hauntedicecreamvan

I'm planning on fitting a fully glazed aluminium door in my porch to let more light in the hall. I want the door to be glazed full height but can't decide between a single large glass panel or two panes with a midrail separating them. Adding the midrail adds a significant cost to the price of the door, but I'm not sure if there are any real benefits. I don't need to fit a letterbox slot. The fully glazed I assume wins on thermal and acoustic performance, having just a single pane. I assume that the midrail would improve the integrity of the door, but given that it's aluminium, how much does that matter? There's also the argument that if the bottom pane gets broken, there's half as much glass to replace, but then would I be able to get the same glass to match the top pane anyway? The midrail seems to win on security too, because if you smashed the full pane, you could push it out and step through, whereas the midrail glazed door would require crawling through broken glass. Any thoughts welcome.

If you go for a higher-end trickle vent (e.g. humidity-sensitive) check that they can physically fit on the frames in terms of width/height. There used to be a product sold by Aereco (their "EMM" vent), that were quite slimline at only 27mm height. I fitted a few before putting in a PIV unit and they work well for opening and closing themselves based on humidity levels. Now, Aereco only sell the EMM2 which looks similar to those offered by Brookvent and is a much larger unit (the Brookvent HY is 45mm height!). I think out of the standard vents (like the Slotvent), they're all much the same as each other. The only consideration you might have is upward-deflection or downward facing for the interior part. Upward-deflection vents should be less prone to feeling drafts. They also do a better job of hiding the holes, in case you are incapable of drilling holes in a straight line like whoever did some for my home's previous owner.