I was reading some statistics the other day and saw that 22% of the energy expended in the United States is used by homes, costing American households $215 billion. Pretty astounding.

I think many Americans now realize the impact that building products like windows and doors can have on our economy—and their wallets. But it’s probably hard for consumers to determine what truly makes a product “green” or “energy efficient.” What manufacturer doesn’t say their products are “green?”

When measuring how green windows and doors really are, there are several factors that need to be considered, including the energy efficiency and sustainability/lifespan of the product, how environmentally friendly the manufacturing processes used to produce the product are, and what overall impact the product has on the environment (i.e is the material recylcable or reusable?).

There are many reputable green organizations out there to help homeowners make the right buying choices if they’re concerned about being green. I’m listing a few web sites here that can be especially helpful in finding out whether a product is truly “green.”

www.greenseal.org

www.energystar.gov

www.greenbuildingpages.com

www.efficienctwindows.org

 Why Would You Laminate Glass 

Why would you laminate glass?  What is laminated glass?  What does it do?

When you hear the word laminate, you don't immediately gravitate towards glass, maybe paper or an ID card, but glass?

Laminated glass describes a polyvinyl butyral interlayer (PVB) that is sandwiched between two pieces of glass.  If some sort of projectile hits laminated glass, it can break, but the broken glass makes a spider web pattern, and actually stays in tact.  A common type of laminated glass most of us come in contact with everyday is an automobile windshield.

But why would you put laminated glass in a window?  There are many reasons to do this; one of the major reasons is security.  Depending on the thickness* of the PVB interlayer, it is very difficult to break through laminated glass.  In fact, it can take 30 hits with a baseball bat to puncture a hole in some types of laminated glass including Gorell's Armor Glass Plus, Armor Max Plus, and Armor Impact Plus.

Another great benefit of laminated glass, is the safety factor.  As we have mentioned already, when this unique glass breaks, it forms a spider web pattern, but stays 'in tact.'  This type of glass is also used in hurricane/impact windows.  Laminated glass is able to withstand multiple projectile hits, just like a hurricane would produce. 

It also has great ultra violet and solar protection.  This means anything behind a laminated glass window has extra protection against fading, things like drapes, carpets, paintings, and furniture.  As a testament to its fade protection, our most treasured document, the Declaration of Independence is behind laminated glass.

Also, with this special glass, you also have a more effective sound transmission class.  This essentially means, the outside noise you would normally hear with an ordinary window is dramatically reduced with laminated glass.

Finally, if the laminated glass is coupled together with some sort of high performance glass such as Gorell's, Armor Glass line of products, you also gain great energy efficiency/savings.

*There are various thicknesses of the PVB interlayer, the minimum thickness recommended by this author is .060 or greater.  Anything less, such as a .030 will not offer the same type of benefits described above.

What makes a window move up and down?  How come some of the older windows need to be propped up with a cut off broom stick?  Why are some windows easy to open up and difficult to close?

These are some of the questions you might ask when you are selecting new replacement windows for your home.  The answer to the above questions is balances.  What is a balance or for the purpose of our discussion, specifically what is a window balance?

A window balance is located inside the window, and its primary function is to operate the sash of the window up and down.  There are different types of window balance systems available, I am going to discuss three, block and tackle, spiral, and constant force.

The block and tackle balance system has been around for years.  Many 'old line' window companies started using these decades ago.  The concept is a rope and pulley system, even the 'new versions' operate under the same premise, rope and pulley.  By operating on a type of rope and with having several moving parts, this type of balance is susceptible to breaking down over time.  Also, the tendency for this type of balance is to work easy going up or going down.  But it just doesn't have the easy of operations in both directions.

The spiral balance was introduced to replace the older designs of the block and tackle design.  This balance has a tendency to break down over time even more quickly than the block and tackle.  It needs to be lubricated with grease, and as the window remains closed, the spiral balance is open and unprotected from the environment.  This means dust, dirt, pollen, etc. sticks to the grease of the balance.  When the window is operated, all the elements of the environment act as drag on the balance.  This makes the window extremely difficult to operate in both directions.  If all this wasn't enough, the spiral balancer has different colored tips based on the weight of the sash.  So if a balance goes bad, you need to color match the tips otherwise the window will not operate properly.

There has been a newer type of balance introduced to the market, and it is called constant force balance.  This balance has very few moving parts.  It is self lubricating and many of the constant force balances are Teflon coated.  This makes operating the sash easy both up and down - most of the time, you can operate a constant force balance window with one finger. 

Another great benefit is it doesn't matter how heavy or light the sash is, the balance keeps the force of opening the window or closing the window 'constant.'  So, in this world of green and energy efficiency, you can have a triple glass window, and not have to worry about how difficult it would typically be to operate.  The triple glass gives you great energy efficiency thereby making it more of a green or environmentally friendly product.  And the constant force balance system gives you easy operation. 

Guess which balance system is in my house!

The tax credit for several home improvements including windows was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 implemented back in late February. In the window industry, this act caused lots of confusion as requirements for windows qualifying for the tax credit, were vastly different than qualifying a window for Energy Star.

The Energy Star criteria has been the benchmark in the industry for many years. It seemed that the right arm didn't know what the left arm was doing in this case. You would have thought the different branches within the government would have consulted each other, in this case, the lawmakers and the Dept. of Energy. Unfortunately, this didn't happen, and there was a lot of confusion that arose.

Here is the challenge that came up, in order for windows to qualify for the tax credit, the windows needed to achieve an overall u-value of a .30 or less, and achieve a solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of a .30 or less. The numbers are not particularly unfair to window manufacturers, but they are a bit unfair to homeowners.

For example, a person living in the north, would want the SHGC to be higher (have less performance). The reason for this is in the winter, homeowners want more of the sun's rays to come in and heat the house. This results in using the home's heating unit less.

In southern climates a SHGC of a .30 or less makes sense because homeowners in these climates, want to keep the sun's rays from heating the house up for the majority of year, thus relying less on their air conditioning units.

And what if you purchased windows earlier in 2009 before the tax credit was announced, or if you had windows in process when the announcement was made, that were Energy Star qualifed, but didn't fit the .30/.30 criteria?

Well the IRS has just announced that Energy Star qualified windows purchased through June 1st, 2009, would also qualify for the tax credit. On June 1st, the IRS will release another statement clarifying their position, but it is almost certain that the .30/.30 qualification will be back in full effect.

Many window manufactures didn't have windows that could get to the .30/.30 qualification, and many still don't. From a homeowner perspective, if we are in the market to improve our homes, we are going to look at the tax credit qualified windows first. T

his has resulted in many window manufacturers to implement new glass packages, new window packages, and more R&D to make this happen sooner rather than later. Initially, this could result in higher costs to homeowners, but in the long run, in my opinion, it will result in better performing windows using less energy. This will reduce the use of natural resources whether domestic or foreign - and it will help us become a greener nation.