What kind of windows have you chosen for your homes?

Question

What kind of windows have you chosen for your homes?

windows

Are they single leaves? Double-paned? What width and height? Double casement with or without middle sash? What are the advantages and disadvantages of these windows?

Our house will be an urban villa with exterior dimensions of 10.72x8.62 m. What kind of windows would you like for it? Visually, we like two sash windows better. But which is more practical?

Berlin

Answers

We have an urban villa with similar dimensions (8x10.5m). We did a top/bottom 2x 2 sash for the south exit, with a fixed bottom window at the top that we chose.

The advantage of a split floor-to-ceiling top window: you don't need a grille in front of it, which might not look good either.

Disadvantage: you can only open a small part of the window when you tilt it, to clean the bottom element from the outside, you either have to lean forward or reach in from below

Because of the ventilation system, we hardly open the windows anyway. There is also another window in the children's room (you can see).

In an urban villa, it is very important that the arrangement of the windows look symmetrical on the outside, otherwise it will look quite strange. It is best to go to the new building areas and look at examples, successful and not so successful.

Rogerio Roggenbuck

What are the dimensions of your windows?

The windows have a mounting width of 1.75 m at the top / bottom according to the drawing. Washing such windows is a little more difficult, but we have the Kärcher. Spray once, wait 2 minutes and then remove with the unit. Done. Floor-to-ceiling windows let in lots of light and look good. The advantage of an enclosed downstairs is that even small children can play here, including those overlooking the street.

ps: Another common drawback: if you want to use pleated blinds, our item will be really expensive, because the width of the pleated blind determines the price (we have only one pleated blind for ~$250)

This is purely a matter of taste. Especially if it is an urban villa, you have all the options.

Discuss this with your architect. He will recommend window facades depending on the location of the house.

Daedalus Karachalios

Floor-to-ceiling windows with fixed bottom glass are fine with me. However, I decided against them because, as you write, these windows are a bit difficult to clean.

The Huge Scepter

We have on the ground floor

2 x floor depth 1.86 m (bedroom, living room)

1 x floor depth 4 m (2m+2m fixed) (living room)

2 x floor depth 1 m (living room, HWR)

1 x 3m lift-slide door (dining area)

1 x 94 parapet 1,86 m with fixed parts for sink (kitchen)

1 x 94 parapet 1 m (kitchen)

1 x 100 cm parapet 0.75 m (WC)

1 x front door with side part 1,86 (hall)

We have on the upper floor

4 x 40 sill 1,86 m with fixed parts at the bottom (children's room, office, guest)

2 x skylight (bathroom, HWR OG)

2 x parapet 0.75 in the cold roof

All 1.86 widths are double-leaf.

We are very pleased with the 40 sill heights in the upstairs – airier than normal sill heights, but more private than floor-to-ceiling (sounds silly, but hard to describe)

The 4 m in the living room makes the room very bright. 3 m lift-slide door is very practical as it can stand open without interfering (no idea if you will use this in practice later) – these are my impressions.

Lora Salazar

We were told that a 1.20 m wide window with one sash (as triple glazing) was too heavy.

So we chose all windows and doors from 1.20 m with two sashes without central pillars

Jamie E.

score 1 · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-30 21:21:41

First of all (ideally this is done by an architect, but often construction is done without one), I would determine the lighting requirements for individual rooms. Depending on the size of the room there are (minimum) window areas, which can now be expanded as desired. Children's rooms need to be lighter, but for the guest bathroom it's somehow not as important.

In my opinion, especially beautiful corner windows or rooms with windows on two adjacent walls. This process needs to be coordinated again and again with the views of the house (which are more or less determined by the floor plan).

Whether there will now be one or two casements depends primarily on the width of the window. Very wide windows result in heavy sashes that also protrude far into the room when the window is open. It makes sense that you would have a lot of double casement windows (because you identified large window areas for lots of light in the first step).

With or without a center window (no means double sided window) is a matter of taste. Without a post, the possible free opening will be larger, but the second sash cannot be tilted and can only be opened when the first one is open (so you need to decide which sash should be first; turn-and-tilt). In the case of French windows, the center bar is narrower (lighter), but one or the other will find it asymmetrical.

Floor-to-ceiling elements are in vogue, giving lots of light but, in my opinion, extremely limiting possible furniture. If you don't like the view at the back of regular desks (with all the WiFi cables and extension cords included).

One more thing: large windows are more expensive than small windows. Windows are more expensive than regular walls.

We chose all double casement windows as double sash windows. There are no floor-to-ceiling elements on the top floor.

I like the 40 cm parapet height too. If it fits in with the overall concept, it is especially good in a child's room (little people playing can still look), or in the bedroom (lying down to see the beautiful garden), or in the bathroom (lying in the tub to see the beautiful garden). We decided not to do this for a variety of reasons, but we are also building more of a model home rather than an architect-designed home.