Long Compton Wooden Window Energy Efficiency Upgrade

Another relatively small project, but by no means less impactful. This Cotswold bungalow has been stripped of its white plastic in favour of the far better option of knot-free, slow-grown Nordic pine timber.

Getting straight to it: we love the front door. It looks solid, premium and has simplistically powerful design. This stance is helped by the increased width (the door is well over 1m wide) and the contrasting darker grey compared to the windows – the door is RAL7016 Anthracite Grey both inside and out.

For the windows, the softer RAL7035 Light Grey was used. This is a great alternative to the common standard white options, and really helps lift the house without making it hugely stand out from the surrounding white windows.

The choice to keep the small fanlights is a rare one for us, simply because they aren’t a normal item in Denmark (and these windows are made in Denmark). However, listening to the customer, it made a lot of sense to keep them. Having lived with these fanlights for many years, they were very accustomed to using the small toplights, and didn’t want to reduce practically: a decision that we can very much understand.

We changed the smaller (bathroom) window to the right of the front door very slightly: this was originally hinged at the side, which we thought was a little strange for a ground floor bathroom… Replacing with a top-hinged window makes much more sense, because a person walking past on the pavement outside gets much less of a view-through when the window is open.

For installation, a performance window really needs a performance install. After the units were mechanically fixed in place, expanding foam creates an airtight surround, and expanding compriband tape creates the final weather seal. This is the proper, German method of installing Class 4 Airtight windows.

Products used:

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