What actually goes into the price of new windows

Price is not measured by the square metre

A quote “per square metre of joinery” sounds simple and is often asked for, but it hides what drives the cost. Two windows of the same area can differ by a factor of two — one is fixed, the other is a double tilt-and-turn with hardware on three sides.

That is why a serious quote is built item by item: every opening separately, with its own size, opening method and contents.

Six things that make up the price

• Profile — chamber count and installation depth. Three chambers cost less than six; the difference comes back through heating.
• Glazing — double, triple, Low-E, acoustic. Triple is heavier and needs stronger hardware, so it raises that cost too.
• Hardware — number of locking points and the manufacturer. Hardware is used the most and fails first if it is poor.
• Colour — white is the colour of the profile itself and the cheapest. A RAL or wood-decor foil is an extra operation, and a two-sided foil another.
• Steel reinforcement — mandatory on large sashes. This is the item most often quietly dropped to bring a quote down.
• Installation — stripping out the old joinery, foam, sealing, adjustment and removing the debris.

Three items almost always forgotten

External sill and window board. New joinery has a different installation depth from the old, so the old sizes no longer fit. In nine cases out of ten they are replaced with the window. If they are not in the quote, they will be paid for later — plus another visit.

Making good the reveals. After the old joinery comes out, the reveal is left broken. Someone has to close it, and that should be written into the quote.

Shutters and insect screens. If you are planning them, doing them together with the joinery costs less than adding them afterwards as retrofit units.

How to compare two quotes

Put them side by side and check five things:

• Whether both have the same number of items and the same dimensions.
• Whether the profile and hardware manufacturer is named, or it just says “six-chamber profile”.
• Whether the glazing make-up is stated (e.g. 4/16/4) or only “double glazed”.
• Whether sills and window boards are in or out of the price.
• Whether installation is included and exactly what it covers.

Why we do not quote over the phone

Because it would be wrong. Without measuring the openings, without seeing the state of the reveals and without agreeing how each window opens, any figure is a guess — and guesses get corrected upwards, which suits nobody.

The visit and the measuring are free. After them you get a quote that shows what costs what, and what can be left out if you need to hit a number.