Deer Park

We live in a very old stone-built barn that was converted in around 1990[…] set in the Deer Park of an ancient Devon estate and constructed many 100s of years ago. When we moved in 1998, we quickly realised that the single glazed, Georgian style windows were poor in terms of keeping the cold out and letting the light in. We decided to do the work ourselves replacing the glass and Georgian bars with double glazed units, it cost us £1,500! We were very happy with the improved windows, until we started looking at our Carbon Footprint in a more serious way. We discovered that our double-glazing windows were responsible for nearly 40% of our heat loss. By then our windows were showing their 25 years of service, so they were next in line.

We wanted the best quality solution that our limited budget allowed. There were many choices, mostly 2 or even 3 times the cost of me making my own windows.

Having decided to get triple-glazing in wooden frames, I started contacting various supplies/distributors of the short list of window manufacturers we’d made. Normally all windows for a project would be ordered in one go, unfortunately our budget would not allow this. Worse still, I’d discovered that not all windows did what they claimed, even some well known manufacturers fell short. This meant that I wanted to try one window before buying 21 to make sure the product was of the quality we wanted and I could get it supplied and installed in stages. We have access restrictions to the property and I was doing my own installation of some pretty heavy windows.

I have to say that Ecotec made the decision for us. They were happy with me ordering just one ‘trial’ window, listened and responded promptly to all my numerous questions and were very friendly. Everything went to plan with a slight hiccup on the size of the delivery vehicle, but the driver was patient enough to wait and help with the final leg of the trip. Installation was straight forward once I recruited enough helpers to lift the unit into place.

The first window was duly measured and tested over a winter season, remarkably it conformed to the U-Value for the glazing and was a revelation in what an affordable high-quality window should be. I could now look out onto the garden while washing up without window frames obscuring my view and no condensation problems. We’ve since ordered and installed another 13 windows with another 7 left to go, hopefully this year. The finish, internal and external, is unscathed after 3 years of quite harsh conditions. Ecotec of course sorted the first delivery hiccup by organising a perfect delivery vehicle to reach our front door and a really nice driver for the next two occasions. We are certainly very happy!