What happens to your old window?

Why it is not ordinary rubbish

An old window is construction waste, and under waste rules it cannot be left by the household bins. The apartment association gets a bill for it, and sometimes a formal notice.

A window is also made of several materials: wood or PVC, glass, metal hardware, and sometimes old lead-based paint. All of it is separated and goes different ways.

What happens next

• The glass is taken out and recycled separately, since it neither burns nor breaks down.
• Metal hardware and hinges are removed for scrap.
• PVC frames are shredded; recycled PVC goes back into production, though not for the visible surfaces of a window.
• Wooden frames are either recycled or, if the paint rules that out, burnt for energy.

How much it weighs

An average-sized window weighs twenty to sixty kilograms. A flat with five windows and a balcony door produces around two hundred kilograms of waste; a forty-flat building, several tonnes. That is a logistics job in its own right, not something you just carry out to the yard.

Who pays

Unless the quote says otherwise, removal and disposal are the customer's problem, usually as a separate line on the invoice, or as your own trip to a waste station where you pay by weight.

Ask about it before you sign, not on installation day. The question is simple: who carries the old windows out of the flat, who takes them off the premises, and is that in the price you were given?

How we do it

Disposal of the old window is included in the price, as is delivery of the new one. There is no separate line for it on the invoice, and you will not have to haul frames out onto the landing.

The prices on our website are complete: window, installation, sill, flashing, interior finishing and disposal of the old window. +372 5555 1682.