Aluminium Secondary Glazing

Secondary Glazing Guidance

Where Is It Used?

• Busy areas where traffic noise is a nuisance - even when double glazing is already fitted ( i.e. Hotels situated just off main roads).
• Ideal for use in Listed Buildings, Heritage / Conservation areas and period properties.
• As a cost effective alternative to replacing your existing single glazed windows.
• Leasehold / rented properties, where changing the existing windows may be uneconomical.
• Any property where you are unable to modify the existing external windows.
• Any window that needs noise reduction and / or draught reduction.

What Does It Look Like?

Secondary glazing involves adding an extra slim-line window in addition to your existing windows. Usually they have white frames, although we can paint them in any of over 200 RAL colours. They are made from durable aluminium so they will not rot and require very little maintenance. Aluminium is a strong and resistant, so the frames can be made to be very slim, making our secondary glazing discreet and unobtrusive.

Units are often pre-drilled and are easy to install. They are simply fixed to the existing windows or fixed into the window reveal (internal window cill). Our secondary glazing can be curved to form arched secondary glazing units.

Our Secondary Glazing System

We have the largest range of secondary glazing in europe, with many different styles (including horizontal sliders and vertical sliders) and three different systems. Consisting of our Economy odd leg, Luxury Subframe and Heavy Duty systems. Our economy odd leg system, is simply face fixed through an aluminium flange. Screw caps can be used to cover the fixing screws (not provided). Our luxury subframe system, is fixed through a wooden subframe, providing a clean, even and aesthetically pleasing finish that contributes to making our secondary blend in - see the animation on the right. Trims are provided for hiding the subframe and fixing screws. Our Heavy duty system, is the most robust system, designed to take double glazed units. A fully aluminium that is reveal fixed in much the same way an external window system.

Help Me Choose

The Optimum Air Gap - Simple Yet Effective

Increasing the width of the air gap between your secondary glazing and your existing window is a simple yet effective way to reduction of both heat loss and external noise passing through your windows. Allowing anywhere between a 100mm and 200mm air gap between the secondary glazing and the existing windows (glass to glass), will provide a substantial incremental improvement. The air gap provides an additional barrier, preventing heat and sound from passing through.

The Optimum air gap for providing sound and heat insulation is 200mm, when you start getting over 200mm it is usually uneconomical to install you secondary glazing, as the incremental acoustic improvement is so small and the thermal performance starts to decrease. We have a deeper SF3 and SF4 subframe specifically for the purpose of Reveal fixing the secondary glazing in this way.

Taking Advantage of Resonation Factor for improved Sound Insulation

When using secondary glazing for sound proofing your windows we recommend that you use a different thickness of glass in your secondary glazing than is in your existing windows, if you wish to achieve maximum sound insulation. Different frequencies of wave length (of sound) will penetrate glass of different thickness more easily.

If the glass in the existing window is 4mm single glazing and the secondary glazing uses 6.8mm glass, it will not only trap sound in the thickness of the glass, but since the resonation factor of the two pieces of glass is different, it will provide a further barrier against different frequencies of sound, compared to the 4mm glass. This is due to the fact that the frequency at which sound oscillates through different glass, compared to the rate at which it dissipates the sound waves energy is different.

Secondary Glazing Guides

To request brochures or technical manual for our secondary glazing in hard copy format you can either email us, or contact us via telephone or fax see contact page for details.

Specification & fitting Guides - Downloads
Secondary Specifications (20 page specification guide, detailing all available secondary glazing.)	(2.1 Mb)
Fitting & Measuring Guide (8 page installation and measuring guide for our secondary glazing.)	(0.4 Mb)
Glass Safety Guidelines (Guide to where you must comply with glass safety regulations.)	(0.1 Mb)

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