Mmm, previous owners. I've seen that move before. It's way easier than removing the plaster and fudging with misaligned studs, but they could've at least drilled some holes and located them. Some people just think wood is wood I guess. One of the first fixes in my house was to put a new light fixture in the kitchen and replace 3/4 of the kitchen ceiling because one of the previous owners thought it okay to mount a big metal light can to lath. And by "mount" I mean cut a hole and just rest it on the lath from above. Half the ceiling was sagging and threatening to cave as a result.

How would I know? Don't say ask the landlord, they have less than no idea.

Track shelving. Some books, plants, decorations, that kind of thing.

I've found a very informative site with lots of pictures which have made it very obvious to my little ADHD brain which measurements I need. Thanks to those who replied here, what a helpful sub! Moving house and will be needing more advise I'm sure so will stick around :)

Rare earth magnet to find the dry wall nails

Should be good. Hart is basically rebranded Ryobi.

487.68mm centers.

It's a Ryobi. Not the greatest, but pretty adequate tools usually.

Wish I could but it was broken

Measure the old glass if it's still in tact and get glass cut to the same size.

Both, most likely

I tried to upload but it was removed. After the putty and glass was removed there is a flat area where the glass rests. The inside of the rim that the glass is placed on measures 380 x 425 mm. That's the very smallest measurement of the window, the most inside rim and presumably what the window should be pressed against

Stud finder here. We find studs for all your breeding needs.

This is in the UK, there are guidelines for how wires cross a wall to outlets, over here you can run wires around the “boarders” of a wall, I think you have 150mm to play with from any corner, and then wires crossing out of that border over to an outlet have to come in at 90 degrees, so for any outlet there could be wires going directly up, down, left or right In the wall behind the outlet.

You could take the faceplate off the outlet and have a look what direction the wires are going, but that doesn’t really guarantee anything. Really there’s no easy compromise, you either guess and go slowly, or invest in a tool that that can tell you what’s in the wall

Likely a very old house, or a very frugal repair man was there before you.

Just get a demo-saw and start on one end of the wall, about titty-height and just go ripping nuts, all the way across the room... Then repeat at about head height, then do two vertical cuts on each end.

Now then grab your claw hammer and pull the cut sections off... You can then see the studs, and even measure the distance between each one! 😁

Zero wood straps on this one, I thought so too initially as it looks like it from one side. But as I was removing the old glass I discovered it's quite literally just held in with putty

Typically speaking, the glass sits just shy of flush inside the casing, to allow for expansion of the wood. The “formula” allows for measuring face to face inside the frame, and then compensating for any expansion.

The glass will be held in place with wood straps that run along both faces of the pane, and then putty or silicone.

A picture would be worth a thousand words. Usually when you remove the putty and glass it’s pretty obvious where the new glass rests. Can you take a pic?

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I'm sorry to sound dense, but I'm not quite sure what you mean? Once I removed the glass and old putty there are no slots for the glass to sit in. It's just a bare frame now, there are no little channels that the glass sits in. Do you mean that there are little slots in the frame itself for the glass to fit into?

Unless it happens to align perfectly, one or both sets of bolts probably aren’t going to be in studs. Look for “toggle bolts” at your local hardware store, they work perfectly for wall mounting a TV into drywall.

Use a stud finder or tap along. When you suspect you have a stud use a thin screwdriver of similar and punch through the wall to check you do indeed have a stud.

I restore historic windows and cut glass every day. You need to provide a little more info. Usually the glass fits in a rabbet in the wood sash, so there is about 1/4” wide flat channel for your glass to rest on. Your advice to measure and subtract 1/16 - 1/8 is right but I feel like you’re not quite getting it.

What finder did you get? I got one decently rated thing on Amazon, and never did find anything with it. Broke it in a rage rather than even bother returning it.

Bought a cheap Hart finder from Wally World, and that thing is worth its weight in gold.

Also, if you have old plaster walls, good luck. I've never had any luck with those in my last house, and ended up just drilling to figure out the OCs.