Double-glazing is pretty much standard (family friends own a double-glazing firm and are doing very nicely, thank you).
My house was built (20-ish years ago) with double-glazing from new, but I had it replaced with a better standard of unit about five years ago, which made an appreciable difference - you used to be able to feel the temperature gradient as you walked across the living room towards the french windows. Friday's ice-covering didn't melt until nearly midnight, which I thought was a pretty good advert for the double-glazing's efficiency, seeing as it was 21C inside the house.
Pretty much all UK housing since the '70s has been built to be centrally-heated - since North Sea Gas came online and we went to a national gas supply network. I can just remember having coal in my parent's house, which was built in the late '60s, and having gas installed making a real difference. Most pre-existing UK housing has been converted to central-heating even if it was originally built with fireplaces. The UK doesn't get as much snow as the US, but mildly sub-zero (Centigrade) temperatures are common in winter, so there's a considerable reason to switch to central-heating. It's air-con where we don't follow the pattern in the States.
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Date: 2018-03-04 04:11 pm (UTC)My house was built (20-ish years ago) with double-glazing from new, but I had it replaced with a better standard of unit about five years ago, which made an appreciable difference - you used to be able to feel the temperature gradient as you walked across the living room towards the french windows. Friday's ice-covering didn't melt until nearly midnight, which I thought was a pretty good advert for the double-glazing's efficiency, seeing as it was 21C inside the house.
Pretty much all UK housing since the '70s has been built to be centrally-heated - since North Sea Gas came online and we went to a national gas supply network. I can just remember having coal in my parent's house, which was built in the late '60s, and having gas installed making a real difference. Most pre-existing UK housing has been converted to central-heating even if it was originally built with fireplaces. The UK doesn't get as much snow as the US, but mildly sub-zero (Centigrade) temperatures are common in winter, so there's a considerable reason to switch to central-heating. It's air-con where we don't follow the pattern in the States.