With the holiday season approaching, thoughts turn to gift-giving and new beginnings. It's a great time of year to focus on showing your appreciation for someone. It's also a time to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the new year with all its possibilities.
Many gifts are warmly received, but they end up not being used, or the initial joy they bring can decline over time. This is why as we get older, we tend to focus on more significant gifts that will have more of a lasting impact. A great way to accomplish that is with an investment in your home.
Windows and doors play a significant role in our everyday lives, often without us even realizing it. But if your family is shivering due to cold drafts, wants to promote more energy efficiency, or wants to take advantage of more natural light and fresh air in the home, these might be the perfect gift for your family.
What makes windows and doors an even better gift is that the gifts they bring are varied, and they keep on giving long after they are installed, and the initial excitement wears off. The benefits your family gains will be seen and felt each and every day, whether you realize it or not.
At Golden Windows, we love seeing the joy on our customer's faces when they first see their brand new windows and doors, but we love it even more when we hear how happy our customers still are after a year, five years, 20 years, or more!
New windows and doors make a fantastic gift for you and your family. Let's explore all the benefits they bring.
The Many Benefits of New Windows and Doors
As we mentioned above, new windows and doors bring many benefits when you have installed them, and they continue long after. Whether your primary concern is the comfort level in your home, sustainability and energy efficiency, improved aesthetics and home value, positive health benefits of more natural light and fresh air, new windows and doors work wonders in these areas and more.
Maybe your windows are obviously outdated, drafty or damaged, and it's well past time you gift yourself new ones. Or maybe your door has become warped and requires a Herculean effort to open or shut. Maybe you just know that new ones will benefit your family and make them family happier.
Either way, there are plenty of benefits to look forward to with new doors and windows.
Increased Comfort
Comfort usually comes in further down the list of why you should make a home improvement. Even if comfort is what initially made you want to make the improvement, we often feel we need to have a financial benefit before we actually take the plunge.
But the comfort of your family in your home is important and worthy of making an investment in home improvement. Of course, windows and doors do come with financial benefits, which we'll get to later, but being comfortable in your own home isn't a lesser reason.
Even if windows were top quality, expertly installed, and are kept in as good of condition as possible, they will eventually stop performing as effectively as they age. If the windows in your home were installed before you moved in, you wouldn't know if that was the situation when they were purchased and installed.
Your home could be prone to all sorts of drafts, and that could be because the windows have aged past their peak performance, were poorly installed to begin with, or weren't made of high quality materials. Regardless, all of these can cause a house to become drafty and uncomfortable to be in.
Windows can also be ineffective at blocking out noise. Excessive noise coming in from outdoors isn't just frustrating; it can also lead to negative health effects. While the worst offenders are single paned windows, which are rarely found in Canada, older double glazed windows can also offer little in the way of noise reduction.
By upgrading to new double glazed windows, you can gain the benefit of reduced sound transmissions. An even more sound blocking window is our triple glazed window, as the extra insulating layer of gas and pane of glass will give extra insulation and further reduce sound transmission.
It's important to feel welcome and relaxed at home, but a constant cold draft or excessive noise can take away from that. New windows and doors are one of the most cost-effective options to increase comfort in your home. And that's a gift worth its weight in gold.
Better Energy Efficiency
The environment and the impact we have on it is an increasing concern for many families. New windows and doors from Golden Windows have superior insulating performance and energy efficiency.
Older inefficient windows can be responsible for 25-30 per cent of residential energy loss. That means you will use more energy to heat and cool a house that has inefficient windows than if you install energy efficient windows.
Compared to double glazed windows made a decade or two ago, double glazed windows today will always have the edge in energy efficiency, as new technologies and standards have come into practice. But for those who want their home to be as efficient as possible, triple glazed windows are the best option.
Not only do they see more of an impact on energy bill savings, but they also help improve the efficiency of the entire home. Golden Windows triple glazed windows feature three panes of Low E glass, with each separated by an insulating argon gas fill, making their efficiency long lasting and difficult to match.
Improved Curb Appeal
If you're planning to sell your home, you will want to improve your home's curb appeal, and windows and doors are a fantastic option to do that, as they are some of the first things people see when they look at a house.
New windows help a home look more cohesive and put together, while a new front door in a bright, welcoming colour is just the thing to make buyers stop and want to be invited in for a close look.
But even if you're not planning to sell your home anytime soon, curb appeal isn't just about potential buyers. These kinds of improvements can give you a new sense of pride each time you pull up to your house.
More Natural Light
The holiday season falls right in the middle of winter when days are at their shortest. While those magical Christmas lights can help keep things merry and bright, many people are feeling the effects of our darkening days and will feel them even more during the post-holiday blues.
Getting more light into our homes became a priority for many during years of lockdowns and being cooped up indoors, with people realizing just how much of physical and mental health benefit exposure to natural light brings. While many are now back working in offices and able to celebrate the holidays in person, we could all use a little more light in our lives.
If you're one of those people, new windows and doors are just the tickets to increase natural light in your home.
Golden Windows' entry systems come with various options that allow you to find your perfect balance between openness and privacy. You can choose a clear glass sidelight or a more decorative inlay, whichever suits your taste and style.
New windows can also help create more light. You can choose a new style or perhaps even decide to create a bigger window to allow for even more light. We have plenty of designs to fit your tastes and your home's style while bringing in an abundance of light. If you want to go even further, getting new sliding patio doors can dramatically increase the amount of light at the back of your home, giving you an unrestricted view of your property and letting the sunlight pour in.
Improved Air Flow
But perhaps what you're really after is more fresh air and the numerous benefits it brings to yourself and your home. Fresh air can help you relax or energize you. It can also improve your natural immune system and reduce condensation in your house.
We highlighted a new sliding patio door as a way to bask your home in light, but it does double duty as a way to also increase ventilation.
While natural light can be gained with fixed or operable windows, if you're looking to increase airflow in your home, you'll want new operable windows, like an awning, slider, double hung or casement window.
Any of these windows will be an excellent option to keep the fresh air coming, but depending on the way your house is positioned, casement windows can be a particularly good option. Because of their hinge, you can open them and essentially catch a nice breeze and pull it into your home.
Increased Home Value
Whether selling your home is front of mind or furthest from your mind, home value is always something that should be on your radar, and many homeowners like to make improvements to their homes that will bring an increase to their home value.
Windows and doors hit the mark here as well. New entry doors for your home not only improve the look of your home, but they are also more secure and help to increase your home's value. In fact, a new front door is often listed as the highest return on investment among home improvement projects.
New windows aren't far behind and also bring value to your home for their aesthetic and functional purposes – many of these are listed on this list: increased curb appeal, air flow, natural light and comfort. These are all things homeowners look for when buying a new home, making windows and doors a smart investment.
Get Ahead of the Rush
If you want to gift these benefits and more to your family this holiday season, there's no better time to begin.
Winter is the off-season for home improvement projects, especially exterior projects. That means that by choosing your new windows and doors now, you can get ahead of the spring rush.
While winter window installation is entirely doable and not that different from installations in other seasons, even if you want to wait until spring to get your doors and windows installed, getting your plans organized and windows chosen now means you can be sure there will be no delays when you are ready for the to be installed. It also means you will have your pick of installation dates, as calendars haven't yet filled up for spring installations.
Whether you want to gift yourself new bay windows to create the cozy nook you've always dreamed of or want triple glazed windows to make your home more sustainable, we can help. Give us a call, and we'll help you find the exact windows and doors you're looking for to keep you happy for many years to come!