Questions and answers

For a normal-sized window in a heated room, metal-plastic insulates better for the money. For a large opening, aluminium is the right answer.

The reason is structural. PVC needs a thick section and a steel core to stay rigid, so as an opening grows the frame grows with it and you lose glass area. Aluminium is strong enough to hold the same opening in a much slimmer profile — more daylight, less frame.

Aluminium in a heated space should always be thermally broken. Without that barrier it conducts heat straight out of the building and collects condensation on the inside in winter.

The glass. In a typical opening the sealed unit is around eighty percent of the area, so it decides how warm the room is far more than the frame does.

People shop for profiles and chamber counts, but a good frame around a poor glass unit is a poor window. The things that matter in the unit are the low-emissivity coating, the gas fill and the spacer at the edge.

A thermal break is an insulating polyamide bridge between the inner and outer halves of an aluminium profile, so the cold outer face never touches the warm inner one. You need one in any heated space.

Aluminium conducts heat extremely well, which is useful in a saucepan and a problem in a wall. Without a thermal break the frame loses heat continuously and runs with condensation on the inside in cold weather.

Non-broken aluminium is still correct for unheated uses — balcony enclosures, partitions, shopfront frames in unconditioned spaces.

Yes. Salt-laden air attacks coatings and fixings, so on the coast the finish specification matters as much as the profile system.

That means a coating specified for marine conditions rather than a standard powder coat, gaskets that stay elastic under UV and salt, and stainless fixings where they are exposed. Wind load is also higher on seafront elevations, which affects glass thickness and how a large sliding door has to be built.

A window specified for an inland flat in Tbilisi and the same window on a seafront balcony in Batumi are not the same product.

Noise is a glass problem far more than a frame problem, and the single most effective change is to stop the two panes matching. Two panes of the same thickness resonate together at the same frequencies; make one thicker than the other — 4 mm against 6 mm, say — and each damps what the other lets through.

Beyond that: laminated glass helps most, because the plastic interlayer absorbs vibration rather than passing it on, and a wider gap between panes helps more than a wider frame. Triple glazing is sold for noise but is aimed at heat — a well-chosen double unit usually beats a standard triple one on sound.

The last part is not glass at all. A perfectly specified window sealed badly into the wall will still let noise past the frame, so insist the gap is filled and sealed properly rather than foamed and covered.

Which build-up suits your street depends on how loud it is and what is making the noise, so tell us at the measuring visit and we will specify against it.

There is no list price, because no two openings are the same. What decides the figure is the profile system, the glass build-up, how many sashes open and in what way, and what the site itself demands — access, fixings, and whether something has to come out before anything goes in.

That is why the measurement comes first. We take the sizes, look at the opening, and price the actual job — rather than quoting a square-metre average that changes the moment somebody arrives and sees it.

Measuring and quoting are free in Batumi and Tbilisi.

Yes, we measure on site. It is free in Batumi and Tbilisi; anywhere else in Georgia there is a small charge for the visit.

The visit is not only measuring. It is where we see the opening, the access and the state of the reveal — which is what turns an approximate price into a real one, and what stops the surprises that arrive later on a job priced over the phone.

Five years on aluminium and metal-plastic constructions, covering water getting through, the finish changing colour, and the frame or sash deforming.

Those three are what actually goes wrong with a badly made window: water finding a way through a joint, a finish that fades or chalks under sun and salt air, and a sash that drops or bows out of square over the years. A warranty that names them is a warranty against the things that happen.

The whole of Georgia. The two factories are in Batumi and Tbilisi, and we work out of both.

Measuring is free in those two cities. Elsewhere in the country the visit carries a small charge, and everything after it — manufacture, delivery and installation — works the same way wherever the job is.