Can this tech solve triple glazing's biggest problems?

Triple glazing doesn't have to be excessively heavy and thick

Steve Massey of Regency Glass holds a sample that demonstrates the glass pane thicknesses and one possible spacing option in a “thin” triple glazing unit. Photo by Regency Glass.

When Steve Massey saw window fitters struggling to heave triple-glazed window units around on a job in Scotland earlier this year, he understood why the fitters commonly remark about how difficult the technology can be to install: “I thought, ‘Bloody hell, I know what they mean now’.” He tried to pick one of the windows up himself – and couldn’t.

Massey is chief sales officer at Regency Glass, a glazing manufacturer in the north of England. His company has made double glazing window units for decades but, later this year, the firm plans to launch a new kind of triple glazing to the British market.

It says that “thin” triple glazing could make the technology far easier to install in people’s existing window frames – which would make triple glazing more accessible to those keen to retrofit their homes and slash heat loss.

Triple glazing, with its three separate panes of glass, can be significantly more insulating than double glazing.

“You’ve got a large area taken up by windows and doors,” says Deborah Adkins at the University of the West of England Bristol. “Reducing the heat loss through those areas is a no brainer.” The Energy Savings Trust estimates that homes lose around 18% of their heat through windows and doors.