Pine vs meranti: which timber is right for your windows?

Every made-to-measure window we sell comes in two timbers, and the honest answer to "which should I choose?" is: it depends on your house, your budget and how long you're staying. Here's the difference, plainly.

Meranti — the hardwood. Meranti is a dense tropical hardwood that machines beautifully, stays dimensionally stable through wet British winters, and holds paint for years longer than softwood. Density is what you're paying for: less movement means joints stay tight, paint stays sealed, and the window you buy at thirty looks the same at fifty. It's what our workshop recommends for most homes, and it's what most of our customers choose.

Pine — the softwood. Pine is the traditional budget choice — it's what many original Victorian windows were made from, and plenty of those are still going after a century of care. The operative word is care: softwood moves more with the seasons and wants repainting more often. In our range, pine runs around 15% cheaper than the same window in meranti.

How to decide. Choose meranti if the windows face weather (south-westerly rain, coastal air), if you want the longest repaint intervals, or if this is your forever house. Choose pine if the elevation is sheltered, the budget is doing several rooms at once, or the house will be repainted regularly anyway as part of its maintenance rhythm.

The like-for-like test. Configure the same window in both timbers and look at the two prices side by side — the difference is usually smaller than people expect, which is why most baskets end up hardwood. Open the product builder