How much should 10 new white uPVC windows cost?

A price for ten windows isn’t ten times a price for one, and the difference is in the openings rather than the frames.

George Herkes & Son have fitted windows across East Lothian since 1989, including window installation across East Linton and the villages nearby, and survey every opening before pricing a run.

Call George and get the ten openings looked at, and you’ll get a price that says which ones are the awkward ones.

How much should 10 new white uPVC windows cost?

Ten new white uPVC windows cost what your openings make them cost, not what a per-window figure suggests. The frames themselves barely vary. What moves the price is how many of the ten are plain casements, what the reveals are made of, whether scaffold is needed, and whether the making good is in the quote.

Why ten windows isn’t ten times one window

Repeat openings get quicker

If eight of your ten are the same casement in the same wall build-up, the setting out is worked out once and reused. That’s real and it should show in the price. window installation services in East Lothian will normally price a repeat run keener than a one-off.

But the odd ones don’t

A bay, an arched head, a stair window over a landing or anything at high level breaks the pattern. One of those can take as long as three plain casements, and it’s usually the one nobody mentioned on the phone.

Access is priced once, not ten times

Scaffold or a tower is a mobilisation cost. It’s the same whether it serves one upper window or four, which is why doing the whole house together is cheaper than doing it in two goes. A window installation contractor across Fala will tell you the same.

What actually sets a whole-house figure

What the reveals are made of

Older stone properties round Musselburgh, Prestonpans and the coastal villages often have deep, irregular reveals that need cutting back or building out. A newer cavity wall with a proper closer is straightforward. That’s the biggest labour variable there is.

The glass, not the frame

White uPVC frames are the cheap part and they don’t vary much. The glazing does. Standard double glazing, a low-emissivity coating, acoustic glass on a main road, or toughened where a pane is low enough to walk into: each is a different unit. window installation service in East Saltoun on a quiet lane and the same house on the A1 aren’t the same specification.

Making good

Internal reveals, sills and decoration are the line that separates two quotes. Taking out an old timber sash disturbs the plaster nearly every time. window installation companies in Ford should say whether that’s in or out.

Getting a quote that means something

Do you actually know what you’re comparing? Usually not, and four questions fix that.

• How many of the ten are plain casements, and which ones aren’t?
• Is scaffold included, and for how long?
• What glazing specification, and is anything toughened or acoustic?
• Is the internal making good in the price, or is that yours?

Get all four answered in writing by everybody you ask. Two prices that looked miles apart usually turn out to be one with scaffold and plastering in it and one without.

Get somebody to actually look, too. window installation services in Edinburgh and out here both work off a survey, because a whole-house figure written from a photograph is a guess with a decimal point on it.

One last thing. If you’re phasing the work, do the whole elevation at once rather than a window here and a window there. The scaffold and the setting out are the shared costs, and splitting them is how a job gets dearer without anything changing.