Replacing Old Windows in a Melbourne Home — What's Involved
Most window companies answer renovation questions with adjectives. This page answers them with the actual engineering — how fixings are counted, what the reveal does, why the sill bricks sit 10mm clear — and where our documentation genuinely runs out, we say so rather than papering over it. We replace windows across all of Melbourne; Reservoir is just where the factory is.
Will new windows fit my existing opening?
Usually yes, because we make to your opening rather than to a catalogue size — but the honest answer is that the opening has to be measured, not assumed.
The rule the industry works to is that the stud opening equals the overall reveal size plus adequate clearance, and the window then gets packed plumb, square and untwisted inside it. What "adequate clearance" means is deliberately not a fixed number: it varies between manufacturers' products, and the industry guidance says to take it from the system's own instructions. AS 2047 puts it as a gap sufficient to stop building loads reaching the window and to allow for thermal movement and structural settlement, sealed with a flexible material.
So we measure rather than work off the old frame. In an older house the two are often not the same thing.
Can you replace windows without damaging the brickwork?
Here's an honest answer you won't find on other window sites: nothing in our technical library covers removing an existing window, cutting or patching brickwork, or making good render and plaster — every installation document we hold assumes the wall is being built around a new window rather than opened up around an old one.
What we can tell you is what governs the new window going back in. In a brick veneer house the frame is fixed through the reveal into the stud work behind the brickwork, not into the bricks, so the outer skin is doing less work than people expect. The sill and head bricks must sit at least 10mm clear of the window frame to allow the brickwork to settle, and the aluminium must be isolated from the brick and mortar, because direct contact between them can cause extensive corrosion.
How much brickwork actually gets disturbed on a real Melbourne job is exactly the sort of thing we know from doing it many times over. Ask us about your specific wall.
What are timber reveals, and do I need them?
A reveal is the timber box lining the wall opening that the window frame attaches to — it bridges the aluminium frame across to the plaster line. Only the bottom piece is technically the sill, and it's the flat timber edge you'd rest a pot plant on.
It does six jobs: it's what the window is fixed through into the stud work, it stabilises the frame, it hides the installation gap and plasterboard edges, it gives your architraves something to pin to, it seals the frame-to-stud junction against air and moisture, and at the bottom it becomes your internal windowsill.
Whether you need one is decided by the wall, not the window. Timber-frame and brick veneer construction — the Melbourne residential norm — gets reveals. Double brick, solid masonry and single-skin brick garages don't, because the frame fixes to the masonry directly. Roughly 90 per cent of the residential windows we make carry some reveal.
What are your reveals made of, and what sizes do they come in?
Our standard residential reveal is pre-primed finger-jointed rubberwood, 18mm thick. It feels like solid timber and arrives factory-primed white, ready to paint. Above that we offer kiln-dried DAR hardwood at 19mm, which is the premium option and comes unpainted for a natural finish.
We deliberately don't use MDF. It's the cheapest reveal on the market and it's common in budget quotes, but it bubbles on contact with water, which is a poor property for the timber lining a window opening. If you're comparing quotes, the reveal material is worth asking about — it's a real difference that rarely appears in the headline.
Our rubberwood reveals run in seven widths from 100mm to 220mm, with 135, 120 and 100mm doing most of the work. We size the width against your actual wall build-up rather than off a chart.
How are the new windows actually held in — will they stand up to wind?
Fixing is engineered to your site's wind classification, not done by feel.
In brick veneer, aluminium frames are secured by nailing or screwing through the reveal into the stud work — through the jambs as standard, and through the sill as well on wide windows. The number of fixings comes off a table driven by the window size and the ultimate wind pressure for your class, with a minimum of four fixings on any window regardless of what the table returns. Each fastener has to bite at least ten times its own diameter into the timber: 25mm for a 2.5mm nail, 34.5mm for a 6-gauge screw.
The part people skip is packing. The window must be packed between the reveal and the frame at every fixing except the lintel — without it, the strength of the fasteners is greatly reduced.
My place is double brick, not brick veneer — is it different?
Yes, in two ways that matter to you.
First, you almost certainly don't need timber reveals. Reveals exist to bridge a cavity across to the plaster line in a timber-framed or brick veneer wall. In double brick, solid masonry or concrete the frame fixes to the masonry and the plaster or render finishes against it. Reveals are a wall-construction accessory, not a window component.
Second, the window is held in differently. In cavity brick the frame is secured with galvanised building lugs at a maximum of 450mm centres, tied into the mortar. In solid masonry it's fixed with masonry plugs, over a waterproof membrane applied to the opening first, with the trim sealed to both the structure and the window inside and out.
One detail that catches people: the drainage holes must not be blocked with render or tiles.
Do replacement windows have to meet current standards?
The windows we supply are made and certified to the current standards regardless of the age of the house — AS 2047 for the window assembly and AS 1288 for the glass, with an AGWA compliance certificate covering the wind rating, the energy figures and any safety glazing.
What we can't tell you is whether your particular renovation triggers a wider compliance obligation — whether the job needs a permit, whether the rest of the house is pulled up to current energy requirements, or whether a like-for-like swap is treated differently from a new opening. That's your building surveyor's determination.
What we'd suggest: get that answer before the windows are specified rather than after. If an energy target lands on the job late, the glazing has to change, and glass is the part with the longest lead.
Kitchen windows: what's best over a sink or benchtop?
An awning is our default for Melbourne kitchens, with one caveat worth checking before you commit. The awning hinges at the top and swings out from the bottom, so rain runs off the outside of the glass — you can leave it cracked open over a sink while it's raining. They seal well shut too: our Comet awning tested to N4 in the general position with 300 Pa water resistance, and our Apollo awning reached 1000 Pa. The caveat is that the open sash projects outward, so if your kitchen window opens onto a side path, that's the constraint, not the sink.
The other option worth considering is a fixed picture window over the bench with a smaller awning beside it — fixed lites give the best energy performance of anything we make.
Winder or handle for a window above a benchtop?
A winder, in most kitchens. It's the standard arrangement on our awning and casement windows — a chain winder that winds the sash out and locks it closed — and it's the easier action when you're reaching across a bench rather than standing square to the window.
On sizing, the guidance we work to is a single winder for sashes from roughly 635mm up to 1000mm, and a double winder above 1000mm. That rule is documented for part of our range, so we confirm it per system, and always against the winder manufacturer's specification for the actual sash weight and size.
My window comes down to the benchtop — what happens to the sill?
You go to a no-bottom-reveal build, and it's worth knowing the term because it'll appear on your quote.
Normally a window gets a boxed reveal — timber on all four sides, architraves all round, and the bottom piece becomes your internal windowsill. Where the window meets a benchtop or splashback there's nowhere for that bottom reveal to go, so we build it NBR: head and jambs only, three pieces instead of four. The same applies where a window meets a bath hob, and on floor-to-ceiling glazing. It's also standard on sliding, hinged, French and bi-fold doors for the same reason.
The alternative finish is a plaster return, sometimes called square set — no visible timber at all, with the plaster or tiles running right to the frame and sealed with silicone. That's common in wet areas and in minimalist kitchens, and it's worth deciding early because it changes what we make.