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Secondary glazing

Windows

Windows

Old Oak
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Cumbria & West Kent
I’ve been making a single glazed window which will sit to the interior of two small windows and act as secondary glazing. IMG_3200.jpeg

It’s not quite finished. Needs glass. And more painting. And it’s going to get a midge screen that can sit behind the glass that isn’t there yet so that this window can be opened and closed without removing the screen.
 
The window materials (not including the flyscreen) are:

1. Redwood 20.5 x 119 for the liner
2. Redwood 44 x 44 for the casement
3. Pine 15 x 9 glass bead moulding
4. Redwood 15 x 38 for the stops
5. Two hinges 76 x 51
6. Window fastener
7. Glass 4 x 940 x 485
8. 12 screws in the liner
9. 12 nails in the stops
10. Glue for the casement

Costs were:

1. £47 for 4 PSE; used 2; Wickes
2. £26 for 4 PSE; used 2; Wickes
3. £22 for 4 PSE; used 2; Wickes
4. £27 for 10 PSE; used 2; Travis Perkins
5. £6.79 for pair; Screwfix
6. £5.75; Carlisle Glass
7. £25; Carlisle Glass

All the PSE stuff came in 2.4m lengths

Unit cost = £90.44 (including VAT, excluding glue, screws, nails, paint, glazing putty)
(23.50 + 13 + 11 + 5.40 + 6.79 + 5.75 + 25)

UPDATE: Could have saved £8.75 on this. Cost update here:
https://www.thewoodhaven2.co.uk/threads/secondary-glazing.10564/post-198277
 
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The construction is conceptually simple and - starting from PSE material and plant-on mouldings, as I did - could be achieved with a saw, a chisel, a drill, a hammer, a knife, a combination square, and a tape measure.

I actually used these items:

1. Ryoba saw
2. Flush cut saw
3. Mitre saw
4. Track saw
5. Two chisels & mallet
6. Electric planer
7. Knife
8. Pencil
9. Three combination squares
10. Roofer’s square
12. Tape measure
11. Four clamps (plus two track saw rail clamps)
12. Drill
13. Various drill bits including a self-centring drill bit
14. Hammer
15. Offcuts of wood & plywood for jigs
16. A bench with work-holding ability
17. Sandpaper
 
The secondary glazing is to sit inside a deep window reveal. The house is sandstone with thick walls so there’s room for a complete 2nd window. Not a practical solution for most houses, but it works here.

The depth of the liner is enough for the new window and its stops, plus provides space for a flyscreen to protect against midges.

The liner itself provides an opportunity to square up the opening and provides fixing points for the hinge and fastener. The window reveal has wood sides, but the wood is of unknown thickness and I didn’t want to rely on it for weight bearing.

I haven’t yet decided whether I will fill or cover the gaps between the liner and the reveal. Will wait until it’s all finally in position to decide, but will probably fill as any gaps will be small by design.

The liner is built with rebates at the end of the horizontals for the verticals to go into and then screwed together. I cut the pieces to length and crosscut the rebates on the mitre saw then used the ryoba rip saw to finish the rebates. I squared up the joints against my biggest roofing square during assembly, piloted and countersunk 3 holes at each corner, and sunk 50? mm screws to hold it all together.

The liner went together square, but later I saw that the bottom board had twisted which caused some confusion when attaching the hinges to the casement. The twist wasn’t a deal breaker and I expect to force it out when fitting into final position.
 
The casement is four lengths of 2 by 2 (44 x 44) with a rebate for the glass and bead moulding, all joined with bridle joints.

The dimensions of the rebate are determined by the dimensions of the moulding and the glass.

One dimension of the rebate is determined by the height of the bead moulding (9 mm).

The other dimension of the rebate is determined by the thickness of the glass and the depth of the moulding.

The moulding is an ovolo with a vertical flat on one edge that goes against the glass. The horizontal flat to complete the look of the moulding has to be provided by the rebate. The flat is provided by setting the moulding bead back a few mm from the edge of the rebate so the size of this gap must also be accounted for when calculating the size of the rebate. In this case the depth of the rebate is 23 mm (4 mm for the gap, 15 mm for the bead, and 4 mm for the glass).

** EDIT: WARNING The rebate should also include space (2 mm ?) for bedding material such as linseed oil putty **

I first cut the wood to length using the mitre saw & ryoba (choosing between tools based on whim) but leaving each piece a little long; the “horns” to be removed after assembly.

I’m not 100% on all the benefits of making windows over long, but given the number of times I dropped these components, I have to assume it was worth it to avoid damage to the corners. Presumably the extra length also gives some flexibility to correct measuring mistakes, but once the bridle joint is cut, you’re committed to a length so it doesn’t delay that inevitability for long.

I cut the rebates with the track saw. A very straightforward operation. The track on my Lidl track saw was long enough for the long sides so no problems.

I would have preferred to use a full length Makita track instead of two pieces of Lidl track joined together, but it turns out that my track saw doesn’t actually fit in the Makita track without modification so that was a no go. (I have a mains powered Lidl Parkside track saw bought Aug 2022).

I always clamp both ends of the track. It is 100% necessary with the Lidl track, but I do this with Festool track too. I can heartily recommend the Axminster quick track clamps for £10 for this purpose. Much more convenient than screw or lever track clamps.

The only interesting part of the operation of cutting the rebate is that I chose to start the cut of the second side with a plunge cut a few cms into the wood. The second cut would normally release the wood allowing it to fall into the gap made by the first cut. Rather than letting the detached piece flop about, the plunge cut leaves it attached behind the blade keeping it stable until the cut is complete and leaving only a very short further cut to release.

I cut the shoulders of the tenons with the mitre saw and cut the cheeks with the ryoba. Despite successfully cutting to a mark perfectly on a number of occasions, I chickened out here and cut away from the line and used a chisel to hit the marks.

I decided that I’d cut the sides of the mortice with the track saw (and chisel the waste). With the tracksaw moving horizontally, that meant holding the pieces vertically.

First I had to acknowledge the limitations of my “workbench”: an 18mm plywood top on a mitre saw stand doesn’t have any vertical surface for clamping.

So I screwed a couple of pieces of 18 mm plywood at 90 degrees to each other so that one piece could be clamped flat on the bench top and the other could hang vertically to give me that vertical surface. I added a vertical fence to the vertical surface and I was all set.

This set up works because all the pressure during the sawing operation is along the direction of the edge of the bench top, not towards the centre of the bench where the jig has little support.

Cutting the short sides went smoothly. Unfortunately the long sides were longer than the distance from floor to bench top. At this stage what I should have done was use the ryoba. Instead, I built up the support beneath the track with multiple layers of wood and plywood that I had lying around. This was safe because I clamped the heck out of it. Solid and stable. But, it turns out, my final surface wasn’t parallel to the benchtop and the track was tilted slightly. The good news is that the tilt put the saw cut into the waste side of the line, so I ended up using the ryoba to finish the cuts anyway.
 
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Links to various items mentioned so far:

Hinge

Window Fastener
www.carlisleglass.co.uk

Foxcote Foundries Black Antique IronmongeryFoxcote Foundries FF81 Bulb End Casement Fastener - Carlisle Glass Website

FF BULB END CASEMENT FASTENER BLACK ANTIQUE FF81
www.carlisleglass.co.uk www.carlisleglass.co.uk

Glass Bead Moulding

Wickes Pine Glass Bead Moulding - 15 x 9 x 2400mm | Wickes.co.uk

Wickes Pine Glass Bead Moulding - 15 x 9 x 2400mm
www.wickes.co.uk www.wickes.co.uk

Rail clamp
www.axminstertools.com

Axminster Quick Action Guide Rail Clamp - 160 x 60mm

This quick action clamp has a specially designed spigot to fit into the slot on the underside of a power tool guide rail. The spigot is compatible with the following guide rail systems, amongst others: Festool FS, Makita, Milwaukee, DeWalt, Kreg and...
www.axminstertools.com www.axminstertools.com
 
Thanks Roger. Very kind. I think I signed up to this forum 3 years ago because I was planning to make secondary glazing. I finally found the time to do it so I figured I’d better write about it too.
 
Your moniker makes sense now too.

Why the need? For insulation or noise?

Typically here, in France, the windows are set on the inside of the reveal flush to the internal walls which makes secondary glazing difficult.
 
I’m unable to add many pictures here because I’m travelling at the moment so please enjoy a couple of videos to break the monotony of the wall of text.

First up we have Yasuhiro TV showing a nicer looking version of the jig I just described for cutting bridle joints with a circular saw:


Where Yasuhiro TV uses a circular saw with a fence, I used a plunge saw on a track, but it’s basically the same jig used for the same purpose: positioning workpieces vertically so that a saw moving horizontally can make some cuts in the end of them.

Next we have the video that started it all. Here’s Mr Chickadee making secondary glazing the traditional way:

https://youtu.be/o1KvfIxdGWI

The silent wonder here uses bridle joints (which is what I did) to make his interior window (which is what I’m making). I leave you to draw the obvious parallels. (I also don’t say much in person).
 
AndyP said:
Your moniker makes sense now too.

Why the need? For insulation or noise?

Typically here, in France, the windows are set on the inside of the reveal flush to the internal walls which makes secondary glazing difficult.
Click to expand...
For insulation. It’s quiet here (very rural), but rather cold (up in the hills).

Flush to the internal walls would make it rather difficult. What’s the situation with fly screens in France?
 
With the bridle joints cut, gluing was next.

You: “Wait! I just saw Mr Chickadee whack some stakes through the hearts of those bridle joints. Shouldn’t you do that? Don't you want to draw bore them before darkness falls and they rise from their graves?”

Me: “Yeah. No. I think glue will hold it”

Normally I’m a guy that loves to make perfect the enemy of good. It’s a problem. But not on this project. I was going to peg the joints, but then I just decided not to so as to keep the momentum up and get the project across the finish line. Hope it works out!

For the glue up I used Gorilla wood glue, shoved everything together really tightly with my hands, squared up using a roofing square, and clamped each corner with pressure in only one direction across the face. A pro would surely use more clamps to close up the shoulders (if they didn’t rely on a draw bore), but I just shoved real hard and hoped the face clamp on each corner would hold things in place.

I’m not a professional. If it doesn’t work out, the only one I’m hurting is myself. But it seems like it worked OK. Everything came out square and stuck. Time will tell I guess.
 
RogerS said:
Do you use winding sticks at glue-up?
Click to expand...
No. I didn’t think of doing that. Seems like a good idea.

What I did do was dry assemble and check for square at the corners using a square, eyeball the joints & levels quite aggressively, sweep a straight edge across the front surface to see if it caught an edge, and place the piece on a flat surface both ways up and tap the corners to see if I could hear rocking.

I repeated the squaring & eyeballing once I’d added glue and checked for square again as I clamped.
 
Once the glue was set, I cut off the horns with a flush cut saw to end up with a rectangular window.

As hoped, the casement fit inside the opening of the liner with ~3mm gap all round.

I used an electric planer to ease the back of the non-hinge side just a little and set about attaching hinges.

I marked out the hinge mortises using each hinge as a template and a knife for marking. The two-band leaf of the hinge attaches to the casement and the three-band leaf attaches to the frame. I started with the casement first, chiseled the mortises, then drilled pilots for the screws.

There’s a thread on attaching the hinges, but in summary, my first attempt was not good. I was using weak hinges (not the hinges mentioned upthread - those are the good ones), but I also drilled the pilot for one of the screws off-centre which shifted the hinge position. This all meant the casement hit the frame during opening/closing.

I had to fill the original screw holes, and get new hinges. I also got self-centring drill bits for drilling the pilot holes.

Here you can see the screw holes being filled. Extra glue for the extra annoyance.

IMG_3206.jpeg

After fitting the new hinges, I could see that I needed a bit more space around the casement, so I unscrewed the hinges and shaved the outside of the casement with the track saw.

During the course of fitting and painting, I probably attached and detached the hinges about a billion times and each time it was a pain. My workshed is cramped with a low roof: not enough space to put everything flat on the bench and open the window towards the sky, not enough elbow room to open sideways without knocking stuff to the floor. Finding the angle that offered stability, access to the screws, and didn’t scatter tools was a constant quest. If I make future windows, they will have hinges on the long side and this problem will disappear.
 
Windows said:
Flush to the internal walls would make it rather difficult. What’s the situation with fly screens in France?
Click to expand...
The only ones I have seen in situ are like roller blinds that sit in a frame inside the reveal half way between the window and outside wall. For houses with hinged shutters access to open and close them is required. Many pros and cons of internally opening windows.
 
One of the lovely features of solid wood construction is that you have so much opportunity for adjusting to small inaccuracies in measurement or construction. Need a little more room? Trim it. Something not quite flat or level? Give it a little shave.

The design of the window has tolerance built in. As long as the gap around the casement looks OK and the casement abuts and overlaps the stops, it doesn’t matter if it’s millimetre-perfect.

As an interior window, it doesn’t have to be weatherproof.

The window is in a stairwell. It’s used for ventilation and light, but we don’t spend a lot of time staring through it.

It’s a pretty relaxing project, all things considered. Low stakes.

I don’t currently have any plans for seals on this window. The existing casement windows work ok for keeping out the weather and they have no seals; they just need a little help because of the glass.

But one benefit I’m hoping to get from this change is to reduce or eliminate the condensation that forms on the existing window. It’ll be interesting to see how effective this secondary glazing is at eliminating condensation.
 
Attaching the fastener was fairly straightforward compared to the hinges. I already had the self-centring drill bits when I did the fastener. But it still needed a little thought to get it right.

The first choice with a window fastener of this type is whether to use the mortice plate or the hook. This is a choice made for you by the position of the casement in relation to the frame. If the casement is set well back within the frame, you cut a mortice and use the mortice plate. Alternatively, if the face of the casement is (more or less) flush with the face of the frame, you use the hook. In this case, with the casement only set back a couple of mm from the face of the frame, I used the hook.

Most windows in the UK open outwards and fasteners are primarily designed for windows that open outwards. This window opens inwards so some care is needed.

IMG_3208.jpeg

For this fastener, when the handle and the hook are mounted at the same level, the blade contacts the back of the interior of the hook which exerts pressure to close an outward opening window, but does nothing for an inward opening window. For an inward opening window, the blade needs to contact the front of the interior of the hook which means mounting the hook deeper than the handle.

This particular fastener has a wide hook opening so the level difference is considerable (6 mm?). I marked around both hook and handle and chiseled away the wood to mount the handle on the casement at a surface depth of just 1 mm and the hook much deeper at 9 mm (2 + 1 + 6) from the surface of the frame.

While the handle plate is rectangular, the hook plate has rounded ends so I created a matching rounded notch for it by taking care with knife and chisel.
 
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Even without glass, once you’ve got a casement, hinges, fastener, liner and stops, you’ve got a window. So I had to add the stops.

My stops are just strips of wood nailed into the liner. Full width for top and bottom and shorter pieces that butt up to those for the sides. The stops serve a few purposes:
1) they define the closed position of the window
2) they exert a slight pressure against the casement so that it exerts a slight pressure against the fastener which stops everything from rattling
3) the overlap between casement and stops is what limits airflow and allows the secondary glazing to act as insulation.

To position the stops, I closed & fastened the window then shoved the bottom stop against the window until there was a little pressure against the fastener then nailed that end of the stop. Then I attempted to see if putting the stop square to the liner would work, which it did, so I nailed the other end. I then checked that positioning the other stops in line with the first would also work - all good - and nailed those too.

A stop needs to allow the window to close fully, to exert a little outward pressure to keep the fastener from rattling, and preferably to be in contact with the casement along its entire length or as close as possible. If something is out of square or bowed, it can be necessary to angle the stops a smidge or make some other adjustments. But in this case, stops square to the liner fulfilled the brief, so I was pretty happy with that.

For nails, I had some 40mm panel pins available. They were too long so I clipped the heads off and used them headless. I have no idea if these are suitable, but forces on the stops are lateral and shouldn’t be too extreme, so I hope three per stop will be OK.
 
Getting closer to being done. I have glass. 4mm toughened. Exactly the size I requested. If I had known that (rather than expecting +-2mm) I would have gone a couple of mm larger in width & height. The toughened glass orders are sent away and come back 2 weeks later so presumably Pillkington are handling this at their factory. Can you safely assume glass will come back the actual ordered size for glass like this?

Anyway the glass fits in the opening so it’s all good.

Except… when I cut the rebates I thought I was just going to hold the glass with the wooden beading only. I didn’t think about bedding the glass, so I didn’t allow for the thickness of bedding material in the depth of the rebate.

So a few choices:
1. Install glass as rebate-glass-beading with no bedding
2. Leave rebate alone, bed with very thin layer of linseed putty and hope that I’ve got enough room
3. Deepen rebate couple of mm with a router and then bed the glass on linseed putty

Not sure. This is secondary glazing so wind pressure and weather not a huge concern, but don’t want rattles.
 
Today I resized the flyscreen, installed the stops for the flyscreen, added magnets to the flyscreen and stops, and painted.

I don’t know what went wrong with my measurements, but when I put together the flyscreen it was 1cm too big in both directions so it wouldn’t fit inside the stops for the window. Fortunately the wood frame from the screen was larger than it needed to be for strength so I trimmed 5mm from all four sides with the tracksaw and moved on with my life.

I nailed the stops for the screen to the frame using 40mm panel nails.

To attach the screen I decided to try magnets.

I ended up using 10 of these magnets:
Wukong 6x3mm Mini Magnets, 100 pack £9

First I installed one magnet at the top of the screen in the middle. I used a 6mm drill bit and wiggled the drill as I went so that the hole would be fractionally larger than the magnet. I eyeballed the depth, ensuring that the hole would allow the magnet to sit just below the level of the wood. I made a similar hole in the stop, filled both holes with wood glue, then carefully inserted both magnets so that they would attract each other. I waited 30 mins for the glue to dry, tested the connection, and decided to proceed with 3 magnets on each long side and 2 magnets on each short side.

I drilled 9 further holes in the screen, filled with glue, and added magnets.

Once you have one magnet on each side that you can use as a reference, getting the polarity of the remaining magnets correct is easy. Get your stack of magnets, make sure that your stack attaches to the magnet already in the same piece, then just push magnets off the bottom of the stack without changing orientation.

To line up the position for the magnets in the opposing pieces, I dabbed osmo ebony wood filler on each of the magnets in the flyscreen, pushed the screen against the stops then drilled in the center of the marks. It wasn’t a great method, but it did work.

With 10 of these magnets the screen is well connected, has no gaps between it and the stops, and can be disconnected fairly easily too. I’ll have to attach a handle of some sort to the screen though. Can only pull the screen out currently because there’s no mesh in it.

After that a quick round of painting to cover nail holes and magnets.
 
Can you post some pictures of the overall window setup?

Window screens are a good idea. I'm always amazed that folks there don't use them.

Kirk
 
kirkpoore1 said:
Can you post some pictures of the overall window setup?

Window screens are a good idea. I'm always amazed that folks there don't use them.

Kirk
Click to expand...
Yes, window screens are a good idea. I don’t think I’d ever seen one in real life until I moved to the States, but I was an instant convert. We had some nice light aluminium-framed ones that covered double hung windows and attached from the outside. We’d put them on in late Spring and take them off late Fall. A real quality of life improvement.
 
Over here all windows are screened otherwise your home will fill with mosquitos, black flies and you name it. Bad enough the dogs bring them in.
 
duke said:
Over here all windows are screened otherwise your home will fill with mosquitos, black flies and you name it. Bad enough the dogs bring them in.
Click to expand...
Interesting to compare the respective behaviours of indigenous flying vermin. Ours still exhibit a heavily class-based hierarchy. At the top end of the hierarchy are the house flies. They never venture outside and are already inside although where they breed and lay eggs etc remains one of Life’s Mysteries.

The outside files that swarm around your head, ears and eyes…up to a 100 at a go if you don’t wear goggles and ear-defenders will never venture inside. Ditto midges. Luckily our climate isn’t conducive to mozzies. Yet
 
duke said:
Over here all windows are screened otherwise your home will fill with mosquitos, black flies and you name it. Bad enough the dogs bring them in.
Click to expand...
We have midges, mosquitoes, and clegs as the main flying biters. I think we have some kind of black fly here, but it’s not a huge problem. Bees and wasps. But also a ton of harmless insects that appear in abundant waves: flies, mayflies, and flying ants. Also it’s nice to have screens to keep moths and bats out of the house at night.

Talking of mayflies, I saw the first one of the year earlier this week. And the second one today.
 
RogerS said:
Interesting to compare the respective behaviours of indigenous flying vermin. Ours still exhibit a heavily class-based hierarchy. At the top end of the hierarchy are the house flies. They never venture outside and are already inside although where they breed and lay eggs etc remains one of Life’s Mysteries.

The outside files that swarm around your head, ears and eyes…up to a 100 at a go if you don’t wear goggles and ear-defenders will never venture inside. Ditto midges. Luckily our climate isn’t conducive to mozzies. Yet
Click to expand...
We’ve had midges in the house. And not just carried in on pets or people.

Someone told us that midges won’t enter windows above ground floor. Although they clearly prefer to stay low, I’ve seen them at that height though. I’m not taking chances.
 
Decided that the magnets weren’t going to be sufficient to withstand strong winds so I made some turn buttons, but not sure about them because it’ll mean cutting a slot for each of them in the window stops. Slots shouldn’t be visible when window closed though.IMG_3309.jpeg

The screws are 3.5 mm x 16 mm and the buttons are 1” long. Not sure what height I have since they were made from offcuts, but the buttons slope from maybe 1/4 height to full height and the slot would be 1/2 height. Buttons were rough cut with a hand saw and shaped with sandpaper.

If I’d decided to cut slots before the frame was put together, it’d be easier, but at least the frame is still on the bench. I guess I’ll just chisel them out.

For winds, 30 mph sustained and 40 mph gusts - like today, which is a beautiful sunny day - is just a normal day, so that’s why I think I need buttons.
 
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Couldn’t find a small enough chisel, but the smallest chisel I had and a Stanley knife sufficed for hacking a couple of slots.

The magnets make it very easy to fit the screen and the buttons ensure a very tight fit and provide defence against gusts ofIMG_3311.jpeg wind.
 
I briefly attempted to find a suitable metal handle for the flyscreen. I picked a nice low profile one from supplies we had lying around, but quickly saw that it wouldn’t fit and I was unlikely to find any other that would fit.

The flyscreen frame is 15 mm and sits at the back of the window stops that are 38 mm. It’s important that the flyscreen can remain in place while the window is closed, so any hardware on the front of the screen must be less than 23 mm (and realistically 20 mm is probably the limit). Since I couldn’t find anything that short, I’ll probably make something (probably a simple loop of fabric or leather). I hadn’t really planned to have a handle on the screen, so will probably use the screen for a while before fitting a handle.

IMG_3314.jpeg

It’s hard to recess hardware attached to the front of the screen because there’s not so much depth - the 15 mm is reduced on the back by the groove for the spline that holds the mesh to the flyscreen’s frame.

If I hadn’t made the sizing mistake, the extra width of the screen’s frame might have made it possible to position the handle to avoid the spline groove and allow it to be sunk 5 mm into the screen. It just wasn’t meant to be.
 
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Added some screws to attach the secondary glazing to the existing woodwork. Two screws vertically down through the bottom, two screws horizontally through the sides near the top, and an extra horizontal one in the middle of the right side for luck. I pulled the twist out of the frame as I attached the screws so hope it all holds. It’s looking pretty square. Then I covered the screw holes (and a couple of magnet depressions and knots) with osmo wood filler. I don’t particularly favour Osmo filler, but I have a surplus of Ebony filler so I’m trying to get through it.

After looking at it, the casement rebate had to be deepened, so I looked at router bits for a while, couldn’t decide on a good router set up, then set about it with a chisel instead.

I decided the easiest thing to do would be to fashion a block of an appropriate height that I could slide the chisel along to get the appropriate height for the rebate. Once I had the block, I raced around one side doing diagonal cuts, knocked out the chips, then repeated the side with paring cuts to the line. Took me about an hour for all 4 sides. I’m sure a skilled chiseller could have had it done in 5 minutes.
 
With the rebate deepened, I applied a few mm of linseed oil putty to the rebate, placed the glass, pushed it and jostled it, then put a few glazing points around the edge.

IMG_3428.jpeg
These drove home the point that I had undersized the glass slightly. In a couple of cases, pushing the point all the way home would have left too little area of the tabs overlapping the glass so I left those a little proud.

While seating the points, I could see a couple of places where the putty hadn’t reached all the way to the surface so I resolved to fill from the outside once I’d put on the beads. (I also resolved to add more putty next time)

I chiseled out space on the back of the beading for the glazing pins. I drilled 1 mm pilot holes and hammered the 15 mm pins through the beading until the pins were just below the rear surface. Then I applied the beading opposite-opposite using the smallest hammer available and a slightly non-horizontal piece of wood to protect the glass, sliding the hammer across the wood to hit home the pins.

IMG_3427.jpeg

Meanwhile, back at the frame, I applied decorator’s caulk to fill the gaps between my liner and the reveal.
 
Attached the casement to the frame. Required the help of my lovely wife since the glass made everything heavier and the staircase made the potential drop larger than when I had last attached it in the workshop. If I’d had to do it on my own, I’d have had to get ladders out and build some kind of support structure. Easier with help.

Realised that the window actually opens over the bannister, not just the stairs. V lucky the post not taller; that would have screwed things up. Got away with it by about an inch and a half so vowed not to measure stuff like that on the next one so I can get the same thrill.

Inevitably the wood had moved just slightly and the thing wouldn’t close. No biggy. Mr Stanley sorted easing the rear side of the opening edge again.

Still got some painting to do. More now because of the planing. But it’s in and draughts and noise are both reduced so seems like it’ll do the job.

IMG_3433.jpeg
 
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