01/02/2026

Does size matter - Are you above or below average?

Does size matter - Are you above or below average?

Jokes aside, size is critical for hibearnate. Understanding average window sizes in target areas is critical for minimising material waste and installation time. Minimising waste, directly contributes to the cost of hibearnate to our customer and no one benefits from waste (not even considering environmental concerns). The history of the size of windows is much like that of the space shuttle - decided long ago.

A very quick aside on the size of the space shuttle which we found interesting (window-sizing enthusiasts please skip this bit):

The space shuttle boosters were determined not by ideal engineering choices but instead by a long chain of historical constraints. The boosters must be transported by train, which limits their diameter through tunnels, those tunnel sizes came from old rail standard, which traced back to tram widths, which themselves were set by cart widths, which themselves were set by the spacing of horse-drawn carts and those carts were determined by the side of a horses bum! In short: The cutting-edge space vehicle was quietly shaped by a horses bum!


How a horse’s backside determined the size of the space shuttle

Back to windows (joy of joy). Following some primary and secondary research (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) we found out that most London homes (our original target area) cluster around only a few number of standardised dimensions (we expect this to increase as more people DIY off the shelf components). In practice, most windows pane (the ‘modal’ size if you are feeling fancy) fall around the 1m wide by 1.2-1.4m high mark, representing decades of standardised building.