Glazing a Green Oak Framed entrance structure

[peekay]

Hi.

 

Our timber frame building supplier is also providing a green oak framed structure for the front and rear of the house to support a veranda and a double height oak frames porch structure.

 

We think that we have selected the windows and doors for all of the traditional openings in the house, Aluclad Timber with a sub 1.0 U Value. The rest of the house will be very well insulated.

 

I haven't quite figured out how we are going to deal with the amount of glazing in the oak structure. Keeping it well sealed, airtight, with the right U value for the glazing whilst minimising heat transmition through the oak frame itself between the glazed panels which will be in effect uninsulated.

 

Does anyone have any thoughts, or glazing suppliers that might be worth speaking to?

 

There are several oak frame companies who look to also do glazing, but the ones that I've spoken to so far are not interested in working within someone else's oak frame 

 

Thanks

 

 

[Alan Ambrose]

No, I think you'll have to sort out the detail yourself.

 

If I remember rightly, for that kind of detail, an Oakwrights frame I saw had the glazing unites mounted on the outside of the frame and then some full width oak 'trim' pieces mounted over that. Unless you looked very carefully, the effect was as though the glass was mounted in the 'frame'.

 

I think the trim was held by counter-bored A4 SS screws but with little oak dowels over, so the whole thing looked through-dowelled.

 

Having said that, I'm not sure why you couldn't mount the glazing units within the frame, allowing plenty of room for the frame to move, and then mount trim pieces inside and out over the units. Maybe you can mount one big triangle somehow in the apex to avoid dealing with the curved braces.

 

Actually it's not clear which parts you're planning to glaze and which parts not.

[markc]

+1 to mounted on the outside, the oak frame will shrink and move so any glazing or frames in between need to allow for a fair amount of movement.

i once saw glass sat in deep channels in an oak frame with gaskets that allowed movement but it looked bulky and ugly

[peekay]

Thanks. Keen to avoid any movement impacting sealing. I'm almost considering creating a glazed curtain wall behind the oak frame, to remove the oak from any windows.

[Alan Ambrose]

Ah yes, I saw an image - actually with glazing on the outside and it looked great - you just reminded me.

 

[Temp]

Our Architect designed windows to sit on the inside the oak fame. They work, just, but I wouldn't do it again. 

 

[Gus Potter]

On 22/02/2024 at 16:52, markc said:

+1 to mounted on the outside, the oak frame will shrink and move so any glazing or frames in between need to allow for a fair amount of movement.

i once saw glass sat in deep channels in an oak frame with gaskets that allowed movement but it looked bulky and ugly

Oak shinks less than soft wood. Thus if you have an oak frame it is not "scary" !

 

All you need to do is identify where the shrinkage will take place and detail for that.

[BadgerBadger]

We're doing something very similar at the moment with oak direct glazing an entrance.  We had some quotes and it was very expensive, but in principle it's quite straightforward, so I think a lot of the expense is the "risk factor" of call backs, poor installation etc.

 

We dug into the details of how to do it and have essentially shouldered the risk ourselves with some help/advice from a local oak framer.  We have tightened up the airtightness etc where we can and going for triple glazed units, but also accepting this may not be the most efficient part of build.  Hopefully it will absolutely fine but it's not in yet...

[Rishard]

+1 to external glazing. I’ve built several oak frames this way. It’s a bit of a hybrid as the cover boards which sandwich the glass to the oak frame are separate pieces of oak which on a traditional ‘oak frame’ is a bit false but I’ve not seen a better system out there. If the cover boards are rough sawn then it looks best. We use expanding foam tapes to seal the frame to the glass and glass to the cover boards. These are weatherproof and adjust with the shrinkage of the oak. 
 

Oak frames are harder to airtightness seal and have some fairly substantial thermal bridges but it can be done. Oakwrights system is good. 

[GaryChaplin]

The system to use is called "direct glazing", "applied glazing", "face glazing" or "curtain walling". Pick one! https://sessile-oak.co.uk/oakFrames/glazing

 

 

[Smallholdertoo]

On 24/02/2024 at 07:07, BadgerBadger said:

We're doing something very similar at the moment with oak direct glazing an entrance.  We had some quotes and it was very expensive, but in principle it's quite straightforward, so I think a lot of the expense is the "risk factor" of call backs, poor installation etc.

 

We dug into the details of how to do it and have essentially shouldered the risk ourselves with some help/advice from a local oak framer.  We have tightened up the airtightness etc where we can and going for triple glazed units, but also accepting this may not be the most efficient part of build.  Hopefully it will absolutely fine but it's not in yet...

Have you got your glazing in yet?

We have just got planning permission for a small 1.5 storey house which will have some external green oak which will hold a single french door with a fixed pane each side.  Like yours all glazing will be triple glazed.  So I was wondering how did it go?  If well, I would be very interested how you did it.

[BadgerBadger]

25 minutes ago, Smallholdertoo said:

Have you got your glazing in yet?

We have just got planning permission for a small 1.5 storey house which will have some external green oak which will hold a single french door with a fixed pane each side.  Like yours all glazing will be triple glazed.  So I was wondering how did it go?  If well, I would be very interested how you did it.

 

We turned our attention elsewhere over the summer, the frame is in but we haven't tried to glaze it yet.  About to take delivery of the door from joiner, so will try in next couple of months and report back. (Give me a nudge!)

 

Worth noting - we've had one very large split on a piece in the frame over the summer that's going to need sorting before we glaze.  Good example of the sort of "risk" you'd otherwise be asking a contractor to shoulder.

[Smallholdertoo]

6 minutes ago, BadgerBadger said:

 

We turned our attention elsewhere over the summer, the frame is in but we haven't tried to glaze it yet.  About to take delivery of the door from joiner, so will try in next couple of months and report back. (Give me a nudge!)

 

Worth noting - we've had one very large split on a piece in the frame over the summer that's going to need sorting before we glaze.  Good example of the sort of "risk" you'd otherwise be asking a contractor to shoulder.

Thanks

 

I will!

[joe90]

10 minutes ago, BadgerBadger said:

we've had one very large split on a piece in the frame over the summer that's going to need sorting before we glaze.

Might have been wise to let the oak “settle” before glazing. 

[BadgerBadger]

2 hours ago, joe90 said:

Might have been wise to let the oak “settle” before glazing. 

 

That's what I've been telling my wife when she asks why the glazing isn't happening 👍 😂 

[joe90]

1 hour ago, BadgerBadger said:

 

That's what I've been telling my wife when she asks why the glazing isn't happening 👍 😂 

It’s your wife that should be called badger badger 🤣

[Alan Ambrose]

BTW you can have quite large faults in timber due to shrinkage that don't affect the strength much. It's all crazily oversized anyway, that's the joy of it, for me at least.

[peekay]

I started this topic back in February, but as there has been a bit of recent activity on the thread I thought I'd give a quick update. 

 

We have found a local company that specialise in direct mount glazing to oak frames. They surface mount and then cover the edges with oak trims as described by someone earlier in the thread.

 

I've in the last week finished sanding the internal faces of the frame and the glazing company have prepared the frame with various bits of DPC, and adding fillets/notches where required to sit the glass on. 

 

Rather annoyingly the glazing can't be finished until the front door is fitted, which will be in November, so we will have the upper levels glazed in the next few weeks, and the door level sections covered with Ply for a couple of months. 

 

We chose triple glazed glass, with a solar film, as the front of the house gets sun all afternoon and we wanted to avoid it becoming a greenhouse in the summer. 

 

None of this has been cheap, and if we were to do the house again, we might choose something more simple, but hopefully once it is all finished we will be happy with the choice.