Most people meet a window problem the same way: something has gone wrong, an installer says the window needs replacing, and there is no way to tell whether that is true. This tool exists to give you the diagnosis before anyone quotes you. It does not price your job, which is what the double glazing repair cost calculator is for. It tells you which of the five jobs you are actually looking at, so you know whether the quote in front of you matches the fault.
What each job costs in 2026
These are the UK ranges the tool draws on, cross-checked across Checkatrade, MyBuilder and repair specialists for 2026. Note how far apart the top and bottom of this table sit: the difference between correctly diagnosing a handle and wrongly buying a window is most of a thousand pounds a time.
| Job | Typical cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Replace a misted/blown sealed unit (single pane) | £55–£145 | Depends on pane size; the most common repair. |
| Replace the unit in a whole window | £100–£850 | Small £100–£200, standard £200–£325, large or bay £350–£850. |
| Reseal double glazing (per window) | £50–£100 | Specialist resealing where the gasket or seal has failed. |
| Replace a window handle | £45–£150 | Parts and labour; a quick job on most uPVC frames. |
| Replace window hinges | £100–£250 | Parts from around £27.50 a pair plus labour. |
| Replace a uPVC frame | £250–£750 | When the frame itself, not just the glass, has failed. |
Fully fitted, parts and labour. A full uPVC replacement window sits at £400 to £1,000 for comparison.
When a repair stops being worth it
The pivot is the frame, not the fault. A uPVC frame lasts 20 to 25 years and a sealed unit 15 to 20, so the two wear out on different clocks. That gap is why a misted pane on a twelve year old window is a straightforward £55 to £145 repair, and the identical fault on a twenty five year old window is a signal that the rest of the window is close behind. Our guide to how long double glazing lasts sets out the full life expectancy by material.
Scale matters as much as age. One failed unit is always worth replacing on its own. Eight failed units across a house, on frames of the same age, add up to a large bill for a house that will still have twenty year old frames and twenty year old hardware at the end of it. That is the point at which the money is better spent once.
The number of times I have been called to a misted pane and found the customer already has a quote for the whole window. Check what has actually failed before you accept anyone else's diagnosis. If the frame is sound and the hardware works, you are buying a piece of glass.
Tom Bradley, window installer
This tool covers what is wrong. Two related questions sit next to it: if you already have a quote in hand and want to know whether the price and the inclusions are fair, the quote quality auditor checks it line by line, and if the answer here was replacement, the window frame material classifier and the 25 year window cost comparator deal with what to replace it with and what that choice costs over its whole life rather than on day one.
Frequently asked questions
No, and this is the single most common upsell in the trade. Misting between the panes means the sealed unit has failed, and the sealed unit is the glass component, not the window. A glazier cuts the failed unit out and fits a new one for £55 to £145 on a standard pane, leaving the frame, hinges and locks in place. You only need the whole window if the frame has gone too.
Around 20 years for the frames. A uPVC frame lasts 20 to 25 years and a sealed unit 15 to 20, so past the 20 year mark you are usually paying to fix one component of a window whose other components are also close to the end. One repair on one window is still fine at any age. It is repairing several at once on old frames that wastes money.
No. Condensation on the room-side face, the sort you can wipe off, is warm moist air meeting the coldest surface in the room. The window is not broken and no repair will stop it. It is a ventilation and humidity problem, which is what trickle vents address. Moisture sealed between the panes, which you cannot wipe off, is the genuine fault.
A firm that does both. A company that only sells replacement windows has one answer to every fault, and it is rarely the cheap one. Repair specialists quote on handles, hinges, seals and sealed units as separate jobs, which is what lets you see whether the repair is genuinely better value than replacing.