Local Focus winter hacks: How to get double glazing on any budget

With winter making itself at home across the whole country, one expert says you can double glaze your windows on any budget.

Dr Nelson Lebo, Eco Design Advisor for the Palmerston North City Council, said the problem with single glazing was it could cause significant heat loss in winter, making it more expensive to heat your home.

But Lebo had a word of warning for anyone wanting to replace their old wooden frame windows with aluminium ones.

"The aluminium frames are highly conductive so they also lose a lot of heat."

The best but most expensive way to insulate your windows was retrofitting your original windows with factory sealed double glazed units.

"But if you can't afford that, another option is called secondary glazing using perspex. It's DIY friendly and generally speaking, you can do a large window for under $200 and a small window for under $100," Lebo said.

If that's still out of your budget, you could stick bubble wrap to your windows.

It's just as good as the more expensive options - except it looks like bubble wrap stuck to windows, so works best over patterned or textured glass.

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