Encapsulating Period Windows

Landofwood

We recently bought an Edwardian property which has some stunning original lead-lighted stained-glass windows.

Unfortunately many of the windows are cracked, some of the lead is damaged and most are painted shut.

We're considering encapsulating the windows in double-glazed units, but we're terrified that they'll look awful.

Has anyone done it? Any pictures you can share?

We have 74 windows to do, so it's a big project.

Thanks all!

gmgmgm

A big project indeed! No direct experience, but worth a phone call to some of the heritage organisations to see if they have any advice?

zareer

Hi - was recently in a similar predicament to you - leaded lights which were warped/cracked etc.

I looked into encapsulation, but felt that I would be disappointed with the results, partly because the windows were in such bad state and putting pieces of glass either side wouldn't really change that.

In the end, we bit the bullet and went for replacement of them with double-glazed units. Got a number of quotes, but all were roughly in the same range - depending on size, you are looking at £200-odd for a double-glazed fixed window, and £450ish for an opening window.

It is an absolutely huge amount of money - we have 68 windows - but felt that we either left the windows as is, or did them right.