Double Glazing Installation Day in Hobart: What Happens

Almost nobody worries about the glass. What people actually worry about is the house being open in July, where the crew will park in a narrow West Hobart street, whether the dog can stay inside, and what the place will look like at 4pm. This page answers all of that honestly, including the parts that are inconvenient.

The whole job, stage by stage.

Timings are for a retrofit of insulated glass units into existing timber or aluminium frames in a Hobart home, which is the most common job we do. New frames, heritage sashes and second storey work all sit at the longer end of each band.

Stage	How long	What happens	What you need to do
1. Enquiry and indicative price	Same business day	You send sizes and photos, we send a realistic range, usually $700 to $1,600 per window retrofitted.	Photograph each window from inside and out, and note rough width and height.
2. Site measure and template	45 to 90 minutes for a whole house	We measure every opening in three places, check the frames for rot and out of square, and confirm which openings need Grade A safety glass under AS 1288.	Give us access to every room and unlock security screens. Point out any window that already leaks or sticks.
3. Written quote and booking	1 to 3 business days	Fixed written quote itemised per window, with the glass make up, the frame work and the exclusions in plain words.	Read the exclusions, not just the total. Ask what happens if a frame turns out rotten.
4. Manufacture	5 to 15 business days	Units are cut, spacered, gas filled where specified and sealed to order. Nothing can be trimmed later, so this stage is why the measure matters.	Nothing. This is the wait. Use it to book any painter or plasterer for after us.
5. Delivery and pre-check	30 minutes, day before or morning of	Every unit is unwrapped, checked for edge damage and misting, and matched to its opening before a single bead comes off.	Provide somewhere flat and dry for units to stand on edge, usually a garage or a hallway.
6. Installation, per window	45 to 120 minutes each	Beads or putty out, old pane out, rebate cleaned and primed, new unit set on packers, beaded, sealed. The opening itself is uncovered for 20 to 45 minutes.	Clear 1.5 metres inside and 1 metre outside. Keep pets and small children out of that room.
7. Whole house install	2 to 3 days for 8 windows	We work room by room and close every opening before we leave for the day. Two people is the normal crew for a house.	Decide the order with us on the first morning if you work from home.
8. Making good and finishing	Same day, 1 to 2 hours	Beads pinned and puttied, internal sealant lines tooled, sills wiped, glass cleaned both sides, stickers and labels removed.	Walk each window with us before we pack up and say if anything is not right.
9. Cure and settle	24 to 48 hours	Sealant cures. Do not wash the glass, force a stiff sash or paint over new putty for at least a day, and longer in cold weather.	Run the heating normally and open windows briefly each day to let moisture out.
10. Follow up	4 to 6 weeks later	We check in. This is when any bedding down issue shows up, and when you will notice condensation has moved from the glass to the coldest remaining surface.	Tell us about any rattle, draught or mark, in writing, so it is on the record.

Indicative timings for Hobart in 2026. Heritage sash work adds a day or more per few windows, see heritage sash reglazing.

Access, parking, power and water.

Hobart makes access a genuine part of the plan. Streets in Battery Point, West Hobart, North Hobart and parts of Sandy Bay are narrow, steep and often permit parking only, and a van full of sealed units cannot circle the block looking for a space. The practical answer is that we unload at the door, then move the vehicle, so we need five minutes of kerb space rather than a whole day of it. If you are in a resident permit zone, a visitor permit for the day removes the problem entirely.

Inside, we need one power outlet for tools and a path from the front door to the room we are working in. We do not need water for a retrofit, other than a bucket for cleaning at the end. On a second storey or a steep site we work off ladders or a small platform, which needs firm ground and about a metre of clearance. If the only access to a rear window is across a neighbour’s garden, tell us at the measure and we will sort it with them properly rather than on the day.

Sealed units are heavy. A 1200 x 900 double glazed unit weighs roughly 25 to 30 kilograms, which is why two people carry it and why we ask you to keep the path clear rather than helping.

Noise, dust, smell, pets and working from home.

Noise. Less than a bathroom renovation, more than a painter. The loud parts are chiselling hardened putty and running a multi tool along beads, in bursts of 5 to 15 minutes per window. Cutting glass on site is almost silent, and most units arrive cut to size anyway. If you have a call at 10am, tell us and we will be in another room.
Dust. Old putty, paint flakes and timber dust, not brick or plaster dust. We sheet the floor, tape a drop over doorways where it matters and vacuum as we go. Expect a fine film on the sill and skirting anyway, which we wipe at the end.
Lead paint. Paint applied before the 1970s can contain lead, and a very large share of Hobart housing is that old. That changes how we work rather than whether we work: scrape damp, never dry sand, no heat gun on suspect paint, bag the debris and vacuum rather than sweep. If you have small children or someone is pregnant, tell us and we will be even more conservative about which room is occupied.
Smell. Neutral cure sealant has a mild vinegar or alcohol smell for a few hours. Linseed oil putty on heritage sashes smells for a day or two. Neither is dangerous, but both are noticeable in a closed up house in winter, so we crack a window in the room when we finish it.
Pets. The real risk is a dog or cat walking through a room the moment a pane is out or a bead full of pins is on the floor. Shut them somewhere else for the day. Cats in particular will find the one open window in the house.
Kids and working from home. Both are fine. Agree the room order at 7am, we work around the study, and we tell you fifteen minutes before we start the noisy part of each window.

Weather, and what actually stops the job in Hobart.

Three weather conditions genuinely stop us, and pretending otherwise just produces a bad job. Driving rain, because an external bead cannot come off a wet frame and be resealed properly. Strong gusts, which come off kunanyi and down the Derwent with very little warning and make ladder work and carrying a large pane unsafe. And cold, because most sealants and putties have a minimum application temperature, commonly around 5 degrees, that a Hobart winter morning sits comfortably below.

In practice that means a winter job starts at 9am rather than 7am and may lose a day to weather. We would rather move a day than seal a unit into a frame that will not bond. If you have a choice, book autumn or spring: our page on the best time of year for double glazing in Hobart goes through the trade off between weather, lead times and getting the benefit before winter arrives.

One more Hobart specific: if a window is fully out and a squall arrives, that opening gets a temporary board or sheet immediately, at no charge. It is the same board up work we do for break ins, and it is built into how we run the day rather than an extra on the invoice.

What a clean site looks like, and where the waste goes.

At the end of each day every opening is glazed or boarded, tools are back in the van, floors are vacuumed and the offcuts are gone. At the end of the job you should be able to run a hand along the sill and pick up nothing but a bit of dust.

Old glass leaves with us. Window glass is not accepted in kerbside recycling because float glass and sealed units melt at a different point to container glass and contaminate the stream. It goes to a licensed waste facility, boxed and taped, not into your wheelie bin.
Sealed units, putty and silicone are mixed materials and go to landfill. Nobody in this industry should tell you otherwise.
Timber beads and offcuts go out with our waste. Old lead painted timber is bagged separately.
Packaging is ours to remove. Crating, corner protectors and film should never be left for you to put out.
A magnet run across the floor and the ground under each window catches dropped pins and glazing points before they end up in a foot or a tyre.

Honest limits: when we would tell you not to book this.

If the frames are rotten, new glass in a soft frame is money wasted. The frame has to be repaired or replaced first, and that is a carpenter or a window maker, not us. We will tell you at the measure, before you pay anything.
If you only care about noise, a laminated single pane often beats a standard double glazed unit for sound and costs less. Read single versus double glazing before spending on the wrong product.
If the budget only covers half the house, do the coldest rooms first, not the front of the house for looks. Our budget approach to staging glass work applies here too: staged properly is fine, half done for appearance is not.
If it is a heritage listed property, check the approval position before you order. Reglazing an existing window is normally low risk work with no building permit needed, but changing the appearance of a heritage place can need planning approval regardless of what the building rules say.
What we do not do. We do not paint, plaster, repair rotten timber, move power points or install new window frames. We measure, supply, fit and seal glass, and we tell you which trade needs to come before or after us.

Frequently asked questions

How long does double glazing installation take in a Hobart house?

On site, allow 45 to 120 minutes per window, so a typical 8 window Hobart house is 2 to 3 days with two people. The bigger part of the calendar is manufacture: insulated glass units are made to order and take roughly 5 to 15 business days from the template measure. From your first enquiry to a finished job, 3 to 5 weeks is normal.

Is my house open to the weather while the glass is out?

Only for the length of one window, which is usually 20 to 45 minutes. We work one opening at a time and never open more than we can close the same day. If a unit arrives damaged or an opening turns out to be rotten, we board that window the same day at no extra cost and come back with the replacement, rather than leaving a hole overnight.

What do I need to move before the crew arrives?

Clear about 1.5 metres of floor in front of each window, take down curtains, blinds, tracks and pelmets, and move anything breakable off nearby shelves and sills. Outside, clear 1 metre of ground under each window and cut back plants that block a ladder. Doing that yourself saves 30 to 60 minutes of crew time on a whole house job.

How noisy and dusty is a double glazing retrofit?

Quieter than most trades and dustier than people expect. The noisy parts are chiselling out old putty and running a multi tool on beads, in bursts of 5 to 15 minutes per window rather than continuously. Old putty and paint create fine debris, so we sheet the floor and vacuum as we go. In houses painted before the 1970s the paint can contain lead, which is why we scrape damp and bag the waste instead of dry sanding.

Can bad weather stop the job in Hobart?

Yes, and in Hobart it does. We will not pull an external bead in driving rain or work off a ladder in strong gusts off the mountain, and most sealants have a minimum application temperature around 5 degrees, which frosty winter mornings sit under. In practice that means a winter job may start at 9am instead of 7am, or lose a day. Autumn and spring are the safest booking windows.

What happens to the old glass and frames?

It leaves with us. Window glass is not accepted in kerbside recycling because it is a different melting point to bottle glass, so old panes, sealed units, putty and beads go to a licensed waste facility. We sweep, vacuum and do a magnet run for dropped fixings before we leave, and the site should look better at the end of the day than it did at the start.

Get a price

Get your installation dates and a fixed price

Send the window count and a photo and we come back with a price, a lead time and the day by day plan, usually the same business day.

Keep reading before the crew arrives

Double glazing, what we fit and how a retrofit works.
Best time of year to book in this climate.
Heritage sash reglazing, if the house has original timber sashes.
Signs of a failed unit, so you know what to look for at year five.
Glazing warranties in Tasmania and what to do if something is wrong.
Full price list and the shower screen specification guide.

Get a written quote Service areas

Double glazing installation in Hobart, day by day.

The whole job, stage by stage.

Prepare for the crew: tick this off the week before.

Two weeks out

The week before

The morning of

Before we leave

Stop and ask if you see these

Want a day by day plan for your own house?