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External shutter or secondary glazing
Updated
Secondary glazing is an indoor pane for old sashes: warmth and some noise, all the time, with no change to the street. It will not stop summer sun the way an external shade will.
The difference that matters
On a listed front, secondary glazing is often the workable winter improvement, and the summer problem has to be solved with care, or not on that elevation.
A roller, a screen, a venetian and a plantation panel are four answers.
The same pane, costed
The worked opening for External shutter or secondary glazing is 4.2 m wide by 2.35 m high, 9.87 square metres of glass. This figure puts 545 watts per square metre on the pane and uses a g-value of 0.63, about 3389 watts into the room if the curtain is up. An opaque external shutter, taken as stopping 80 percent of that gain while it is fully down, leaves about 678 watts and keeps about 2711 watts out. That is a noon figure for comparison. An internal blind does not get the same reduction. For External shutter or secondary glazing, use the noon figure to compare two openings on the same house, then let a measured survey replace the figure.
Fitted illustration for External shutter or secondary glazing in Nottingham: £5,837 at September 2026 prices, for this 4.2 by 2.35 m opening with a belt. The figure allows a front-mounted aluminium curtain and ordinary fixing. It does not include scaffold, a rebuilt soffit, planning drawings, or a new window. A second opening on the same visit usually costs less than the first, because the van is already there. Compare two quotes only when the slat, the box and the drive match.
The season people forget
Winter figure for External shutter or secondary glazing: glass at 1.2 W/m2K, 9.87 square metres, a 12 degree inside-outside gap and eight night hours. The bare pane is about 1.14 kWh a night on that crude sum. A closed shutter cutting about 18 percent of the flow leaves 0.93 kWh and saves about 0.20 kWh a night, only while it is down. Open it when you want winter sun.
Pick one job
Stop External shutter or secondary glazing if the solar panel would sit in a soffit with no sky, and the quote has no wired alternative. A photograph is not a manufacturing size.
If External shutter or secondary glazing is really a privacy job on a bay, price internal louvres and stop forcing a cassette to do joinery.
How to use the figure
The 4.2 by 2.35 metre opening inside External shutter or secondary glazing is there so a quote has something to disagree with. If the tape gives a different size, the tape wins.
The example drive is a belt, and the illustration is £5,837. A belt, a wired motor and a solar motor can share a curtain and still be different jobs. Compare those lines, not a single bold total.
What the survey still has to write down
For External shutter or secondary glazing, ask where the box lands, what colour reference will be ordered, and how the curtain opens when the motor is dead. Those three answers move the job more than a rounded price.
Leave the lantern, the side light and the next elevation off the order unless they are drawn. External shutter or secondary glazing covers one kind of opening. The house may have three.
When I would not order yet
External shutter or secondary glazing should wait if the opening is an escape door with no way to raise a dead motor, or if the front is the elevation a conservation area was drawn to protect.
A photograph is not a manufacturing size. Two quotes for External shutter or secondary glazing only compare when the slat, the box and the drive are the same kind of thing.
Questions worth asking the fitter
Is the price on this page a quote?
No. £5,837 illustrates External shutter or secondary glazing for a 4.2 by 2.35 metre opening with a belt, at September 2026 rates. Your survey replaces it.
Does the shutter cover every pane?
It covers the opening it is built for. Here that example is 9.87 square metres. A roof lantern, a side light or the next elevation is another line.
What if planning is unclear?
Do not pay the factory for External shutter or secondary glazing until a listed building, a conservation front, a flat or a shopfront has a written answer. Ordinary rear walls on houses are sometimes simpler.
What should two quotes share?
The same openings, the same slat type, and the same drive. External shutter or secondary glazing uses a belt in the example so you can see how much the motor choice moves £5,837.