Double Glazing On The Web

OK I’ve heard it all now – always with my ear to the ground for all things Double Glazing, never did I think I’d come across a car with it installed! Apparently I was wrong though. According to Girlracer website, the superior interior of the Audi A8 is indeed ‘shielded from the elements by double glazing’ well I never!
Read more on the website though, it’s not as daft as it sounds … green credentials etc.
http://www.girlracer.co.uk/motoring/news/2561-new-audi-a8-revealed.html

With the world’s leaders meeting in Copenhagen this December for the UN summit on Climate Change, the government is coming under increasing pressure to meet our CO2 emissions targets. Frankly, as a leading developed nation, the UK’s performance to date has been shameful. Therefore The Glass and Glazing Federation (GGF) are gaining support for their petitioning of the government to introduce a Windows Scrappage Scheme.

If granted the scheme would operate in a similar fashion to the controversial (and not very green) vehicle scrappage scheme, effectively allowing householders and landlords to renew old and badly fitted windows with a cash incentive of £1000, providing it is used to buy professionally installed, energy efficient double glazing.

With the glazing industry currently representing in the region of 100,000 jobs, it is hoped that as well as reducing CO2 emissions, it would also boost employment figures, not to mention reducing consumer’s energy bills.

The petition is available on the official website of the Prime Minister: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/windowscrappage.

Ludicrous new plans have been unearthed regarding a new government stealth tax on everything from views, to parking spaces, patios and conservatories! The proposed taxation on would be imposed through the council tax system and has already come under serious scrutiny and heavy opposition .

Perhaps more controversial than the proposed tax itself is the investigative work, already undertaken by the Labour government, into over 100,000 individual homes. Aside from the strong moral objection to the nanny state, surely the money spent alone in employing tax collectors to carry out in-depth assessments on everything from the width of a balcony to the extent of the view, cannot possibly be justified?

The extent of the surveying is mind-boggling; even the difference in the type of conservatory would be considered a contributory factor when calculating the level of added tax. The Valuation Office Agency, which is compiling the massive database of every home, has divided the three-quarters of a million people with conservatories into groups, for example, double-glazed conservatories will be hit harder than those with single glazing or lean-to’s.

Malcolm Moss, MP for North East Cambridgeshire, has today been quoted as saying “Only Labour would think of taxing people for having double-glazed windows or a patio. I hope Gordon Brown will see sense and scrap these plans immediately.” – We can but hope!

The government are backing a new competition launched this month designed to promote energy efficiency within Britain’s communities.  

British Gas who are currently spear heading the environmental message, will donate £2 million to be distributed amongst community groups best able to make use of measures such as double glazing and insulation.

The scheme is designed to help generate energy-saving ideas for public buildings throughout the UK.

Yet more proof that simple measures like double glazing, really can make a difference in reducing the nations carbon emissions not to mention our heating bills!

In a bid to stop people turning to cowboy workmen, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has urged the government to drop VAT on home renovations, such as double glazing, insulation and other improvement work from the current level of 15%t to just 5%.

Supported by the National Home Improvement Council (NHIC), the FSB acknowledges that by avoiding VAT, cowboy builders have been able to offer discounts on work. The warning to homeowners is that employing an unqualified builder can prove a false economy as projects are left unfinished and can often fail to meet necessary standards.

MP Claims for double glazing. This is not only old news by today’s standards, but it’s also rather dull. The news that MP’s have been claiming hand over fist for all sorts of weird and wonderful things that are not strictly in the tax payers interest or in line with them actually doing their jobs, has been done to death by the media over the past weeks.

Shock horror – MP’s are corrupt, who would have thought it? Surely this is a new phenomenon because they have developed such gleaming credentials for integrity and morality over the centuries, something terrible must have happened to throw them all off course … yarda, yarda, yarda. 

Double glazing on the other hand, sadly for those of us not above the law, is a necessary cost for every savvy homeowner. The reduction of noise levels, heat loss and environmental damage alone, make it the only sensible option for glazing your home, be it replacing old windows or installing glazing into an extension or conservatory, it is the only way to go.

On a more positive note, even though we have to pay for it ourselves, using Double Glazing On The Web means that double glazing our homes will cost an awful lot less than the average MP’s expenses!

This year’s G09 awards will be held on Friday 1st October at the prestigious Wembley Stadium; home of English football and one of the greatest sporting venues in the World. 

G09 is the latest in the G Awards which are now in their 6th consecutive year. The Awards recognise individual and corporate achievements in raising and improving the standards, performance and products of the industry as a whole; glazing, fenestration and relevant construction.

Recognised as the ‘Oscars’ of the glass and glazing business, the G09 Awards will combine with a 3 day G exhibition and the annual conference of the Glass & Glazing Federation (GGF), creating what organizers hope will be the most comprehensive industry event to date.

The G Awards include the following 12 Categories
Fabricator of the Year
Installer of the Year
Glass Company of the Year
Conservatory Installer of the Year
Training and Development Award
Customer Care Award
Health and Safety Award -
Energy Efficiency Initiative Award
Promotional Campaign Award
Glass Project of the Year
Social Housing Project of the Year
Specialist of the Year

Yesterday’s much vaunted Pre-budget report was intended to stimulate the economy by getting us all to dip into our pockets, but will it do so?

This site is, of course, concerned with doors, windows and conservatories - home improvements that not only make your home look better, but also improve it’s energy efficiency, thus bringing it into line with the government’s green agenda.

As Michael Ankers, CEO of the Construction Products Association, so eloquently said in this morning’s Guardian:

Energy efficiency measures for housing are welcome, but at an additional £100m fairly modest, and disappointing that this focuses only on insulation when much could be achieved by support for double glazing and upgrading of central heating boilers.

And really, what is 2.5 pence in the pound worth in real terms when you’re trying to bring your home up to the standards of those government guidelines?

According to a recent study at Yale University - if you feel warm, you are more likely to be generous and trusting. Part of the research involved giving volunteers a hot cup of coffee or a cold drink and asked them to rate how trustworthy a person looked. Those holding the hot drink rated people as more trusting.

The professor of psychology, John Bargh, who conducted the study says the results show that there is a close connection in our brain between physical warmth and emotional warmth. The insular, which is a walnut sized piece of brain right in the centre, handles the way we perceive physical temperature and how much trust we put in somebody.

So it seems that when you are to make a big decision or a big purchase, such as double glazing, you should refuse that cup of tea and ask for a cold drink instead.

I read in the Edinburgh Evening News that every city council department is to be given an “energy champion” in a bid to drive down costs and save more than £1 million.  Mostly the article waffles on about street lights, the use of council vehicles, and closing window blinds.  But there, tucked away near the bottom, I read,  “our buildings are notoriously bad for wasting energy. One of my bugbears is how we put conservation before energy-saving measures – for example not being allowed to put double glazing into certain buildings.”

Of course, I wholeheartedly agree - that’s my job, isn’t it?  What bugs me is that upgrading windows seems to come very low down on the list of energy saving measures, mentioned in the same breath as providing swimming pool covers in schools.

When I read that the authority’s energy spending has risen by 35 per cent over the past three years, from £9.7m in 2005 to £13.2m at the beginning of this year, and that energy costs for 2008-09 are predicted to rise to £14.4m, I can’t help thinking that they would be better upgrading windows now in addition to the planned measures of encouraging people to check thermostats, close blinds at the end of the day, and ensure taps are turned off.