Cheers to prosperity under metrication

To balance his lobbying letter nicely, Sir Peter also noted a few industries which would probably remain ‘imperial’. These included the oil industry and brewing, which was subject to ‘special considerations’.

That same month, the 24th to precise, the metrication request was accepted by the House of Commons.

Conversion was gradual, and not before ‘metric classes’ in schools and an overhaul of British Standards.

Old Money – pounds, shillings and pence – was replaced by the decimal system in 15th February 1971 and by the end of 1972 all new building and construction was done in metric units.

The January exhibition and conference of the Insulating Glazing Association (IGA) continued to merit coverage in the May 1965 magazine.

Glass Age Editor Allan Plowman had advocated a distinction between ‘double’ and ‘dual’ glazing for several years already. After attending the IGA event, this was refined to four types of insulating window installations:

1) Double window;

2) Coupled window;

3) Window incorporating a double glazing unit (a factory made hermetically sealed unit comprising two sheets of glass at a set distance apart).

4) Dual glazing – a window frame carrying two glasses individually glazed.

(N.B. There were myriad additions and exceptions to these definitions but you’ve got the gist of it.)

Readers were also shown U-values for thermal transmittance through glass, against different exposures and various air spaces, aspect, and exposure to wind. This chart was derived from the 1959 edition of the Institution of Heating & Ventilation Engineers’ Guide to Current Practice.

Tore Gjelsvik, Senior Research Officer at the Norwegian equivalent of the BRE, stated in his lecture that the optimum thermal resistance of double glazing is reached when the air space between panes is around three quarters of an inch.

Now what’s that in new money?