Glazing of a private house and apartment: five main differences - HouseChief - online edition for modern craftsmen

Contrary to popular belief, not every person dreams of living in their own home, as they say, “on the ground”. Many countries, including ours, are rapidly urbanizing, which means that an increasingly significant part of the world's population prefers cities in their "classic", multi-storey form. But around large cities with their skyscrapers, residential complexes for a thousand and ordinary houses for fifty apartments, today there are more and more villages where people build their own, completely individual housing, embodying the eternal triad: “Build a house, plant a tree, grow son. "

Whatever your family's dwelling, it will definitely need windows. Not a single residential building can do without this architectural element, and it does not matter whether it is one or thirty floors, it is built of wood or cast from steel-reinforced concrete. But windows for apartments and for a private house differ from each other in the same way as the apartment itself and house, so their choice should be approached consciously, taking into account the characteristics of each specific type housing.

There are five key parameters of the windows of an apartment or a private house: 1) size, 2) design, 3) safety, 4) energy efficiency, 5) noise protection. A clear understanding of the difference in approaches to glazing such different objects as an apartment and a private house will allow you to choose a supplier and the contractor who is best suited to the task of making and installing windows ideally suited to your dwellings.

Dimensions (edit)

Obviously, when installing windows in an apartment, their size was determined in advance and unambiguously, the apartment is bought most often ready-made or, even in the case of a free layout, with a predetermined project size and arrangement of windows.

In suburban construction, on the contrary, the size of the windows is determined only by the wishes and, if you like, by the flight of the imagination of the future owner and architect. It is important to remember: with the modern development of technologies for the production of translucent structures, windows can be any size! Of course, everything should be within reasonable limits, but completely glass walls two or even three floors high are not at all uncommon in modern houses. So in the pursuit of natural light when building your home you can not limit yourself, the main thing here is to find a reliable manufacturer and verified installers.

Design

As in the case of dimensions, the design of the window in the apartment (in terms of its shape) is predetermined and cannot be changed. This does not mean that it is impossible, for example, to change the color of the profile. inside the apartment, shape and color of handles, fittings or choose a shade of glass, but the geometry is always set in advance. And not only geometry: some homeowners' associations may prohibit installing windows in apartments that stand out in color or design from the general appearance of the facade.

But when building your own home with window designs, you can do whatever you want! Triangular and polygonal, vaulted, even round windows are no longer a rarity. You can choose to laminate the profile to match the color of the facade on the outside and the color of the interior on the inside. It is possible to tint glass in different colors from different sides of the house in accordance with the overall design of the building and the surrounding landscape. At the same time, from the point of view of variety inside the premises, obviously, the possibilities are as wide as when glazing an apartment.

Of course, in order to fulfill such an order, a window manufacturer must have a serious production base and access to a very wide range of materials, as well as vast experience. But there are such companies on the market, for example, "Russian Windows". For the future owner of the house, it is important just not to forget that the flight of his imagination is practically not is limited and it is not at all necessary at the design stage to turn your house into a smooth wall with white squares.

Energy efficiency

The term "energy efficiency" in our climate is most often presented as an opportunity to preserve, conserve heat and not spend extra money on heating in winter. Everything seems to be logical, but not quite. In fact, energy saving is a much broader term and, oddly enough, arguments about the energy efficiency of windows both in an apartment and in a house should start... with geography!

There is a huge difference between the two types of housing here, and it lies in the fact that in most apartments only one or two sides, and the other five or four are facing the inside of the building. Yes, yes, the apartment has only six sides: one or two outside, two or three inside, floor and ceiling! In exceptional cases, when an apartment occupies half or even an entire floor, the windows may face three or four sides, but the percentage of such apartments is negligible.

The difference in approaches to glazing should be based on the awareness of the fact that each side has its own pros and cons. To the north, heat through the transparent part of the window, of course, "escapes", and it should be delayed so as not to spend money on heating, but from the south it often comes excess energy from the sun, which at times makes the temperature in rooms on the south side unbearable, forcing us to turn on at full power air conditioner. Which also, we note, does not work at all for free.

Today, on the market of translucent systems, you can find double-glazed windows that can protect both from losses (energy-saving) and from excess energy flow (sunscreen). Compliance with the energy balance, optimization of costs for maintaining a comfortable microclimate in the house on all its four sides - this is true energy efficiency.

The most common mistake of customers when glazing houses is caused by "apartment" thinking, when all windows are ordered one template, and glasses with special properties are not considered when ordering for the purpose of momentary "Savings". As a result, from the north - heat loss, from the south - overheating. And all the imaginary savings literally flies into the chimney in the first winter month or winds up on the electricity meter during a hot summer week. For reference: it is several times more expensive to cool a room overheated by the sun by several degrees from the point of view of energy consumption than to heat it by the same number of degrees.

Conclusion: for glazing a house, you need to find a contractor who works with different types of glass and can offer a suitable glass unit for any of the four cardinal points that your windows look at.

Safety

This term should be considered in two main planes: ensuring the safety of the home from the penetration of third parties and reducing the risk of injury directly from the window.

Let's start at the end. Do not forget that glass is the main element of the window. The material is brittle, breakable and, unfortunately, creates sharp cutting edges if accidentally broken. In addition, most apartments are located on high floors, where the wind is stronger than at the surface of the earth, so there are risks of injury from the doors that open or, conversely, slammed shut.

All issues related to the safety of a window are carefully worked out by manufacturers of window components. There are special types of glass that are almost impossible to break, and when they are broken, fragments do not appear. Various types of closers built into the fittings prevent sudden movements, and locks and stops make it impossible for parents' main nightmare - accidental opening of a window by children. When installing new windows, it is worth asking the contractor for the availability of such options.

All the security problems inherent in apartments are also valid for windows installed in houses. But others are added, already related to the possibility of unauthorized entry into the home (which is also relevant for apartments located on the lower floors).

To begin with, it is important to understand: if they really want to enter through the window, they will. Skilled thieves also open armored bank doors, so where do plastic and glass go? But with the right approach, it is quite possible to make life difficult for an attacker. As Nuf-Nuf said: "The pig's house should be a fortress!" And a modern house where people live - even more so. Therefore, it must be remembered that the windows you choose for your home must provide an adequate level of protection against penetration from the outside. Many manufacturers give windows anti-burglary properties already at the production stage. For example, the Russian Windows company uses SIEGENIA Titan AF fittings in its windows. The trunnions ("bolts" locking the window) have, in contrast to the elements of outdated types of fittings, mushroom-shaped, and when the windows are locked, they go behind special striking plates. This makes it impossible to squeeze the sash and requires a special cutting tool or glass to break into the room. This means that there is a noise that can attract witnesses or neighbors, so statistics show that most burglary attempts end with an attempt to squeeze the sash.

Thus, it is worth remembering that the range of security problems that windows in the house must solve is much wider than that of apartment windows, and it is worth choosing a window company that is capable of including all the necessary elements in the window design security.

Noise protection

Many people believe that noise protection is a necessary property of exclusively "city" windows. They say that cars are buzzing constantly, children are playing under the windows, but outside the city there is peace and quiet, so there is no need to defend against noise, it is not there. This is a misconception, and a rather dangerous one.

If you decide to build a house outside the city in search of silence, then noise protection plays no less, but more importance than in the city! The fact is that city noise is a relatively constant and "even" thing, without sudden changes and accents, where many sound sources merge into one, extinguish, "align" each other and become part of the usual surroundings. Try talking to someone near a busy freeway. You will have to speak, straining your throat, just to be heard. But in suburban silence, you can talk without raising your voice, at a distance of several meters, since there is no background and individual sounds seem to be loud.

In other words, if you don’t plan to listen to the birds whistling and dogs barking all night, neighbour's roosters before dawn, and when finally fall asleep - a concrete mixer and a hammer on the neighbor's site, then choose windows with the proper level of noise protection for your home. At least in those rooms where silence is really important.

We hope this article will help you set the right accents when glazing your home. The main thing is to choose a partner company that can provide a combination of of all necessary qualities: from unique design and energy efficiency to reliable protection of everyone inside, from everything outside.