New central Heating & Double Glazing advice 7 January 2005 at 1:09AM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in In my home (includes DIY) MoneySaving 9 replies 1.3K views

Discogod

Hi, advise please anyone?

moved into this house (my first) last August. The winter so far as made me decide to sort out the heating in this place. I'm in the process of getting Loft insulation & Cavity walls done through the council (not with grants though - none available to me). I'm also looking into getting either/both central heating & double glazing done in the summer months.

The previous owner mentioned that she had a quote for central heating for £2500. I do not know who this was from, or what was entailed etc etc... to put it bluntly, all i know about central heating is it's got radiators, boilers, water/gas. So, please can someone advise on the best suppliers (cheaper the better, but would like quality). Also advice on what kind of system to go for? I'm in a mid-terraced house, downstairs is a living room with a gas fire & an unheated kitchen and toilet. Upstairs there are officially 3 bedrooms, but we only use one, the other two are more or less a couple of studies. One of these has a gas fire also (not as good though). There is also a bathroom upstairs.

Same goes for double glazing please & probably doors will be needed also.

I am based in Nottingham

Thanks to anybody who can help in any way at all,

Nile

Hello Discogod

When we installed UPVC double glazing (~8 years ago), we did it in two stages. The front of the house was first, then we did the back of the house the following year.

Their were two reasons why we did this. To spread the cost over two years and to see if we could trust the glazing firm and get them back to do the rear of the house..........which we did.

How did we chose the firm? We asked friends and work colleagues for their recommendations, several recommended the one we eventually chose. We got quotes from four other firms to compare and went with the recommended firm.

Unfortunately, this firm isn't a national chain...........so unless you live in East Yorkshire they won't be much help to you.

Can't offer any help with the central heating because it was already installed in the house.

shrek101

I would also go witha local firm. If you new to the area ask around. There's been a lot of bad publicty over recent years with large national companies.

Also its worth going for virgin PVC. Virgin PVC that being new PVC some of the other PVC is recycled. Often the cheap PVC can be poor quality and within a few years goes yellow just like if you had a smoker in the house and the white paint goes yellow, it looks horrid.


There are various types of glass you can get, if you live in a noisey area like I do (traffic noise) I went for a glass that has a filing of Arcon gas between the two panes, whilst this doesnt stop all trafic noise (they only a few feet away) it is still better than the standard product. I am not sure how much extra that costs but I really didnt have the much choice because the previous double glazing didnt help much and it was driving me nuts listening to the bloddy traffic which often was louder than the TV.

plumb1_2

Central heating,Cheap and quality= oil and water

robowen

Hi, advise please anyone?

moved into this house (my first) last August.  The winter so far as made me decide to sort out the heating in this place.  I'm in the process of getting Loft insulation & Cavity walls done through the council (not with grants though - none available to me).  I'm also looking into getting either/both central heating & double glazing done in the summer months.

The previous owner mentioned that she had a quote for central heating for £2500.  I do not know who this was from, or what was entailed etc etc... to put it bluntly, all i know about central heating is it's got radiators, boilers, water/gas.  So, please can someone advise on the best suppliers (cheaper the better, but would like quality).  Also advice on what kind of system to go for?  I'm in a mid-terraced house, downstairs is a living room with a gas fire & an unheated kitchen and toilet.  Upstairs there are officially 3 bedrooms, but we only use one, the other two are more or less a couple of studies.  One of these has a gas fire also (not as good though).  There is also a bathroom upstairs.

Same goes for double glazing please & probably doors will be needed also.

I am based in Nottingham

Thanks to anybody who can help in any way at all,

For £2500 I would expect a very good make of boiler.
Worcester Bosch or Vaillant perhaps.
If they give you a ravenheat or biasi, they can get them from b&Q for around £700 inc rads plus £200 for sundries.

quoia

Hi, advise please anyone?

..... double glazing done in the summer months.

Same goes for double glazing please & probably doors will be needed also.

I am based in Nottingham

Thanks to anybody who can help in any way at all,

I'd 200% recommend a company based at Langley Mill called FASTFRAME.

We (in Derby) had uPVC windows and French doors installed by them about a year ago.

They came to our "rescue" big time.

We'd had several quotes and picked a company called Express Windows. Top quality product and very good price.
The day came for them to turn up and they didn't.
We thought something was wrong by about 10.30am and by 11am we knew.
The company phone number was just ringing out with no answer but we had the mobile numbers of 2 salesman we had dealt with.
1st one did not reveal any information other than he had left the company 2 weeks earlier and was now working for Coldseal.
2nd salesman turned out also to be now working for Coldseal and had been doing so for 2 weeks - the point at which Express Windows had ceased trading.
Fortunately we had not parted with a penny - no deposit paid of any sort.

A bit of digging revealed some interesting information.

Namely that FASTFRAME at Langley Mill actually manufactured all the windows and doors for Express Windows and were owed about £300,000 by them.
At one point we did wonder if our windows had been made and were actually sitting in their warehouse, but they wern't. We even visited FastFrame to double check, spoke to a couple of senior managers and explained how we had been left in the lurch.

They said they were still picking up the pieces themselves and would be in touch a few days later.
Accordingly they were and they offered to do exactly the job that Express should have done BUT WITH A 10% DISCOUNT on the original quote !!!

We agreed, they sent a surveyor to double check the job and the windows were available for installation within a week.

At that time FASTFRAME did not do RESIDENTIAL installations as such, the business being the manufacture and supply of windows etc. PLUS COMMERCIAL (shops, offices etc.) installs.

Initially FastFrame planned to use one of their teams from the commercial installs but realising the scope of the overall problem and the opportunity it presented they recruited some of the installers that they knew to be "top notch" who had previously worked for Express windows.

Anyway, they turned up on time, worked almost without pause from dawn till dusk in some very dirty, unpleasant (hottest week of the year) and difficult conditions. (I won't go into details but it wasn't take an old window out and fit a new one of the same size in the hole that's left - lots of cutting of concrete sills and similar)

The original surveyor had estimated the job to be 2.5 to 3 days work.
It actually took 5days because of my very specific requirements (previously asked for & agreed at the outset) for the manner of install and cosmetic finish required. The fitters realised at the end of the 4th day how much work was still outstanding for the Friday so they started an hour early and finished just before 8 PM that night!

The product is superb and we've had no problems with it.

The uPVC profile called DECEUNINCK is a top quality Belgian extrusion made under licence by only 2 companies in the UK.
FastFrame is one of them and serves the Midlands and the North. (I think the one that serves the South is in Hertfordshire)

Since we had ours replaced my brother-in-law has also used FastFrame, on my recommendation initially, having 3 or 4 windows done, only to call them back a few weeks later to have another 5 or 6 windows replaced AND have a conservatory built.

He was well impressed on both occasions!

Discogod

wow, thankyou ALL very very much for your contributions! I've got a couple of questions.

Central heating....... what type is best, ie gas/oil etc, which is cheaper?

Another quite important question to me.... if i have on ly the money to afford one this summer, which would you advise getting first, heating or windows?

I'll definitely check our the company suggested in the previous post, thanks so much everyone

Nile

It's a personal choice but if I could only afford to do one thing.........I'd get central heating installed first.

quoia

.... if i have only the money to afford one this summer, which would you advise getting first, heating or windows?

Personally I think I'd do the double glazing first.

Your house will feel a lot warmer if you stop all the draughts that you probably have with your old windows, and significantly reduce the heat loss that you have through a single pane of glass by fitting 2 panes with an insulation air gap.

If you put in central heating first, a certain percentage of its running costs will be used to fund the extra heat needed to maintain all of that that is escaping through the glass and any gaps in the opening panes.

LKEMS

Hi,

I think it depends on the state of your windows and how much heat you get coming from your neighbours. I was in exactly the same position as you last year. I bought a mid-terraced house with no heating (well a rubbish hot air system in one room), and single glazing.

I hate cold, so I decided to get central heating put in first. But also, my windows are OK, the wood is pretty sound and no draughts get through, apart from the obvious heat lost due to single glazing. So I have had a lovely warm winter, with my gas bills only being about £15/month. Now I'm looking into the cost of windows.

I think being a terrace, the extra cost you will pay for heat lost through single glazed windows is negligable, and double glazing will not heat the place up on it's own! But it is a personal choice - the 70 year old guy who I bought the house from had lived in it for 30 years with no proper heating!