Start with the obvious disclosure. We fit one of these three things, so we have an interest in how this reads. What follows is the comparison we actually give at site visits, including the cases where we tell people to call somebody else.
Start with what is wrong
Most people pick a solution before they have named the problem, which is how a heat complaint turns into a twenty thousand dollar window quote.
Ask which of these describes your situation:
- The window is broken. Fogged between the panes, draughty, rotting, will not close properly, or single glazed in a room you use in January.
- The window is fine but the room is not. Too hot in the afternoon, too much glare, overlooked by a neighbour, or somewhere you would rather people could not see into.
If you are in the first group, stop reading. Nothing on a surface fixes a failed unit, and anyone who tells you it does is selling you something that will not work. Call a window company.
If you are in the second group, your window is doing its job and the thing it was never designed to do is manage light. That is a different problem with a much cheaper answer.
The three options side by side
Blinds and curtains
Cost: lowest, a few hundred dollars a room for decent ones.
Disruption: an afternoon.
What they solve: glare, and privacy at any hour, including after dark. That last part is genuinely valuable and it is the one thing coverings cannot match.
Where they fall down: they trade the view for the fix. A blind that is closed every afternoon in summer is a window you are not using. They also handle heat poorly, because they sit inside the glass, which means the heat has already entered the room before the fabric absorbs it and radiates it back at you. And a low afternoon sun comes in under the slats at an angle most blinds cannot deal with.
Glass coverings
Cost: most projects run $20 to $29 per square foot installed, with jobs starting around $1,200.
Disruption: a day for most homes. Nothing is removed, nothing is ordered, no lead time.
What they solve: heat and glare at the source, before the energy is inside. Daytime privacy without losing the view out. Ultraviolet, which is what fades your floors and furniture. Security, if that is the product chosen.
Where they fall down: the honest limits. A dual reflective covering works on a light difference, so it gives you daytime privacy and reverses after dark with your lights on. It does nothing for a draught or a failed seal. And which product can go on your glass depends on whether you have a Low-E coating, which narrows the options on most modern homes.
Replacement windows
Cost: the highest by a wide margin, typically an order of magnitude above a covering for the same glass area.
Disruption: weeks of lead time on a custom order, then crews in the house, then making good around the openings.
What they solve: everything structural. Draughts, failed seals, rot, hardware, noise, and the thermal performance of the whole assembly rather than just the glass.
Where they fall down: if your existing windows are sound, you are spending a great deal to end up with roughly the performance you already had. A new sealed unit is not a solar control product. Plenty of people replace perfectly good windows to fix an afternoon heat problem and are surprised to find the room still overheats, because the new glass was never specified to stop solar gain either.
The comparison that matters
Put money against outcome rather than against product.
For a typical west-facing living room of about a hundred square feet of glass, you are choosing between roughly a few hundred dollars of blinds that cost you the view, somewhere around two to three thousand for a covering that keeps it, and a five figure replacement that fixes problems you do not have.
That is why we exist. Not because replacement is a scam, but because it is the answer to a question most people are not actually asking.
Where the honest answer is not us
We turn work down for these reasons regularly.
- Night privacy is the real requirement. A reflective covering will not do it. Either accept a blind for the evening, choose a permanent frosted finish, or budget for switchable glass, which is several times the price.
- The seal has already failed. If there is haze between the panes, that window is on its way out. Spending money on its surface is throwing it away.
- The room is north-facing. Very little direct sun means very little to reject.
- It is a draught, not heat. Cold air moving across a room in February is an air sealing and glazing problem. We cannot help.
- One small window. Below our minimum, the day rate dominates and you are paying for our time rather than for glass.
The combination most people end up with
For what it is worth, the arrangement we see working best is not one of the three on its own.
It is a solar control or dual reflective covering doing the daytime work, so the room keeps its light and its view for the twelve hours you are actually in it, with a simple blind for the evening in the two or three rooms where night privacy genuinely matters. That costs a fraction of switchable glass and a small fraction of replacement, and it leaves the windows you already paid for exactly where they are.
