Alu-clad wooden windows - need help to decide

PennyFox

We are building an extension to our 1930's bungalow and trying to achieve a well insulated/sort of ecofriendly build (sort of because the budget has already eliminated solar domestic hot water and ecofriendly insulation materials and some other eco-stuff)

We have now received all but one of our window quotes. As we are already behind schedule and most of these suppliers have an 8-10 week lead time to delivery I need to decide on the supplier asap and order by the end of the week if poss. Any help or advice, any supplier to be avoided or recommended - all information is very welcome, I really need help on this.

Quoted for:
2 windows 1400mm wide by 2100mm high (one section of 700mm fixed, one tilt and turn), 1 external door 800mm by 2100mm, patio doors 2800mm wide by 2100mm high (four sections of 700mm each, inner two as french doors, outer two fixed), two tilt and turn windows 800mm wide by 1600mm high

Specification: aluminium clad wooden double glazed window, RAL colour on alu outside, wood stain on inside; U-values as low as poss but not Passiv House standard

Quotes received:

Adpol (windows from Poland): £7727 inc VAT&Deliv; 8-9 weeks

ecomerchant (windows from Germany): £6861 inc VAT&Deliv; 4-5 weeks

Internorm (windows from Austria): £8684 inc VAT&Deliv&inst; 8-9 weeks

Nordan (windows from Norway): still waiting; 8-10 weeks

Rawington (windows from Germany): £8058 inc VAT&Deliv&inst; 8-9 weeks

Russell Timbertechnology (windows from Glasgow): £7737 inc VAT&Deliv; 7-8 weeks

I would like to chose ecomerchant, obviously due to the price but also because of the short lead time but their windows have the highest U-value of 1.54-1.56 for the whole window. Is that as high as it seems or is this quite good? In comparison, Internorm claims a U-value of 1.1 for the whole window.

Has anybody used their windows? Would you recommend them? Is it worth waiting for Nordan? Is the aluminium cladding pointless and should I just opt for wood alone?

I would appreciate any input on this as I have only ever bought PVC windows and no experience with wooden windows.

Thanks in advance,
Penny

P.S the ecomerchant quote is for tilt and slide patio doors, the other suppliers couldn't do them or they were too expensive so I had them quote for French doors instead.

poly1

Did you decide on your windows? Just asking because we fitting Alu-clad windows to our house because of the maintenance issues with just wooden windows, alu cladding means very low maintenance. If you need any further help you can PM me or reply here.

ytfcmad

You cant get 1.1 u value for whole window but you can for centre pane only.

1.5 is qute good, you cant tell the differance between 5.5 and 1.5 let alone 1.1 and 1.5.

Why dont you just get Aluminium windows?

simonm_3

Be very careful when using ecomerchant. While the website dosen't mention it, the company went bankrupt in the early part of 2009. In our case with £900 of our money, for oak floorboards. They had sat on our money for about a month prior to going bankrupt. We were alerted to them going bankrupt when the oak supplier spoke to us and said they had just been sent back to them 'the supplier', this was a day before the official bankruptcy, dodgy!

We saw the list of creditors (they owed about £150,000), all seemed to be mainly customers rather than suppliers, this became clear when literally within days of going bankrupt the company opened again, same name, same location, same website, same stock and what appears to be same people! The stock, valued at £65,000 was sold to the old / new staff for £2,000. We had requested to attend the winding up, interestingly we didn't get an invite, we would have certainly bought the stock for a bit more than £2,500.

We had also bought similar windows from ecomerchant as mentioned above, all warranties are now worthless - we used their higher cost installers to ensure we had the full warranty! This business of going bankrupt and re-opening is apparently legal and normal, though in my opinion immoral!

Take care using this company.