When winter arrives, people begin to shut the window that’s been open all summer and notice that they have a draft that wasn’t there before or a twitching curtain they hadn’t ever noticed. Or that their door is letting a mini gale wind blow through their house that’s seeping in around the edges.  And so we at Essex Double Glazing Repairs begin to receive a number of enquiries relating to these issues.

Luckily enough, our experts can help cure some of these problems for you. One of the common faults is the Window friction stay hinges failing. They normally break on one side and when the window returns to the frame, the customer notices an obvious gap that wasn’t there before. If your window behaves in this way, then you will probably find that there is a plastic slider on the hinge that has become brittle and it normally splits and the metal arm that’s attached to it can no longer function in its normal way. This is more obvious to the eye that the window friction stay hinge is broken.

However, the less obvious fault which is just as common is that the window hinges either have wear and tear on the joints or the tips of the hinge are worn and they do not return the window back into the top corners properly. And sometimes this just isn’t an obvious problem to identify. A simple way to identify if your window friction stay hinges are working properly is to get a business card or thick paper and slide it between the window sash and the frame it returns onto when it’s closed. In other words, slide the card between the rubber gasket around the window and see whether the rubber gasket pinches the card enough to hold it firmly in place. Experiment by offering the card into different positions around the window and see where it is more firm or loose. When the card drops a fraction or completely falls away then you can pretty much assume that you have a broken or worn friction stay hinge.

Something else that we see a lot is people using a stick-on draft excluder tape around the window to try and cure the problem. However, this actually just makes the problem worse and is only a short term solution. By putting an extra layer of draft excluder between the closing windows, they are preventing the windows from closing properly and this can then make the windows difficult to close. This will put pressure on the window locking mechanism which may eventually break the window lock creating another problem with the window.

Another issue that can be improved or resolved is the draft around a front or back door. Again, this sometimes may or may not be obvious to the eye. Some people report daylight creeping through the gap in the door. And some people can just feel the draft with their hand. So one thing your local Romford double glazing repair specialist can do for you to improve or remove the draft you have is to realign and service your door. By realigning and adjusting the door, we can try and centre the door and improve the closure of the door so it meets better with the rubber gasket.

Some of the doors we see are old or just poorly made and not easy to improve the draft resistance as much as we try. Sometimes, on these doors another alternative could be to fit an external rubber strip which can be known as storm guard draft excluder or weather proof strip. This gets fitted to the outside of the frame and the rubber overlaps onto the door.

Again, you can check for drafts by using a business card around the door and see whether the rubber pinches the card or not.

And so there you have it. That is our tips and advice for keeping your house warmer this Winter. Give us a call if you discover any of these problems and hopefully we can help you.