House Glazing Options
From ancient places of worship to cutting-edge new builds, house glazing options remain a focal point of architectural aesthetics. Natural light’s power to freshen spaces and even improve a resident’s health pushes window design to the very top of any renovator’s agenda. As a vital link between inside and out, windows can enhance views from inside a building while adding timeless clarity to a home’s curb appeal.
When optimising your windows for construction, renovation, or repair, it’s well worth familiarising yourself with the full spectrum of house glazing options. Many houses benefit best from a carefully curated mix of glazing options to suit each home.
Glazing Options for Doors
Glass side-panels and fanlights provide glazing’s answer to brightening up an imposing front door. Incorporating glazing into front doors sheds light on gloomy hallways, as freshness comes and goes with the flow of guests. Fanlights, popular in Victorian and Edwardian homes, sit atop the door, drawing the eye upwards and letting natural light filter down. Their style captures the classic look, and their height allows for privacy and security.
Where for eye-height panels might raise these concerns, ensure your doors are security-accredited. Consider a frosted or tinted finish to let light in but keep unwanted eyes out.
For glass door solutions, aluminium bi-fold doors lead the current market. Their segmented designs require smaller panes, making them cheaper and stronger than French windows or sliding doors. By folding away neatly, they maximise spaces and views. Bi-fold doors create an uninterrupted flow of natural light and fresh air through the building.
Adding Natural Light to Your Walls
Glass doesn’t have to be traditional. Panes don’t have to sit in regular frames, and can even serve a structural role when in a floor-to-ceiling wall. Glazing panels themselves shouldn’t bear any weight, but when used in conjunction with tough beams and frames, can unlock breath-taking vistas from inside and out.
Clerestory windows’ are a traditional option made modern, suitable for houses old and new. Their archaic name, from the old English’ clear story’, shows just how far back their history goes. Originating in glazed upper-floors of religious buildings, clerestory windows create a soft ambient light that flows between floors. When installed below roofs and ceilings, clerestory windows save wall space and allow natural light to highlight centrepieces like artworks of bookshelves.
Glazed links allow light to flood between rooms, where light is needed most. Original house designs might offer a set amount of light for the building. Extensions would therefore create blindspots in the flow of light, as additions create new, unlit rooms. One way of combating this problem is through glazed links or glass passages. Glazed links, with glass walls and even glass ceilings, turn dark hallways into glowing highlights. Structural glazing creates a ‘wall of glass’ effect, loved by guests and sun-hungry indoor plants alike.
House Glazing Options For The Roof
Drawing in natural light from above, a favoured tool by designers and architects, becomes invaluable in home aesthetics. Skylights are already a well-known example of this trend, installed in sloping roofs to create a window to the heavens. One thing to bear in mind is reach: if your skylight opens a lofty roof, consider a remote or switch-operated system to prevent accidents attempting to reach it.
Sun tunnels are a simpler, purified form of skylights and can light up internal rooms or even basements. Featuring a glazed dome at the top of a building, sun tunnels provide a flexible tube within the house, through which natural light can be plumbed into other rooms. They can draw the sun from light-saturated south-facing areas and distribute it throughout a building, shedding light on a home’s heart.
At the other end of the roof light spectrum, you have multi-panel glazed domes or a Sheerline S1 roof lantern. These complex glazing masterpieces are perfect for a showpiece kitchen or living room, and pair well with customised LEDs.
Internal Glazing
Whether you’re creating zones within a studio flat or helping light flow through a many-roomed house, internal glazing is a versatile modern option
Internal glass dividers and help separate a home into satisfying room-spaces, whilst maintaining uninterrupted paths for sunlight and eyesight to move through space. Creating room-zones in this way allows for the possibility of frosting patterns to add privacy. It even provides a reusable writing surface for reminders and to-do lists.
As popular as aluminium bi-fold doors are for patios and gardens, they also come in handy in internal doorways between rooms. They represent the perfect meeting place between privacy and lighting and can be customised for any occasion.
