Holes drilled in double glazed windows?

Resident

Resident

Resident

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So my mum is in "sheltered accommodation" and lives pretty much independently.

She's recently had issues with the living room window suffering with condensation.

She called the council, who own the facility, and they have just drilled 2 5mm holes in the outer pane and fitted some small meshed bungs.

https://imgur.com/F0P8rcp

Surely this defeats the object of them being double-glazed?
 
Resident said:
So my mum is in "sheltered accommodation" and lives pretty much independently.

She's recently had issues with the living room window suffering with condensation.

She called the council, who own the facility, and they have just drilled 2 5mm holes in the outer pane and fitted some small meshed bungs.

https://imgur.com/F0P8rcp

Surely this defeats the object of them being double-glazed?
Click to expand...

Im confused why you would do that, surely now you just end up with condensation between the panes of glass? I guess somebody who knows about windows will come along now and tell me why I am an idiot.
 
It's because the double glazed panel has failed and there is no longer a sealed space between the panes which has allowed moisture in. This might solve the condensation inside the window but will make the window less thermally efficient.
 
Burned_Alive said:
This might solve the condensation inside the window but will make the window less thermally efficient.
Click to expand...

Would it actually make any difference? If there's moisture in it then the seal must have failed already and drilling another hole in it won't make much difference?

But you're right that it's going to be a lot less thermally efficient than replacing with a new panel.
 
The job may literally have been to just fix the condensation issue. So by fitting this bung, they have completed their task!
 
Burned_Alive said:
It's because the double glazed panel has failed and there is no longer a sealed space between the panes which has allowed moisture in. This might solve the condensation inside the window but will make the window less thermally efficient.
Click to expand...

I doubt it makes much difference to it's it's thermal efficiency. They aren't vacuum sealed or anything like that.
 
I don't know anything about sheltered accommodation but I'd guess that there's probably no legal requirement that the council must fit double glazing. If the current window is weatherproof then that's probably all they need to do.
Definitely worth asking them though.
 
touch said:
I don't know anything about sheltered accommodation but I'd guess that there's probably no legal requirement that the council must fit double glazing. If the current window is weatherproof then that's probably all they need to do.
Definitely worth asking them though.
Click to expand...

Pretty poor if true that those in most need aren't meant to feel warm.
 
touch said:
I don't know anything about sheltered accommodation but I'd guess that there's probably no legal requirement that the council must fit double glazing. If the current window is weatherproof then that's probably all they need to do.
Definitely worth asking them though.
Click to expand...

When she was offered the house (well bunaglow) it was stated as having double-glazing throughout (rest of the windows are DG) & she signed a tenancy with that in place so I'm gonna go down the route of the repair does not restore the house to it's former or better state.

Sheltered accomodation is basically a bunch of bunaglows/flats that are attended by a warden (check in on residents etc, making sure they're ok but giving the residents independant living when not needed.
 
Double glazing may not have inert gas between the two sheets of glass (Anglian were the first to do so in UK) but it used to be simply air so depends on age.

The reason it works is because those little hole you see (more lines like staple holes) along the gold/silver spacer bar have silica gel bellow them and when the sealed unit is made it sucks up the moisture in the trapped air left between the two panes once they are sealed.

If the seal gives up the silica gel becomes saturated from the atmosphere so basically its knackered, you can dry out silica gel in an oven and reuse many time over and over again.
 
Resident said:
When she was offered the house (well bunaglow) it was stated as having double-glazing throughout (rest of the windows are DG) & she signed a tenancy with that in place so I'm gonna go down the route of the repair does not restore the house to it's former or better state.
Click to expand...

That might help. I'm not suggesting that you just ignore it and put up with it. I meant that you should be careful if you're going in making demands because if they're within their legal rights to do that then you could easily come up against somebody at the council who just wants to prove you wrong.
 
If it's a newer/better glazing unit, it's better just to unclip the inside of the frame and replace the sealed unit. It's a quick easy job, and not too expensive to get a new sealed unit made up.

However, older and cheaper frames don't have the ability to swap out the sealed unit. To replace a blown sealed unit involves replacing the whole frame and all the windows in it. This might be why the council have tried putting a vent in the glass to clear up the condensation, but it's trying to fix the symptoms, rather than the cause of the issue and loss of insulation from a blown sealed unit, (which they've just made a little worse by putting a hole in it).
 
It'll have been a glazier, sub-contracted to whichever firm managed to underbid the rest for the council's housing maintainence contract.
In Portsmouth, we're talking £12M+ a year (in reality it's double that, as explained below) where the works policy is solely to make good. This means the cheapest, least labour-intensive solution, per visit.

The front door on our old place was a low budget, solid wood type from the 70's. It was rotting from weather invasion and took 6 visits over 18 months, scarfing the rotten wood out of the frame and replacing the door itself with similar on three occasions - cost each time was approximately £400, and £700 to replace the door.

When they'd finally scarfed out so much of the rotten frame it needed a complete unit replacement, they finally agreed to install a £1200 PVCu unit (extra wide for my chair, with flush weather bar).

We were not allowed to just replace the door ourselves (at our expense).

It's ridiculous that the contracting firm are allowed to bill nearly £7000, to do what any competent private firm would have charged £1200 for (fitting the PVCu Unit first time round), but that's the nature of council contract tenders.

My wife's best friend is the lead surveyor for our local authority's contractor and he is appalled at just how much added expense is incurred by doing the bare minimum to fix the issue, rather than the proper job to prevent further costs (but he does enjoy the Maserati it pays for).
 
Just as an update. Contacted council, they seemed un-interested and offered no further solution.

Mum keeps complaining about having to put the heating on more since it was done.

I've secured an appointment with CAB later this week to find out if there's anything we can challenge legally with.

In my mind their "repair" has had financial deteriment to the tenant and as such entitled to re-imbursement and a competant repair to the standard that she accepted the property with.
 
Resident said:
Just as an update. Contacted council, they seemed un-interested and offered no further solution.

Mum keeps complaining about having to put the heating on more since it was done.

I've secured an appointment with CAB later this week to find out if there's anything we can challenge legally with.

In my mind their "repair" has had financial deteriment to the tenant and as such entitled to re-imbursement and a competant repair to the standard that she accepted the property with.
Click to expand...

Good luck - I don't say this with any sarcasm, just lots of experience trying to get anything out of the Local Authority/their maintenance contractor, beyond the bare minimum.

My only success was when a glazier decided to use one of my Global kitchen knives to replace the seal on a window, rather than trek the literally 20 feet to his van to get the correct tool. After three months of arguing, they finally sent me a replacement that didn't look like it had been used by a chimp to pry paving slabs.
 
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