Wooden Windows vs uPVC and Aluminium: The Honest Case for Timber
Most window decisions in India are made in about ten minutes, on a price per square foot and a sample held up in a showroom.
Three materials are on the table. The one usually dismissed first — because it costs more and sounds like work — is the only one of the three that can be repaired rather than replaced, and the only one that will still be doing its job in forty years.
We make windows from timber. We don't make uPVC or aluminium. So read the next section as disclosure before you read our argument.
Where uPVC and aluminium windows genuinely win
uPVC is cheaper, by a lot. Timber typically costs 80–100% more upfront. If budget is the governing constraint, that is the end of the conversation, and we would not pretend otherwise.
Neither needs refinishing. There is no repainting cycle. For a second home, a rental, or a household that will never maintain anything, that is a real advantage.
Aluminium achieves slimmer sightlines. Metal carries load in a thinner section than wood can. For a very large glazed opening where the frame should almost disappear, aluminium does something timber cannot.
Those are honest advantages. Here is why we still think timber is the better choice for a house you intend to keep.
1. Heat
This is the argument that matters most in a Punjab summer, and it isn't close.
Aluminium conducts heat at roughly 160 W/mK. Timber manages about 0.13. The frame is either part of your insulation or a hole in it, and aluminium is a hole — which is why aluminium windows need an engineered thermal break just to be acceptable.
Even with that break, the whole-window figures favour wood. Double-glazed timber lands around 1.2–1.4 W/m²K. Double-glazed aluminium with a thermal break sits at 1.4–1.8. uPVC performs respectably here, at 1.2–1.6, and we will give it that.
On a west-facing wall in May, that difference is something you feel on your skin, and pay for in your electricity bill, every afternoon for thirty years.
2. Movement
The standard objection to wood is that it warps. In heat, the data says almost the opposite.
Linear thermal expansion, per degree Celsius:
Material | Expansion (×10⁻⁶/°C) |
Rigid uPVC | ~63 |
Aluminium | ~22 |
Teak, along the grain | ~3.1–4.5 |
uPVC moves roughly fifteen times as much as timber does. Aluminium around five times as much.
A window frame's members run along the grain, which is the direction wood barely moves in. So on a Mohali afternoon in May — when the air alone climbs from around 23°C before dawn to 38°C by mid-afternoon, and a frame in direct sun runs hotter still than the air around it — the plastic frame is the one straining hardest against its own seals.
Then it does it again the next day. And every day after that. Seals worked loose over years of that cycle are how a window starts whistling, leaking dust, and losing the insulation you bought it for.
To be fair about it: wood's real adversary is moisture, not heat. That is a genuine issue, and it is exactly what species selection and construction are for — which is the last section of this article.
3. It can be repaired
This is the difference that compounds.
A timber window is a surface you can renew. Scratched, dented, tired, sun-bleached — it is sanded back and refinished, and it comes out looking new. Localised damage can be cut out and spliced.
A uPVC frame cannot be refinished, because you cannot sand plastic back to a finish. Damage to the frame generally means replacing the unit. Aluminium's powder coating is difficult to repair in place for the same reason.
Over the life of a house, that is the gap between a maintenance item and a capital item.
4. It ages instead of degrading
Here is the part worth knowing, and it comes from the uPVC industry's own guidance rather than ours.
UV light breaks down PVC, turning it yellow or chalky. By a uPVC manufacturer's own published account: budget profiles show noticeable yellowing in 3–7 years — as little as 2–3 years in high-UV conditions. Mid-range profiles last 10–15 years before surface changes. Only premium certified profiles reach 20–30 years without significant fading. India is a high-UV country, and most uPVC sold here is not premium certified.
The same guidance recommends cleaning every three to six months, applying a uPVC protective polish once or twice a year, and checking the frame sealant annually. Which is to say: "maintenance-free" is not quite true, even on uPVC's own telling. It is maintenance you cannot see the benefit of, because the best outcome is that the plastic looks slightly less degraded than it otherwise would.
Timber asks for refinishing roughly every 8–12 years. The difference is what you get back. Wood that is refinished looks new. Plastic that is polished looks like plastic that has been polished.
Well-maintained timber windows last 60 years and beyond. Aluminium powder-coat finishes are generally quoted at 25–30 years.
5. It can match the rest of your house
This one is specific to how we work, and it is the argument clients find most persuasive once they see it.
A stain can run through a whole home — the windows, the doors beside them, the wardrobes, the wall panelling. A&A manufactures all seven categories and finishes them in the same paint shop, which is what makes a genuine match possible rather than approximate.
An extruded frame cannot do this. uPVC can carry a printed woodgrain foil, and some of them are convincing from across a room. None of them can be stained to match the teak door standing next to it, because there is nothing there to stain.
If the rest of your interior is wood, a plastic window is the one element in the room pretending to be something else.
And the termite question
It is the first thing anyone asks about wooden windows in India, and it deserves a direct answer.
Teak heartwood is classified as very durable, and resists fungal decay, termites and marine borers without any chemical treatment. Not treated to resist them — naturally resistant, because of the oils and extractives in the timber itself. It is the reason teak has been used for ship decking for well over a century, and the reason it is the species we build solid windows from.
Teak also moves very little. Its shrinkage runs about 2.6% radially and 5.3% tangentially, which is low for a hardwood, and it is why teak holds its shape through repeated wetting and drying rather than fighting it.
The sapwood, incidentally, is not durable. So the honest version of the question to ask any supplier is not "is this teak?" but "is this teak heartwood, with the sapwood excluded?"
Which wood
We build windows two ways, and the right one depends mostly on how big the window is and how it opens.
Solid teak is for windows where the grain is the point — natural and stained finishes, continuous and unrepeated, with the longest service life of anything we make and the ability to be spliced and repaired decades later.
A hardwood core with a veneer finish is the more stable construction, because its layers restrain each other's movement. That makes it the better answer for large sliding sashes, where the seal depends on the panel arriving in exactly the right position. It also opens up species you cannot sensibly have in solid timber at window scale — oak, walnut and American cherry among them.
Both are available across our three window systems: Lift & Slide for expansive views, Tilt & Turn for ventilation without opening the whole sash, and Casement for classic side-hinged openings. All three run on high-performance European hardware — multi-point locking, friction hinges, custom-fit gaskets — because the timber makes the window beautiful, and the ironmongery makes it seal.
You do not need to work out which construction you need. Tell us the opening and how you want it to open, and we will tell you.
On the cost
Timber costs more on day one. We are not going to argue it doesn't.
What we would say is that the comparison most people make — purchase price against purchase price — is the wrong one, because it compares a window you will refinish with a window you will replace. Timber is the only one of the three materials where the surface is renewable, and that changes the arithmetic over the period you will actually own the house.
Whether it changes it enough is a judgement about how long you intend to stay. That is a conversation worth having properly, with your actual openings and orientations in front of us.
A&A has been manufacturing since 1979, now in its third generation, from a 150,000 sq. ft. facility running German, Italian and Spanish machinery — CNC cutting, calibrated sanding, and our own automated paint shop. The windows, and the doors and panelling they sit beside, are made and finished under the same roof.
Design starts with dialogue. Our Mohali display centre is open Monday to Saturday, 10:00 am to 7:00 pm, and Sunday by appointment.
Retail enquiry: +91 97799 29038 · Dealer enquiry: +91 97595 50055
Sources
Thermal expansion of timber along the grain — USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Wood Handbook, GTR-282, ch. 4. The coefficient parallel to the grain is 3.1–4.5 × 10⁻⁶ K⁻¹ and, in the Handbook's words, "appears to be independent of specific gravity and species" — which is what makes it legitimate to state for teak specifically rather than quoting a different species.
Thermal expansion of uPVC and aluminium — InspectAPedia: Coefficients of thermal expansion of building materials. Neutral reference source; per-°C values derived from the table's per-°F figures.
uPVC yellowing timeframes and maintenance guidance — Indiframe: Do uPVC windows fade or discolour over time?. Note this is a uPVC manufacturer, so these are concessions from the opposing side rather than our claims.
Teak heartwood durability, density and shrinkage — Cochinwood: Teak (Tectona grandis) properties.
Mohali temperature figures — Climate-Data.org: Mohali climate, 1991–2021 averages. May average high 38.1°C, May average low 22.9°C.
Thermal conductivity, U-values, lifespans, refinishing intervals and the 80–100% cost premium — Timber Windows Direct: Timber vs uPVC vs aluminium. This is a timber manufacturer's own article and its framing favours timber. The figures are theirs, not independently verified, which is why the cost premium is quoted in full and the more self-serving comparisons on this page are not used.
