As some of you might know, we have recently moved into a new house and had our first child. We were planning to have kids hence we upsized to a bigger house and a new house so that we didn’t have to spend time renovating an older one. We just wanted a home that was built to a good standard and with all the major works done so we could almost just move in.
That was exactly what happened for the most part, and in general we’re happy with what we have. But in one crucial area, things could have been a lot, lot better.
Poor windows and doors
We looked around a lot of different builders, but landed on a Redrow home because we thought their homes had more character, was a better build quality, the rooms were bigger and the gardens were better sized as well. We knew we’d pay more, and we could have found cheaper for roughly the same size house, but we knew we would be sacrificing on areas we thought were important.
After three months in our new home, we’re generally very pleased with what we have. Apart from one major factor, the windows and doors. They’re just so poor!
I have changed the cylinders in the doors, a big thanks to Brisant Secure for sorting me out with cylinders I trust. They have now become the best part of the doors. I have two “composite” doors, which are only just worthy of the term, and a pair of French doors and side lights. The hinges on those have already started to come off and the doors dropped. The composite door at the front sometimes locks, sometimes doesn’t. I have permanently locked the utility room door because the locking mechanism has already started to fail and I cannot afford to leave the house with my wife and baby inside with a door that won’t lock.
The composite doors actually came White and were then sprayed a Green colour that isn’t quite Painswick and isn’t quite Chartwell Green. Surely it would have still been cheaper to buy a Chartwell Green door slab? Surely it must cost more to have another person/company spray the doors as a separate job? It makes no sense. The door handles are loose and the letter box is shoddy.
The window handles are already starting to develop faults, and I have changed one in our bedroom already to something much more solid.
Overall, the windows and doors that have been installed only just pass the necessary tests and are of no real quality. Its a shame, because everything else in the rest of the house is quality. They have just decided to cut corners on the things that really matter.
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Better standards
I won’t disclose how much we have paid for the house, but it’s not an insignificant amount. For the amount of money we, and others on the estate will be paying for their homes, and the Redrow premium, you might have thought the quality of windows and doors might be a bit better. That’s not the case.
I’m not surprised thought. I am fully aware that house builders will always choose the cheapest options that also satisfy regs to squeeze as much profit out per home as they can. Unfortunately, its the home owner that then has to suffer with poor windows and doors that may not be able to be upgraded for at least a few years due to various covenants and development rules.
For me, its time for this to change. If you’re paying hundreds of thousands of pounds for a house, surely its not too much to expect to have decent quality windows and doors installed. You wouldn’t spend £250k on a Lamborghini and then be given plastic wheel trims, you’d get crazy alloys and state of the art tech inside. So why would a house be any different?
We’re talking about vital elements of the fabric of a house here. The things that keep the weather and burglars out, and the heat in. We’re not talking about some en-suite taps.
Surely if we’re going to have to build 300k new homes per year to catch up with demand, we need them to be built to high standards, and that means installing quality windows and doors that might last more than a few years.
I would like to see house builders start to take a different stance with their homes in the future. Look less at cutting corners and invest in better windows and doors. I’d like them to get more creative as well. There is so much choice out there now, and other product types, like flush casement windows, colour etc can transform a house into one which is much more eye catching. Moreover, people will likely be OK with paying a little bit more for better products anyway.
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I think it’s great they put such cheap windows in, it means we have to change them within 10 years of install keeping everyone busy win win, I looked yesterday at a new build and it had externally glazed couldn’t believe it it, there being built as we talk with externally glazed in this day and age.
I bought a David Wilson Home for very similar reasons to the author, On the whole we are very happy, we avoided many of the issues we read about prior to completing and this was down to the site manager who was very very good. However being a door and window supplier with over 200 5 star reviews we were dissapointed with the windows and doors. The IG Truedoor composite is a joke, the mastic man sealing is 40mm thick, the Ford windows are already dropping, squeaking and failing – 3 months in but quite simply they dont care –… Read more »
Windows into New Build. Unfortunately it is cost driven. We supply trade, social housing refurbishment and new build and new build is by far the most cost critical. We have several clients who use us on negotiated schemes but when they are contracting they are very open that they cannot afford our tender price. There is very little or no difference in certification for the windows and doors, however in terms of quality, management and installation this is where we shine and our costs are greater as we want to provide a great service, which we could not at our… Read more »
The customer will always suffer poor quality doors and windows as long the likes of Persimmon and other large house builders are hell bent on profit and nothing else. They know that once they have your money there’s very you can do or they have to do to put things right
Just moved into a Redrow home and noticed that at night the rear facing windows are reflective on the inside. We can’t see outside when stood in the kitchen but can see perfectly when looking outside in. It’s like this on all rear facing windows but none of the front facing ones. I’m not an expert but my thought was that the windows have been put in the wrong way around, is this possible? The site manager is trying to say it is UV treatment but it doesn’t make sense to me! Any ideas?
Hello Martin, You can buy a detector to check if all units have been glazed with coating on same surface https://www.glassparts.co.uk/low-e-detector-and-039-dual-and-039
The building inspector should have already checked this and site manager should be able to give a glass specification which may be different upstairs to downstairs depending how old the building is.
Hope above helps, Garry