Combined wood and aluminium windows

Question

We would like to have wooden windows in our newly bought apartment which we are renovating at the moment. The apartment is old and we feel that alu-windows does not fit the "soul" of the apartment.

The constructor (and every local we ask) tells us that it is a bad idea with wooden framed windows as the temperature variation during a day vary a lot (this winter we've seen it vary from -4C to +18C within 24 hour, in summer we reach 42C degree some days).

Now, the constructor says that wooden-alu windows neither does not fit in this area because of the climate - what could the reason be behind his statement?

Answer 1

I live in Colorado, where it can go from 70F and sunny to 20F and snowing in a day. I have metal-clad wood windows in my house--not a problem. Wood window manufacturers try to use wood that minimizes movement. Aluminum has a larger linear coefficient of thermal expansion than wood (12.3 versus 3.0), so I don't believe aluminum would handle temperature variation any better than wood. Perhaps the contractor is worried about other climate effects. I wouldn't do wood that isn't clad in Colorado, for instance, because you would have to refinish it every year--our sun is brutal to wood products. Good windows are built in a manner to handle temperature fluctuations. Perhaps your climate is very extreme and I just don't know your local building requirements, but the contractor's reasoning sounds a little strange to me.