Why our windows and doors are the best.

Dunster House Ltd. originally started as a Windows and Doors Manufacturer back in 1994, we’ve had many years of experience with these products and for many years we’ve understood and designed around the different materials which we use for our PVCu windows which we sell to home owners for their houses and our wooden windows which we supply to thousands of customers each year in our Log Cabins. In the last year alone we’ve supplied many thousands of Cabins to many happy customers and over the years we’ve supplied tens of thousands.

All of our Log Cabin Windows and Doors use quality gaskets (weather-seals), the quality of the rubber matters (we use EPDM) because a cheap rubber will deteriorate quickly with exposure and become brittle. We push fit the gaskets into a recess rather than using a roller to push it in (as this can stretch the gasket) and also make sure that the length of the gasket is longer than that required as the gasket will tend to shrink over time if stretched when fitted leaving gaps in the corners. Our gaskets are also paint resistant so that when you paint your cabin the gasket does not stick together with the paint meaning it does not seal properly. We do not use stick on gaskets (sticky backed) as these will fall off in a short space of time as the glue deteriorates especially in contact with timber which as a porous surface will sweat as moisture is retained and then expelled with changing seasons.

The outside of our window and door frames are all glued and pinned into place, this gives maximum security from the outside. The inside of the frames are screwed which is equally as strong as gluing and security conscious as you can only unscrew them from the inside. It also means that in the event that you need to adjust your windows and doors you can do this, with a fully glued frame you cannot.

The sashes (opening part) of both our windows and doors are fully glued at all joints, they also have a metal star dowel in each joint to help to reinforce the glue and because from our experience this has proved to improve rigidity. The star dowel is purposely designed to help stop any twisting at the joints, giving what we believe to be the most rigid sashes available.

All our doors and windows are fully rebated against the frames for a good weather seal, the only place you will find a profile in any of our windows and doors which is not rebated is on the centre section of our double doors. It would be cheaper to produce a door with a rebate here as well as it would mean we would only have one type of profile for all four sides of the door, but in the centre the two doors close against each other and not against a door frame so a rebate here just results in a strange looking gap from the inside and no improvement on weathering.

All of our windows and doors open outwards so do not take up space on the inside of your cabin, critically though this also gives better weatherproofing as the sash is on the outside of the frame rather than on the inside allowing any water to drain outwards rather than inwards. The upstand on the frame of an inward opening sash is towards the outside of the window so any water that is driven past the sash by wind has only one way to go, inside the cabin (unless properly drained and sealed), remember wind drives rain sideways not just straight down so a simple cill at the bottom of an inward opening sash will deflect some water but by no means all. An outward opening window is the opposite of this with the upstanding rebate being on the inside of the cabin driving any water to the outside. To properly seal an inward opening sash would require gaskets on both the frame and on the sash as well as recessed drainage holes which to our knowledge no company offers.

A lot of our cabins come with double glazing as standard, but it is available as an option on all cabins. In all cases where double glazing is used we supply toughened glass as it is much safer than a non-toughened unit. All our double glazed sealed units are manufactured by us to BS EN1279 and are of the same quality as the sealed units that we supply with our windows and doors for peoples homes. Where double glazing is not standard or added as an option we supply clear 4mm float glass of residential standard, not horticultural 3mm glass or Perspex.

The hinges we use are the industry standard and have been in use by Log Cabin manufacturers for many years. They are easily adjustable, and with timber typically expanding and contracting 4mm-5mm per 1m you may need to adjust them. We have recently looked into using alternatives as we are constantly striving to be at the forefront of our industry but were not convinced by the alternatives. There are hinges available on the market that fix into the frame in two places and into the sash in one place. It is obvious from looking at them that you cannot simply lift off the sash (with our hinges the sash needs to be open in order to lift it off as otherwise it will catch on the frame and cannot be removed) and then twist the hinges. The way in which these hinges are adjustable is to remove a pin that is in the centre of them and then twist to adjust. We have not changed to these hinges because this is not secure, you can very simply knock the pin out from the outside of a door and pull it away from the hinge side regardless of whether it is locked or not.

The key to designing a good window or door for a Log Cabin is to be sympathetic with the material you are using and to realise its qualities and limitations, overly complex locking mechanisms combined with a material that expands and contracts at the rate of untreated/unlaminated timber is a potential recipe for problems in years to come. We use simple metal stay arms on our windows that allow you to open the window for a good amount of ventilation without the window then blowing in the wind. All of our windows are top hung and open from the bottom rather than the side, the opening sashes on our larger windows weigh in at approx. 23kg which if side hung would drop and foul on the framework over time. The materials used in a Log Cabin window are not steel reinforced PVCu sash it is a wooden sash with much more flex in it, this does not matter in the slightest when the window is top hung as there is no tendency to drop away from the hinge side but it would matter if it were side hung.

As our starting point as a Company was in the PVCu window industry in the 90’s we know how bad design and lack of future thinking can damage an industry (though we thankfully managed to avoid this at the time) and we are keen to make sure that people avoid this with Log Cabins in the years to come. Then, as now, some Companies set up offering impossible long guarantees on untreated products even though they had only been trading for a number of months and were unlikely to survive long enough to make good on their promises.

We design our windows and doors so that not only do they look good and function well when you first buy them but with simple adjustments that they have been designed to allow, they can continue to look good and function well for many years to come.