I have inward opening windows and shutters, what hot weather?

Yes, standard practice here in France. They have a long tradition of external shutters which do help a lot with restricting summer heating + gives us a good level of darkness at night! We have roller shutters with small PV panels charging the batteries - easier than retro fixing the wiring in our passivhaus!!

Will,

I saw a comment about inwards opening windows being common in Scotland on another thread but I don't have any experience of them. Mostly sash and case or outward opening where I've lived.

Would be interested to hear from anyone with a recommendations for manufacturers of inward opening. If, as you say, they are quite common in Scotland, there should be a few?

We also have inward opening tilt-turn Internorm units. Mainly selected so that we could insulate over the frame externally, but also good for leaving open overnight in the summer.

We also plan to fit external roller blinds at some point, so the inward opening helps.

Only downside so far is not being able to put birthday cards etc. on window sills..!

Over here all the windows open inwards. The old type were double casements with about 150mm between the lights and new ones tilt and turn. We have tilt and turn throughout and the only time we open on turn is for cleaning otherwise we find that tilt gives enough ventilation especially if opposite sides of the house have open windows or one up and one down. Weather proofing has never been a problem. We have never had a problem not being able to use the window sill as tilt is the normal use. (And the grandchildren like sitting on the window sill looking out. (window sills in the old part of the house are 50cm wide))

I have replaced all (but one) windows and fitted GBS Performance range inward opening tilt & turn, for the same (good) reasons Doubting Thomas listed already. I am not considering external shutters: the south side has a large eaves overhang to provide shading in summer.

Posted By: WeeBeastieAre these available in the UK? Does anyone have them? Are there downsides/benefits in use? I assume they are more difficult to weatherproof and can interfere with internal window coverings and space, but they must get around these issues in other countries.

Yes, they are available. Our choice 7 years ago was between Livingwood and Green Steps and was fairly even. Yes, we have them. I don't know of any downsides; the benefits are the ability to leave them open in the tilted position without worrying too much about potential rain or security threats. They are easier to weatherproof, that's why the continental use them. We use internal blinds mounted to or within the sash for opening windows; we don't have any curtains because we don't like them. On windows that we might want to turn, yes we have to make sure that whatever is on the windowsill/board is easy to move but in practice that's only one or two windows. We've fitted flyscreens over the few windows we do regularly open so we don't let any insects in when we do open them.

I considered external shutters when we built and decided they were too complicated. But I'm still thinking about retrofitting them

Posted By: borpin
External shutters are not unique to France though they are often wooden. Many other parts of Europe have integrated roller shutters which are fantastic (I lived in Germany for years). Better security, and shading in summer, heat retention in Winter.

UK Planners hate them.

I never found a good detail to fit them without creating a very thin area of insulation (and risking condensation as a result). You could mount them completely external, but that isn't pretty.

I can understand why. In the evening when everybody has the shutters down it makes for a pretty dystopian visuals, and potentially socially unsafe streets.

West facing windows are generally the big problem in terms of overheating

Posted By: WeeBeastieDT,
Are the roller blinds you plan to fit also from Internorm? I see they have windows suited to retrofit which have an integral housing with blind.

Sorry, late to follow up on this. No, we aren't looking specifically at Internorm. We have quite recessed windows and our cladding is lightweight timber rainscreen so I'm having to look at systems that we can fix into the zone of cladding support battens instead.

So far, the most cost effective is Fakro who offer what they (confusingly) call an 'Awning Blind' (Type VMZ). This is available as a manual option which means we don't have to make any extra wiring holes in our airtight line.

I've inward openers that use a profile that wasn't designed to be inward opening - it took the window co quite a while to get it right (and it's still not quite there in really bad weather) - a normal PVC or Alu frame is designed to permit water into the profile (it will get in - don't fight it) and then there is typically a low point in the profile where the water collects and drain holes let it out again. This low point is, by design, on the outer edge but if you turn the profile round it'll be on the inner:

Attached below is heritage 47, the profile that my alu windows use; it's designed to be installed so the outside world is on the right. Any water getting into the frame collects where I highlighted blue and is discharged out of holes drilled in the right side.

To start with my supplier drilled drain holes on the higher part of the profile (my outside world is on the left) which wasn't very successful. An additional strip was added in the center of the profile to try and keep water on the higher part but it kept making its way to the lower part, overflowing the frame and coming into the house. The end solution was to drill right through the profile and install drain holes in the lower part as would typically happen.. The water now thus transits through the entire frame (across the thermal break too- ooh, arr- if I was bothered about it I'd install a tube to carry the water) rather than staying world side of the thermal break like it usually would

In summary; advance warning that the profiles you want might be designed to work a particular way round - conversion is possible but it'll be more engineering and not in the "day in day out" remit of the engineering process the window co typically goes through so you may get some teething troubles as the shop floor workers "do what they always do" and e.g. drill drain holes on the world side, even if it is notionally "on a hill" where the water doesn't collect, rather than in the valley .. 🙄

Various reasons I suppose, but mainly that tilt n turns don't come 4 metres high, and they're quite a fat profile - having fought tooth and nail with planning to get permission for 1100 wide when they were pushing for 600, I didn't want to then give a large proportion of the opening away to frame, so we aimed for as slim a profile as possible..