Replacement wooden windows and units.

[Tail End Charlie]

I'm going to replace several wooden window frames and the double glazed units. Anyone any idea what is best for the frames? So far quotes have been for "engineered redwood", "accoya" and "hardwood". I don't want UPVC.

[Aunt Maud]

As long as its guaranteed to be sapwood free and slow grown, Baltic pine will be fine with a hardwood sill. Keeping on top of the maintenance is the key to keeping timber windows alive.

If they can't do the sapwood free bit, avoid softwood. Idigbo is one of the common hardwoods used for windows, Meranti is not as durable but is widely used too.

There are loads of tropical hardwoods with weird and forrin' sounding names. Most of these are fast growing without a distinguishable margin between the sapwood and heartwood, so you don't really know what you're getting.

Avoid Southern Yellow Pine for outdoor work, as it's about 80% sapwood and not durable, although it's hard and gives a good finish for interior joinery. They use it for crates and pallets in Americania.

Douglas Fir is a decent softwood, as it's moderately durable. Spruce is a no, no, Scots Pine (Baltic Pine) is good if it's slow grown and from big trees.

If I were you I'd approach your local small joinery shop and get a price from them.

[rafletcher]

If I were you I'd approach your local small joinery shop and get a price from them.

Thats what we did. Luckily my wife had a colleague whose husband was in the building trade, and they used this joinery company for windows, mainly I believe Oak, in house renovations.  Our windows are a pine, but we were able to get the design to match the existing windows, which we felt were in keeping with the 1840's cottage we have, unlike our neighbours the majority of whom have uPVC with "Georgian" leaded lights  .

The windows were supplied glazed but unpainted.  Luckily they are small and therfore not too heavy. Another neighbour provided a recommendation for a tradesman to fit them.

[Polar Bear]

Two years ago we had an inner and outer door and frame custom made for our house.  The wood used is accoya and we treated both doors with Osmo.  To date we remain totally satisfied.  There has not been any expanding, shrinking, warping or splitting and our hallway is so much warmer now we have an inner and an outer door instead of just one door. 

Accoya comes with the bears seal of approval

[Tail End Charlie]

Thanks for replies. The quotes so far have been from small local joiners and firms but they all use different materials, so difficult to compare. The frames will be white but I note Osmo do a white covering, which is helpful. Perhaps I'm overthinking things, the quotes so far have been roughly similar.

[Little Jim]

Does it have to be wood?  There are other alternatives around.  Velfac will make you a composite window which is a wooden frame with aluminium casements on the outside, so the internal parts of the frame are wood (and you can get it in a lacquered finish if you want to see the wood) but the external finish is aluminium.  Another composite system is from Rationel who use a wooden frame with an aluminium strip "glued" to the outer face to give weather resistance.  Both of these have a slightly better U value than uPVC as the wood frame is better.  These types of window will give a more modern look so wont necessarily fit in with an older building plus the overall depth of the units is slightly more so may not fit into the existing window rebate.

Velfac still use 1990's double glazing sales techniques and will pester you continually once you've had a quote but you will be able to get quite a bit of a discount off the initial quoted price (something which really annoys me).  Rationel are much better to deal with (and both are owned by the same parent company)

Our local joiner really rates Accoya and made me an Accoya finial to replace the 30 year old rotten one that we had.  The builder who put it up for me thinks that Accoya is pants and doesn't last any longer than softwood. I'll let you know in 30 years...

[Gattopardo]

Where abouts are you.  I know a good chap on the south coast that can supply ethically sourced local wood.

[Tail End Charlie]

I do want wooden, it's to suit the rest of the house.

Thanks for the offer, Gattopardo, but I'm in the north west. I'm going to get a local joiner to do the job, visiting a couple of workshops on Friday and will discuss and make a decision after that.