Recently after a suitable amount of poking with a stick by my wife we finally upgraded our house with full double glazing and all the trimmings.
Now we wont even go into how long the company took to complete the job but I can assure you (and them) that their interminable bleating about being Victims of our own success. doesn't evoke too much sympathy in the Naq household. It really translates to Our project planning is cr*p and that we don't order things in time. Anyway almost as soon as the new patio windows were put in we discovered that the outside became covered in condensation to the point of complete opacity. Since our view is straight out into the countryside opposite, being unable to see it was a bit annoying. We had never suffered a condensation problem on the old doors, also double glazed units but now equipped with umptydiddly thousand pounds worth of new windows here it was.
The suppliers then walked around the local fields to collect as much bovine excreta as possible so they could spout it at us in a feeble attempt to explain away the problem.
"It's because we haven't cleaned them yet and there's a film on them from delivery wrap"
Well that was rubbish as they cleaned them 3 times and lo and behold the problem was still there.
"It will improve with time. We'll that's about as likely as saying a pair of trousers that are too long will ride up with time.
We even sent them photos of it as they always managed to arrive after the condensation had evaporated. All that did was use up my email bandwidth sending them the pictures.
Eventually one of the installation engineers suggested that it might be something to do with the new type of glass used. This is something called Low Emissivity which is what improves the insulation properties.
So not getting any sensible answers from the company's owners I went on Google. Cutting a long story short it turns out that the problem is indeed down to this new low emissivity glass. The most common is the Pilkington 'K' glass brand which seems to be in almost all new double glazed units.
The web turned out to be full of people like myself who'd handed over wads of dosh without being made aware that this was actually quite likely to happen.
Basically because the glass and the gap betweens the panes in the unit is now even more efficient at keeping heat in, the outer surface doesn't get warmed by the room heat seeping out.
This means that the outer glass can drop below what is called the dew point temperature and - bingo - misted on the outside just like your car windscreen.
So this is all well and good but......
Why is it kept so quiet that people have to find out about it AFTER they've paid out their money?
It seems there's no way to stop it happening and on some days, like today as it happens, I've had to go out with a wiper twice to get them cleared.
So there we are. If you're having new windows be prepared that this might happen then have some harmless fun winding up the double glazing company to see if you find anyone to explain it to you.
But like always with going green, there's always a downside.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here