Invisible · 75% Less Air Leakage · No Rattle · From £245 per pair of sashes
Edinburgh sash and case windows lose 25–40% of the room air per hour through worn parting beads, a sloppy meeting rail and a gap under the bottom sash. Heatscape's draught-proofing system retrofits a discreet brush-pile gasket into all four contact lines — invisible from the room, no profile change, no Listed Building Consent required. It cuts air leakage by up to 75% and stops the rattle that wakes you in a westerly gale. Fixed price from £245 per pair.
A traditional sash and case window has four air-leakage points: the gap between the bottom sash and the cill, the gap between the meeting rails of the two sashes, the gap between each sash and the parting bead, and the gap between each sash and the staff bead. Together these typically total 8–12mm of perimeter gap per window — enough to leak 80–120 cubic metres of room air per hour at 50Pa. That's why the room feels cold even with the heating on full: you're constantly warming up cold air drawn in from outside.
We dismantle the parting bead and staff bead, rout a 6mm × 8mm channel along the contact face, and bed in a low-friction brush-pile gasket. The brush pile is colour-matched to the sash paint (black, brown, white or grey), set deep enough to be invisible from the room, but with enough overstand to seal against the moving sash. The meeting rail gets a second pile gasket along its upper edge. The bottom sash gets a third pile gasket along its underside that seals against the cill when the sash is closed. Air leakage drops by 60–80% on a typical window.
The same brush-pile system that cuts air leakage also stops sash rattle in a westerly gale — the pile holds the sash gently in place against the parting bead so it can't vibrate. Acoustically, the sealed gasket cuts external noise by 3–4 dB on its own. Combined with slim-line double glazing or secondary glazing, total noise reduction runs to 12–18 dB — enough to make a road-facing tenement bedroom genuinely quiet.
Brush-pile draught-proofing is classed as maintenance by every Scottish council — no planning permission, no prior approval, no Listed Building Consent needed, even on Cat A listed buildings. From the street the window is unchanged. From the room the brush pile is invisible unless you look up the parting bead with a torch. We work entirely from inside the flat, no scaffold, no carpet lift, full dust containment.
From £245 per pair of sashes (one window unit, two sashes), including survey, brush-pile gasket on all four contact lines, re-bedding of parting and staff beads, easing and re-balancing of the sash counterweights, and disposal of waste. A typical Edinburgh tenement flat with seven sashes is £1,395 for the whole flat. Half-a-day per pair on site, most flats completed in a single day. 5-year workmanship guarantee.
Draught-proofing alone solves the air-leakage problem but not the cold-glass radiation problem. Slim-line double glazing alone solves the radiation problem but not the air leakage. The combination is what actually makes the room comfortable — and we always quote both as a single package. Typical combined cost for a pair of sashes: £1,135 (£245 draught-proofing + £890 slim-line glazing). Payback against gas-bill savings is 6–9 years.
Quietest the house has ever been. Bay windows look stunning, and the survey caught a lintel issue two other firms missed.
Rachel B., Trinity EH5 — Triple glazing — full house · 5/5 ·
Door is solid, locks beautifully, and matched the listed-building colour the council insisted on. Faultless fitting.
Hugh M., Newington EH9 — Composite door + side panel · 5/5 ·