Mike: If you live in an older home, there’s a good possibility that you have a single pane windows that are not energy efficient. In summer, heat gained from sunlight passing through single pane windows can really heat up your house. This causes your air conditioner to work harder which means higher electric bills. In winter, single pane windows allow heat to escape from your house also adding to your energy cost.
So if you’re looking to upgrade the look of your house and make it more energy efficient, it might be time to replace your doors and windows with low-e, double pane glass. Now when it comes to replacing the windows in your house, you have a lot of choices. We went with the Simonton vinyl window because we wanted it to be very energy efficient and this window is 40% more efficient than most windows of this type.
Now it’s a double pane glass which means there’s actually 2 pieces of glass that make up the window. And in between the glass we’re gonna fill it with an inert gas. This one is actually argon to make it more energy efficient and a low-e coating on the inside of the outside pane. This prevents sunlight from coming through there and fading out our interior colors like our drapes and our carpets plus our sofas. And it makes it more energy efficient. And that’s what we’re really after on this house. This house will be dramatically more efficient once these windows are installed.
In recent years window companies not only improve the energy efficiency of their products but they now give consumers the option of custom made windows and doors to fit any opening. Bill Lazor is with Simonton Windows.
Well Bill a little earlier I talked about the double panes of glass and the gas, the low-e content. Explain to me a little bit about the vinyl itself and how the windows were constructed.
Bill: Sure. A vinyl as you know is very inert, it does not conduct heat or cold very well which makes it very energy efficient.
Mike: That’s what we want.
Bill: And if you look down here, you can see the multi chambers of the vinyl extrusion. This does a couple of things. First of all, it creates some strength in the profile and also in window dead air space is a very good insulator so it makes it a very, very energy efficient.
Mike: Okay.
Bill: Along with that, we have this intercept U-channel spacer system here that actually locks into both sections of the IG unit and the nice thing about the IG--the U-spacer here is that when it expands or contracts with cold, the U-spacer expands in tracts with it. So it keeps the integrity of the seal intact which means your main IG is gonna perform for years and years.
Mike: So it’s never gonna pop out or gonna fall windows or anything like that.
Bill: No sir.
Mike: Okay.
Bill: And finally, we’ve look up here and we see they have a triple seal of weather spacing. Here we have a fin seal and two valves that are compressed that help keep out you infiltration around the sash.
Mike: Okay so no problem there but it’s still easy to open and close.
Bill: Works like better.
Mike: Okay good that’s what we want. Hey! Now back on the glass, here we have a heat lamp and a lot of toys it looks like to measure heat. And let’s turn on. We have two different types of glass. Here we have a single pane and here we have the dual pane with the low-e like we’re looking at.
Bill: And it has a soft coat or a low-e on it there right.
Mike: Right. Okay now we’ve got a Simonton meter here. Let’s put it up and what is that telling us here?
Bill: It’s showing you the amount of heat that’s actually coming into your home, if this is from the outside source.
Mike: Okay so we’ve got 200 degrees there and we slide in the double pane with the low-e. And pretty dramatic, about 60,, kind of huge difference isn’t it?
Bill: Well this is gonna be very important especially for people in southern climates we have higher condition bills. This type of glass with a soft coat low-e and the argon combination will help really help with your air conditioning bills.
Mike: Yeah, that’s 1/3 of the temperature so I’d say it’s going to be a lot of simpler on our system and a lower monthly bill.
Bill: Absolutely.
Mike: Bill, let’s look at this one other way with radiometer. Put it behind the double pane here and tell me while we’re watching this start to spin from the heat, how about in the winter time? You’re talking about blocking the rays of the sun but how about the winter?
Bill: All right well we use a special formula, formulization of low-e soft coat on the southern climate which actually help keep heat out from the sun and then the winter time in northern climates, there’s another special formulated the hard coat which actually allows a little bit more heat in to help reduce your heating bills in the winter time.
Mike: I like that. And it’s real obvious here with the radiometer just like with the other meter; put the single pane in front of it and that thing takes off. I think it’s about to get air born. Replacing old windows is not the only way you could improve your home’s energy efficiency. In this case the old single pane sliding door has been replaced along with the windows in the sunroom. The door frame is built on site and framed in to ensure best fit and maximum insulation. And how about the operation of the doors, is it smooth?
Bill: The operation is under on brass hard rollers, stainless steel in some cases next to the coast so the operation slides very, very easily. In the glass portion, we use another IG unit. This IG of course has templar glass and it’s for safety and has a specially coated solar, a soft coat low-e on the inside that we used in all the windows here. And of course that meets energy store standards here in the south too.
Mike: Well since this is a vinyl, its definitely going to be a low maintenance but how about the warranty?
Bill: Well all our retrofit products both the windows and the doors are a lifetime warranty on the hardware, the screens, the IG unit, and the vinyl itself. So the homeowner hasn’t anything to worry about as long as they’re on their home. And it’s transferable too.
Mike: Replacing old doors and windows with new energy efficient Simonton products will not only lower your energy bills but beautify your home as well. For more information on Simonton windows and doors, call them at 1-800-SIMONTON or visit them online at Simonton.com.
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