making your own aluminium windows

folks, i recently started looking into making a window for our newly renovated bathroom. I needed just the sash and not the frame, yet most of the window places will not sell you just a sash and don't seem to want to make something that is not on their standard sizes chart. so, i thought i would make my own. grossly oversimplified, a window is not that hard to do. get your aluminium extrusion, cut, make angles for corners, join together around piece of glass... all done.

the hard part is getting the aluminium extrusion, it would seem. i have just been told by Capral Aluminium that the six metre lengths of aluminium that i require will cost $x. no problem, says i, getting out my wallet to purchase. However, young chap then added the small order surcharge which more than doubled the price of the materials. what a load of @@@@@! who in their right mind is going to pay a surcharge for a small order!! if your outlet says "open to the public", why turn them away by charging a surcharge for purchasing a retail quantity? ridiculous!

and before you building professionals all jump up and down and try and justify why a small order should be charged extra, don't. an order is an order is an order. sure, if you are breaking into a production run, its understandable that a custom job will cost more. its also understandable that if transport has to be arranged for a single item, that item will cost more due to it bearing the whole cost of the shipping. but, when a stocked piece of material, is there, on hand, there is no justifiable reason to charge extra for it. as i stated above, ridiculous.

so, does any body know where i can get either a awning style window (roughly 770mm * 404mm) made in white aluminium or the extrusions for said window for a decent price (Boral, charge around $200 for the window and frame, and apparently just the sash is a custom job)? we are on the northside of brisbane.


Read and reply to the full thread at RenovateForum.com....