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> Even the best windows and doors on the market perform much worse than even an average wall New windows here in Norway are often triple or quadruple glazed, a

> Even the best windows and doors on the market perform much worse than even an average wall New windows here in Norway are often triple or quadruple glazed, and they have a pretty good R-value; so they are not that much worse than average walls at least.

uggwar 4y ago
We just refurbished our house here in Norway. New windows and 10 cm extra insulation. I am shocked how well the windows perform! Ice on the outside, but nice and warm on the inside. Amazing!
- bjarneh 4y ago
  It's a different world. The amount of "fyring" (burning wood on the stove) we had to do before we did the renovation of the house was nuts. Also the "vindsperre" works pretty well.
- hansjorg 4y ago
  It's a bit annoying with new windows that they perform so well that you'll get dew or ice on the outside a lot of the time. Supposedly, windows with an outer self cleaning layer get less condensation, but they're quite expensive.
  - vanderZwan 4y ago
    I expect I would consider that charming, but I can imagine it gets annoying after the first week
    - geewee 4y ago
      My windows do that - I still think it's pretty fun even after some time.
  - interactivecode 4y ago
    Better than the dew and ice of the inside like with single pane windows!
  - m463 4y ago
    That sounds like the problems that happened when they switched traffic signal lights from incandescent to LED. The incandescent lights put off enough heat to keep all the lights defrosted and visible, while the LED versions could be blocked by heavy snow/ice.
ssl232 4y ago
TIL quadruple glazing is a thing. Is the light noticeably more attenuated through 4 panes of glass compared to 2 or 3?
- bestham 4y ago
  It is really hard to tell when every window is of the same dampening. But yes, I guess they lose some light.
- bjarneh 4y ago
  > Is the light noticeably more attenuated through 4 panes of glass compared to 2 or 3? I don't notice a difference now that I have two double glazed windows on top of each other (kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it), I'll include a picture here: https://spesialvinduer.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Skaara_koblet-vindu-8734-Edit-3-kopi.jpg https://spesialvinduer.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Skaara_...
  - poooogles 4y ago
    >kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it) In the UK we'd call this secondary glazing if I'm understanding the image correctly.
    - bjarneh 4y ago
      OK, an absolute nightmare to clean though. 4 surfaces on each window; and dirt/insects etc. can sneak into the space between the windows. But they look old cool and authentic I guess :-)
- bradknowles 4y ago
  In triple and quadruple glazing, you frequently don't get three or four layers of actual glass. The two outer layers are still glass, but the inner layers are usually thin sheets of plastic, and the voids are frequently filled with noble gasses like Argon for improved insulation. Although I have seen in Alaska where they do double glazing windows on the outside as storm windows, then about six inches to a foot inside of that, they have another layer of double glazing. Yes, the walls are super thick.
sgt 4y ago
Here in South Africa, single glazed is still a thing. I've been replacing all my windows with double glazing. I considered triple but that makes them very heavy and expensive. Benefits are both in hot summer and in the relatively cold winter.
- ido 4y ago
  Where in South Africa? I would guess that along the coast the weather is never extreme enough for this to matter all that much?
  - hrudham 4y ago
    Different South African here, but I grew up in Durban and now live in Cape Town, with regular visits to Johannesburg (2-4 times a year). Single-glazing is used in all three by default, despite the climate being quite different in all cases. Durban is tropical; winter (we joke that it doesn't have one) is dry, and summers are wet, but its warm year-round. Temperatures can vary quite a bit between seasons in Joburg and Cape Town. Cape Town has a Mediterranean climate; summers are warm and windy, while winters are cold and wet, often getting to 7°C at night (it's a cloudless 25°C summers day today though). Joburg can get a little colder, although its a much more dry kind of cold.
  - sgt 4y ago
    Cape Town. It matters a lot... actually, imagine 5C or even 10C outside and that cold just coming straight through the windows. That means you'll be freezing inside. In summer it also seems to help. Yesterday was 36C here and we had 25C indoors, which would had been much worse if we didn't have roof insulation and double glazed windows.
- 10u152 4y ago
  My house in Australia is all single glazed. But where I live summers aren’t that hot (rarely over 30c) and winters aren’t cold (rarely less than 10c overnight). I’ve considered double glazing but it makes no sense really
  - 4y ago
123pie123 4y ago
I'm still amazed seeing "x panes" windows that are supoosed to be great with a "trinkle vent"/ aka adjustable gap - at the top of them to let air in/ out!!!
- switch007 4y ago
  Exactly! I pleaded with the window company not to put vents in the new windows, as my house is already very draughty. They said it’s the law. They are cheap and poorly designed so they let in lots of noise too. And I had to tape them off because of the draught they let in even when closed.
  - mnw21cam 4y ago
    A house does need ventilation. It's incredible how quickly humidity and carbon dioxide build up in an enclosed space from just breathing. The carbon dioxide is bad for you (reduces your ability to concentrate), and the humidity will have to condense out somewhere (on the coldest part of the house, which will usually be the windows, but wherever it is, it'll help mould to grow). However, getting that ventilation using trickle vents in windows is just a stupid way to do it. You're letting all the heat vent out, and letting the noise in. A better way is with a mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) system. That sucks air out of some rooms (the bathroom and kitchen are recommended), and passes it through a heat exchanger before pushing it outside, while simultaneously pulling in fresh air from outside, heating it up in the heat exchanger (for free) and blowing it into other rooms (such as bedrooms and the lounge). This is the proper way to do it. A MVHR system only really makes sense if your house is otherwise fairly non-leaky. However, if you do install it, then it can take over the bathroom and kitchen extraction, and it allows you to plug all those leaks and insulate well, without causing stale air problems.
    - switch007 4y ago
      My house has plenty. I’m very sensitive to lack of fresh air, so I would know. The kitchen fitters did a terrible job and left lots of holes in the walls behind the cabinets and the floor is extremely draughty. There are huge exposed air bricks to keep the timber dry which also causes draughts everywhere downstairs even with good carpeting. And it’s open plan from the kitchen to upstairs so those draughts make their way upstairs. I also live on a hill and get plenty of prevailing wind. I spend a huge amount on energy trying to keep warm - it’s hard to know which bits to tackle to keep warm but not to cause structural and other problems… MVHR makes total sense and sounds superior. I’m sure the builders have successfully lobbied against such a sensible suggestion for decades and that’s why we have (I imagine) such stupid and basic solutions in our building regulations. I feel like UK houses lack infrastructure that the likes of the US and Europe have. Even kitchen ventilation is such an afterthought
dan-robertson 4y ago
I guess a ntuple-glazed window is going to have a lot less thermal mass than a wall (though presumably depends on the wall material too – thick stone walls will have more mass than wood+plaster). But I’ve little idea what the right amount of thermal mass is for a building.
- maratc 4y ago
  Thermal mass is usually not a factor you're looking at when choosing windows; thermal resistance is. In a nutshell, stone, concrete, metal, and glass are very good at transmitting heat, so the inside of your house will quickly be as hot (or as cold) as the outside. Plastic, wood, and especially air are very bad at transmitting heat (or good resisting to heat transmission) and this is what you want for your house. Back to windows, multiple sheets of glass are only desirable because they have an air chamber inside. Three layers of glass mean two air chambers, each at its own temperature.
  - dan-robertson 4y ago
    I know how double glazing works but if you put a window somewhere then you aren’t putting a wall there. So I’m wondering if having a much higher % window (is less wall and more glass) will cause the building to have an importantly lower thermal mass. But I don’t really know if modern buildings would want a large or small thermal mass. I’m confused by what you write about stone and concrete being good at transmitting heat. I thought the point was that (a) they act as an accumulator regulating the temperature because they take a lot of energy to heat up and (b) they conduct heat poorly (or worse than a window would be mm of thickness but they are much thicker) which is insulating. Looking up random values from the web, it seems a the low numbers for a thin concrete wall (single wythe means no cavity insulation) are about 2.5x those of a coated double glazed window. A wall which is thicker or has insulation will perform much better. And this doesn’t count any insulation from plaster or cladding or whatever. Concrete: 0.8 W/m^2K for 10cm solid dense concrete. https://ncma.org/resource/rvalues-ufactors-of-single-wythe-concrete-masonry-walls/ https://ncma.org/resource/rvalues-ufactors-of-single-wythe-c... Window: 2.1 W/m^2K for a coated especially insulating window. https://www.justrite.com.au/products-and-services/double-glazing-canberra-double-glazed-windows-and-doors-in-upvc-and-aluminium-for-new-homes-extensions-or-renovations/thermal-properties-of-double-glazed-units/ https://www.justrite.com.au/products-and-services/double-gla... I wrote about conductivity here because that’s what your comment seemed to be about. Maybe I misunderstood your comment because it seemed to me that you were implying that windows transmit less heat than eg concrete walls (reading carefully, you don’t write that) and I thought it was a given that they transmit more heat. But my question isn’t about adding windows making a building require more heating but about adding windows making a building’s temperature harder to maintain because there are not a load of big (eg) concrete blocks in the wall releasing their heat into the air after you open the door and let a load of cold air in.
tdiff 4y ago
In Russia triple-glazed windows have been as well pretty much standard for decades.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  Somehow I think that might vary a bit. 20% don't have indoor plumbing, I'd be shocked if they had 3-glass windows in those homes. Of course, standard for new construction could be it ,as I guess there is also very little new construction in poorer areas.
  - orthoxerox 4y ago
    People that don't have indoor plumbing certainly can't afford new windows, but their old (handmade) windows are usually double-glazed for warmth (and the part of the house that has single-glazed windows and uninsulated walls is abandoned for the winter. Source: spent a few summers fetching water from a well and crapping into an outdoor toilet.
hinkley 4y ago
Someone just got a patent on transparent aerogel. It'll be interesting to see if they can make window layers out of it.
- swayvil 4y ago
  Holy frijoles! https://news.mit.edu/2020/making-remarkable-material-even-better-aerogel-0225 https://news.mit.edu/2020/making-remarkable-material-even-be...
prepend 4y ago
But aren’t average walls in Norway much more insulated? So the statement is still true? What is the R-value of a Norwegian wall?
- bjarneh 4y ago
  > What is the R-value of a Norwegian wall? That varies greatly I think. There are a lot of old houses here; built to a very different standard than a modern house. Double glazed windows has been the norm for a long time though, through the invention of the easy to clean husmorvinduet or h-vinduet: https://www.h-vinduet.com/ https://www.h-vinduet.com/ Husmor translates to housewife, vindu to window (housewife window). Easy to clean, since they can flip around, i.e. you can wash the outside from the inside. So for most older homes, I guess it's a mix. For new buildings; what you say holds true I think. Speaking for myself here, my house was built around 1850-1861 (no one really knows when it was made exactly). Timber construction covered with boards on both sides; but with minimal insulation (until we started renovating the house). There are stricter rules for building new homes now, then what they had in the 1850's of course :-). A new house built now should follow the TEK17 standard made into law in 2017 (prior versions are the TEK10 standard from 2010, TEK07 from 2007, TEK97 from 1997 etc.). They regulate everything, from how much area you should have outside to how big a shed you can set up I think. Eco friendliness is an important category though; and these are the minimum requirements that came up with a google search (in Norwegian) for your question: https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-3/ https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-... Unfortunately in Norwegian as well, but they do state how much a wall/roof etc is allowed to leak; i.e. U value. As you can see (with Goole translate at least), walls should have better insulation than windows at minimum at least.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  Norwegians build fairly typical Nordic homes. 198mm (8") studs with insulation between is pretty typical. Then another 48mm (2") insulated layer on the inside for services, and optionally a 50mm (2") insulation board on the outside before the cladding is applied. So 300mm (12") insulated thickness + whatever inner/outer cladding you use would be common, but up to 400mm will happen (300mm framing + 50 either side). Thicker than that is uncommon. U would be I think ~0.18 for the worst constructions but usually better. And yes, even the best windows have higher U than this. U=0.5 is fantastic for a window, and U=1.0 to 1.2 is common even in Nordic new construction (Standard 3-glass).
Aeolun 4y ago
Quadruple glazing is insane, but it’s also ridiculously expensive.
Scoundreller 4y ago
Does Norway require insulation based on building profile or just walls must be X, windows must be Y? By building profile I mean, higher requirements if you want massive windows; to account for their lower R rating than a wall. Or higher requirements for a rectangular footprint vs a square footprint because the rectangle has a more surface area for the same volume. (Does anywhere take this approach???)
- bjarneh 4y ago
  > Does Norway require insulation based on building profile or just walls must be X, windows must be Y? It's the walls must be X, windows must be Y: https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-3/ https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-...
- hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
  You're describing a prescriptive vs performance certification route. The former gives per-component minimums, the latter whole-assembly minimums. Most codes allow both, but most builders choose prescriptive because it requires less thought.
matthiasl 4y ago
To put some numbers on "much worse" versus "not much worse": The best window I can find from the major Danish manufacturer Velfac has a total U-value of 0.82 W/°K/m² [1]. It's a triple-glazed window with argon and coatings. A typical insulated thin (100mm) wood-frame wall, i.e. the sort you'd use if you were building a summer house in Sweden has a U-value of 0.4 W/°K/m² [2], i.e. twice as good as the window above. A typical rock- or glasswool insulated wood-frame wall for a modern year-round house has a U-value of 0.2 W or better, i.e. four times as good as the window above. Wall that are so bad that they're roughly equivalent to the triple-glazed window above are something you'll mainly find in buildings from 50+ years ago, at least in Sweden. I expect Norway to be similar. [3] 'bjarneh' mentioned both triple- and quadruple-glazed windows. I've only seen quadruple used in noise-reduction applications, e.g. hotel next to a busy road. If you have a data sheet for one, it'd be interesting to see what the U-value is. One of the posters above referred to 'R-value'. It's the reciprocal of the U-value. Wikipedia has good explanations of both, as well as typical values for windows and walls. [4,5] References are mostly in Swedish, because the poster 'bjarneh' was talking about windows in Norway, so I wanted references for companies that actually sell things in Scandinavia. [1] https://products-api.velfac.com/files/11644/VELFAC%20STANDARD%20-%20V200E_SE.pdf/Download https://products-api.velfac.com/files/11644/VELFAC%20STANDAR... [2] https://www.isover.se/hur-tjock-isolering-ska-man-ha-att-fa-vissa-u-varden https://www.isover.se/hur-tjock-isolering-ska-man-ha-att-fa-.... [3] https://www.traguiden.se/konstruktion/konstruktiv-utformning/stomme/vaggar/yttervaggar/ https://www.traguiden.se/konstruktion/konstruktiv-utformning... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_transmittance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_transmittance [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-value_(insulation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-value_(insulation)
- bjarneh 4y ago
  > I've only seen quadruple used in noise-reduction applications, e.g. hotel next to a busy road. The ones we got for our house was ordered with noise reduction, but I think that basically just meant that they did not have that little valve at the top of the windows (ventil in Norwegain perhaps also in Sweedish?). My situation is somewhat special since I have a very old house (built around 1850) made from a timber frame construction (timmerkoja in Sweedish I guess?). So the walls were extremely poorly insulated, basically just some wool (or something similar, not 100% sure what it was) between the beams as they were put on top of each other during the build. Regular boards where added on both sides of the timber frame, but no additional insulation until we renovated the house. The 50 year old punctured double glaze windows - that came with the house were not doing too much in terms of insulation either. Any insulated wall will probably be better than windows, but at least here in Norway, there are a bunch of old poorly insulated houses, with double glazed windows as most everyone got these things installed when they came out: https://www.h-vinduet.com/ https://www.h-vinduet.com/ Husmorvinduet (housewife windows) was popular since they were so simple to clean; and electricity was cheap until quite recently I guess. But any wall with actual insulation will probably beat windows for insulation; although newer windows are not as terrible as the once were. > so I wanted references for companies that actually sell things in Scandinavia I guess they are manufactured elsewhere; but I think the ones we ordered was delivered from Røros-vindu, but I could not find any info about actual R/U-value for the windows on their website. Just some info about what types of gas they contain and so on.

uggwar 4y ago

We just refurbished our house here in Norway. New windows and 10 cm extra insulation. I am shocked how well the windows perform! Ice on the outside, but nice and warm on the inside. Amazing!

bjarneh 4y ago
It's a different world. The amount of "fyring" (burning wood on the stove) we had to do before we did the renovation of the house was nuts. Also the "vindsperre" works pretty well.
hansjorg 4y ago
It's a bit annoying with new windows that they perform so well that you'll get dew or ice on the outside a lot of the time. Supposedly, windows with an outer self cleaning layer get less condensation, but they're quite expensive.
- vanderZwan 4y ago
  I expect I would consider that charming, but I can imagine it gets annoying after the first week
  - geewee 4y ago
    My windows do that - I still think it's pretty fun even after some time.
- interactivecode 4y ago
  Better than the dew and ice of the inside like with single pane windows!
- m463 4y ago
  That sounds like the problems that happened when they switched traffic signal lights from incandescent to LED. The incandescent lights put off enough heat to keep all the lights defrosted and visible, while the LED versions could be blocked by heavy snow/ice.

ssl232 4y ago

TIL quadruple glazing is a thing. Is the light noticeably more attenuated through 4 panes of glass compared to 2 or 3?

bestham 4y ago
It is really hard to tell when every window is of the same dampening. But yes, I guess they lose some light.
bjarneh 4y ago
> Is the light noticeably more attenuated through 4 panes of glass compared to 2 or 3? I don't notice a difference now that I have two double glazed windows on top of each other (kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it), I'll include a picture here: https://spesialvinduer.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Skaara_koblet-vindu-8734-Edit-3-kopi.jpg https://spesialvinduer.no/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Skaara_...
- poooogles 4y ago
  >kobla vindu - I don't know the English word for it) In the UK we'd call this secondary glazing if I'm understanding the image correctly.
  - bjarneh 4y ago
    OK, an absolute nightmare to clean though. 4 surfaces on each window; and dirt/insects etc. can sneak into the space between the windows. But they look old cool and authentic I guess :-)
bradknowles 4y ago
In triple and quadruple glazing, you frequently don't get three or four layers of actual glass. The two outer layers are still glass, but the inner layers are usually thin sheets of plastic, and the voids are frequently filled with noble gasses like Argon for improved insulation. Although I have seen in Alaska where they do double glazing windows on the outside as storm windows, then about six inches to a foot inside of that, they have another layer of double glazing. Yes, the walls are super thick.

sgt 4y ago

Here in South Africa, single glazed is still a thing. I've been replacing all my windows with double glazing. I considered triple but that makes them very heavy and expensive. Benefits are both in hot summer and in the relatively cold winter.

ido 4y ago
Where in South Africa? I would guess that along the coast the weather is never extreme enough for this to matter all that much?
- hrudham 4y ago
  Different South African here, but I grew up in Durban and now live in Cape Town, with regular visits to Johannesburg (2-4 times a year). Single-glazing is used in all three by default, despite the climate being quite different in all cases. Durban is tropical; winter (we joke that it doesn't have one) is dry, and summers are wet, but its warm year-round. Temperatures can vary quite a bit between seasons in Joburg and Cape Town. Cape Town has a Mediterranean climate; summers are warm and windy, while winters are cold and wet, often getting to 7°C at night (it's a cloudless 25°C summers day today though). Joburg can get a little colder, although its a much more dry kind of cold.
- sgt 4y ago
  Cape Town. It matters a lot... actually, imagine 5C or even 10C outside and that cold just coming straight through the windows. That means you'll be freezing inside. In summer it also seems to help. Yesterday was 36C here and we had 25C indoors, which would had been much worse if we didn't have roof insulation and double glazed windows.
10u152 4y ago
My house in Australia is all single glazed. But where I live summers aren’t that hot (rarely over 30c) and winters aren’t cold (rarely less than 10c overnight). I’ve considered double glazing but it makes no sense really
- 4y ago

123pie123 4y ago

I'm still amazed seeing "x panes" windows that are supoosed to be great with a "trinkle vent"/ aka adjustable gap - at the top of them to let air in/ out!!!

switch007 4y ago
Exactly! I pleaded with the window company not to put vents in the new windows, as my house is already very draughty. They said it’s the law. They are cheap and poorly designed so they let in lots of noise too. And I had to tape them off because of the draught they let in even when closed.
- mnw21cam 4y ago
  A house does need ventilation. It's incredible how quickly humidity and carbon dioxide build up in an enclosed space from just breathing. The carbon dioxide is bad for you (reduces your ability to concentrate), and the humidity will have to condense out somewhere (on the coldest part of the house, which will usually be the windows, but wherever it is, it'll help mould to grow). However, getting that ventilation using trickle vents in windows is just a stupid way to do it. You're letting all the heat vent out, and letting the noise in. A better way is with a mechanical ventilation heat recovery (MVHR) system. That sucks air out of some rooms (the bathroom and kitchen are recommended), and passes it through a heat exchanger before pushing it outside, while simultaneously pulling in fresh air from outside, heating it up in the heat exchanger (for free) and blowing it into other rooms (such as bedrooms and the lounge). This is the proper way to do it. A MVHR system only really makes sense if your house is otherwise fairly non-leaky. However, if you do install it, then it can take over the bathroom and kitchen extraction, and it allows you to plug all those leaks and insulate well, without causing stale air problems.
  - switch007 4y ago
    My house has plenty. I’m very sensitive to lack of fresh air, so I would know. The kitchen fitters did a terrible job and left lots of holes in the walls behind the cabinets and the floor is extremely draughty. There are huge exposed air bricks to keep the timber dry which also causes draughts everywhere downstairs even with good carpeting. And it’s open plan from the kitchen to upstairs so those draughts make their way upstairs. I also live on a hill and get plenty of prevailing wind. I spend a huge amount on energy trying to keep warm - it’s hard to know which bits to tackle to keep warm but not to cause structural and other problems… MVHR makes total sense and sounds superior. I’m sure the builders have successfully lobbied against such a sensible suggestion for decades and that’s why we have (I imagine) such stupid and basic solutions in our building regulations. I feel like UK houses lack infrastructure that the likes of the US and Europe have. Even kitchen ventilation is such an afterthought

dan-robertson 4y ago

I guess a ntuple-glazed window is going to have a lot less thermal mass than a wall (though presumably depends on the wall material too – thick stone walls will have more mass than wood+plaster). But I’ve little idea what the right amount of thermal mass is for a building.

maratc 4y ago
Thermal mass is usually not a factor you're looking at when choosing windows; thermal resistance is. In a nutshell, stone, concrete, metal, and glass are very good at transmitting heat, so the inside of your house will quickly be as hot (or as cold) as the outside. Plastic, wood, and especially air are very bad at transmitting heat (or good resisting to heat transmission) and this is what you want for your house. Back to windows, multiple sheets of glass are only desirable because they have an air chamber inside. Three layers of glass mean two air chambers, each at its own temperature.
- dan-robertson 4y ago
  I know how double glazing works but if you put a window somewhere then you aren’t putting a wall there. So I’m wondering if having a much higher % window (is less wall and more glass) will cause the building to have an importantly lower thermal mass. But I don’t really know if modern buildings would want a large or small thermal mass. I’m confused by what you write about stone and concrete being good at transmitting heat. I thought the point was that (a) they act as an accumulator regulating the temperature because they take a lot of energy to heat up and (b) they conduct heat poorly (or worse than a window would be mm of thickness but they are much thicker) which is insulating. Looking up random values from the web, it seems a the low numbers for a thin concrete wall (single wythe means no cavity insulation) are about 2.5x those of a coated double glazed window. A wall which is thicker or has insulation will perform much better. And this doesn’t count any insulation from plaster or cladding or whatever. Concrete: 0.8 W/m^2K for 10cm solid dense concrete. https://ncma.org/resource/rvalues-ufactors-of-single-wythe-concrete-masonry-walls/ https://ncma.org/resource/rvalues-ufactors-of-single-wythe-c... Window: 2.1 W/m^2K for a coated especially insulating window. https://www.justrite.com.au/products-and-services/double-glazing-canberra-double-glazed-windows-and-doors-in-upvc-and-aluminium-for-new-homes-extensions-or-renovations/thermal-properties-of-double-glazed-units/ https://www.justrite.com.au/products-and-services/double-gla... I wrote about conductivity here because that’s what your comment seemed to be about. Maybe I misunderstood your comment because it seemed to me that you were implying that windows transmit less heat than eg concrete walls (reading carefully, you don’t write that) and I thought it was a given that they transmit more heat. But my question isn’t about adding windows making a building require more heating but about adding windows making a building’s temperature harder to maintain because there are not a load of big (eg) concrete blocks in the wall releasing their heat into the air after you open the door and let a load of cold air in.

tdiff 4y ago

In Russia triple-glazed windows have been as well pretty much standard for decades.

alkonaut 4y ago
Somehow I think that might vary a bit. 20% don't have indoor plumbing, I'd be shocked if they had 3-glass windows in those homes. Of course, standard for new construction could be it ,as I guess there is also very little new construction in poorer areas.
- orthoxerox 4y ago
  People that don't have indoor plumbing certainly can't afford new windows, but their old (handmade) windows are usually double-glazed for warmth (and the part of the house that has single-glazed windows and uninsulated walls is abandoned for the winter. Source: spent a few summers fetching water from a well and crapping into an outdoor toilet.

hinkley 4y ago

Someone just got a patent on transparent aerogel. It'll be interesting to see if they can make window layers out of it.

swayvil 4y ago
Holy frijoles! https://news.mit.edu/2020/making-remarkable-material-even-better-aerogel-0225 https://news.mit.edu/2020/making-remarkable-material-even-be...

prepend 4y ago

But aren’t average walls in Norway much more insulated? So the statement is still true? What is the R-value of a Norwegian wall?

bjarneh 4y ago
> What is the R-value of a Norwegian wall? That varies greatly I think. There are a lot of old houses here; built to a very different standard than a modern house. Double glazed windows has been the norm for a long time though, through the invention of the easy to clean husmorvinduet or h-vinduet: https://www.h-vinduet.com/ https://www.h-vinduet.com/ Husmor translates to housewife, vindu to window (housewife window). Easy to clean, since they can flip around, i.e. you can wash the outside from the inside. So for most older homes, I guess it's a mix. For new buildings; what you say holds true I think. Speaking for myself here, my house was built around 1850-1861 (no one really knows when it was made exactly). Timber construction covered with boards on both sides; but with minimal insulation (until we started renovating the house). There are stricter rules for building new homes now, then what they had in the 1850's of course :-). A new house built now should follow the TEK17 standard made into law in 2017 (prior versions are the TEK10 standard from 2010, TEK07 from 2007, TEK97 from 1997 etc.). They regulate everything, from how much area you should have outside to how big a shed you can set up I think. Eco friendliness is an important category though; and these are the minimum requirements that came up with a google search (in Norwegian) for your question: https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-3/ https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-... Unfortunately in Norwegian as well, but they do state how much a wall/roof etc is allowed to leak; i.e. U value. As you can see (with Goole translate at least), walls should have better insulation than windows at minimum at least.
alkonaut 4y ago
Norwegians build fairly typical Nordic homes. 198mm (8") studs with insulation between is pretty typical. Then another 48mm (2") insulated layer on the inside for services, and optionally a 50mm (2") insulation board on the outside before the cladding is applied. So 300mm (12") insulated thickness + whatever inner/outer cladding you use would be common, but up to 400mm will happen (300mm framing + 50 either side). Thicker than that is uncommon. U would be I think ~0.18 for the worst constructions but usually better. And yes, even the best windows have higher U than this. U=0.5 is fantastic for a window, and U=1.0 to 1.2 is common even in Nordic new construction (Standard 3-glass).

Aeolun 4y ago

Quadruple glazing is insane, but it’s also ridiculously expensive.

Scoundreller 4y ago

Does Norway require insulation based on building profile or just walls must be X, windows must be Y? By building profile I mean, higher requirements if you want massive windows; to account for their lower R rating than a wall. Or higher requirements for a rectangular footprint vs a square footprint because the rectangle has a more surface area for the same volume. (Does anywhere take this approach???)

bjarneh 4y ago
> Does Norway require insulation based on building profile or just walls must be X, windows must be Y? It's the walls must be X, windows must be Y: https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-3/ https://dibk.no/regelverk/byggteknisk-forskrift-tek17/14/14-...
hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
You're describing a prescriptive vs performance certification route. The former gives per-component minimums, the latter whole-assembly minimums. Most codes allow both, but most builders choose prescriptive because it requires less thought.

matthiasl 4y ago

To put some numbers on "much worse" versus "not much worse": The best window I can find from the major Danish manufacturer Velfac has a total U-value of 0.82 W/°K/m² [1]. It's a triple-glazed window with argon and coatings. A typical insulated thin (100mm) wood-frame wall, i.e. the sort you'd use if you were building a summer house in Sweden has a U-value of 0.4 W/°K/m² [2], i.e. twice as good as the window above. A typical rock- or glasswool insulated wood-frame wall for a modern year-round house has a U-value of 0.2 W or better, i.e. four times as good as the window above. Wall that are so bad that they're roughly equivalent to the triple-glazed window above are something you'll mainly find in buildings from 50+ years ago, at least in Sweden. I expect Norway to be similar. [3] 'bjarneh' mentioned both triple- and quadruple-glazed windows. I've only seen quadruple used in noise-reduction applications, e.g. hotel next to a busy road. If you have a data sheet for one, it'd be interesting to see what the U-value is. One of the posters above referred to 'R-value'. It's the reciprocal of the U-value. Wikipedia has good explanations of both, as well as typical values for windows and walls. [4,5] References are mostly in Swedish, because the poster 'bjarneh' was talking about windows in Norway, so I wanted references for companies that actually sell things in Scandinavia. [1] https://products-api.velfac.com/files/11644/VELFAC%20STANDARD%20-%20V200E_SE.pdf/Download https://products-api.velfac.com/files/11644/VELFAC%20STANDAR... [2] https://www.isover.se/hur-tjock-isolering-ska-man-ha-att-fa-vissa-u-varden https://www.isover.se/hur-tjock-isolering-ska-man-ha-att-fa-.... [3] https://www.traguiden.se/konstruktion/konstruktiv-utformning/stomme/vaggar/yttervaggar/ https://www.traguiden.se/konstruktion/konstruktiv-utformning... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_transmittance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_transmittance [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-value_(insulation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-value_(insulation)

bjarneh 4y ago
> I've only seen quadruple used in noise-reduction applications, e.g. hotel next to a busy road. The ones we got for our house was ordered with noise reduction, but I think that basically just meant that they did not have that little valve at the top of the windows (ventil in Norwegain perhaps also in Sweedish?). My situation is somewhat special since I have a very old house (built around 1850) made from a timber frame construction (timmerkoja in Sweedish I guess?). So the walls were extremely poorly insulated, basically just some wool (or something similar, not 100% sure what it was) between the beams as they were put on top of each other during the build. Regular boards where added on both sides of the timber frame, but no additional insulation until we renovated the house. The 50 year old punctured double glaze windows - that came with the house were not doing too much in terms of insulation either. Any insulated wall will probably be better than windows, but at least here in Norway, there are a bunch of old poorly insulated houses, with double glazed windows as most everyone got these things installed when they came out: https://www.h-vinduet.com/ https://www.h-vinduet.com/ Husmorvinduet (housewife windows) was popular since they were so simple to clean; and electricity was cheap until quite recently I guess. But any wall with actual insulation will probably beat windows for insulation; although newer windows are not as terrible as the once were. > so I wanted references for companies that actually sell things in Scandinavia I guess they are manufactured elsewhere; but I think the ones we ordered was delivered from Røros-vindu, but I could not find any info about actual R/U-value for the windows on their website. Just some info about what types of gas they contain and so on.