A Quick Trip to Canberra

A quick trip to Canberra

In January we sped down to Canberra to pick up some double glazed glass for our windows. We had been on the hunt for double glazed glass closer to home but it seems that Canberra - having cold winters - has great reclaimed glass options.

But why use double glazing?

Weight is a huge issue in tiny house construction (we need to keep the building under 4.5 tonnes) and double glazed glass is notoriously heavy. This is fine for a traditional build but for tiny house construction builders often choose to install single paned glass. We chose double paned glass because firstly, Erny wanted this feature, but also because our windows will take a good percentage of our wall surface area. We’re also trying out a continuous band of insulation on top of insulation batting to reduce thermal bridging in light of Passive House design so it would be a pity to have insulated walls but have all our heat leak out of our windows. We’re also not planning on adding active heating mechanisms (e.g air-con) to the Miette if we have to so choosing double glazed windows seems like a good way to go for now.

Introducing Handyman Trading Post

Handymans Trading Post specialises in used building materials and seems to be the only place that sells double glazed glass on the east coast. Erny found them on Facebook Marketplace and they were super friendly online. They recommended that we pop down in person to see their panes and even though they were in another state the trip was well worth it.

When we went in January, they had some great stock (which is what you get from over 41 years in business). They seem to have Australia’s collection cedar doors and window frames and some of the nicest stained glass windows too. You can find more about Handyman Trading Post here.

Note: they close at 1PM on Saturdays so if you are traveling from afar, factor this in! We arrived at 12:30 - just in time to pick up our glass.

A side step antiquing

There’s also a cute antique store named Down Memory Lane which is just opposite so we spent some time there checking out the wares. The stock seems so much cheaper than up North and the furniture was in top quality. Definitely recommend a looksee.

So what’d you get?

So after months of looking we have our double glazed glass for our custom windows!

Our picture window is a generous 1400 x 1100mm and will be our main feature. It’s currently residing in Lys’ office covered by a towel. Our kitchen window pane is a little larger than we anticipated coming in at (470x1200mm). We’ll have to manipulate our walls to fit this window into our design. We lucked out with our bathroom window as there was only a small selection of frosted glass options but we came away with a thin long window which we should be able to put frosted film on.

Finally, we were super lucky to get two panes exactly the same dimensions for our loft windows (at 300x900mm)!

Catch ya later, Lys & Erny