thick bit of glass, then you have an air gap and then a standard pane of glass.

We replaced two rooms in our house with laminate glazing for noise reduction and also because the existing windows were misted.

Acoustic glass comes in 3 types 6mm, 8mm and 10mm. This relates to the thickness of the laminate glass pane. Then there is an air gap and then a 4mm standard glass pane on the outside of the windows.

Most standard windows have a 28 mm gap for glazing (as is the case with ours), this meant we did not have enough depth for the 10mm acoustic glass or for triple glazing. We did the 8mm acoustic instead which is 8mm laminate glass, 16mm air gap, 4mm standard glass.

For us we can still hear cars, lawnmowers etc. but it really takes the edge off.

When I touch the glass it also feels less hot in the sun but I don’t know if that helps the heat coming into the room or not.

Hope that helps.

could be...there was a red light. I missed him this morning so haven't asked.

We had TG in a flat on a busy road. It was amazing! Really worth while.

not sure about insulation personally.