Pittsburgh Home Remodeling

With the high cost of utility bills these days, and the environmentalists lobbying for ways to save energy, the replacement window industry has stepped up to the plate and produced many ways to please everybody involved. Energy-efficient windows are becoming the norm today and the methods of accomplishing this are quite interesting.

If you stand by your window, it’s easy to understand why changes are being sought. In the summer, it’s hot; in the winter, it’s cold. So there’s a drive to build a wall between you and the outdoors – a wall you can still see through. And that’s what technology has created. They’ve found a way to keep your house comfortable, no matter what the season or climate.

You want your home to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. If your windows are there just to allow you to see outside, then they’re doing their job. But if you want them to be instrumental in keeping your house at a constant comfortable temperature, then you need more. You need the new technology of replacement windows.

One of the first methods of insulating your windows was to double them – that is, put two panes of glass in the window frame, with an airspace between the two. The idea behind this is that the air between the panes will keep the outside window at the outside temperature, and the inside window at the inside temperature, and “ne’er the twain shall meet”. This worked fine, but not as well as people wanted.

The next innovation was to cover the window with a clear coating that would improve heat loss without decreasing light. That improvement came in the form of low-emissivity (Low-E) glass. It improved heat loss by 40%-70%. But people wanted still more.

So heat-absorbing glass was developed. This glass absorbs up to 45% of sunlight, keeping indoors cooler. However, some heat was still getting through. So on to the next development – reflective glass. Reflective glass is coated with a film that reflects sunlight instead of absorbing it. So now the heat stays out, or in, depending on what time of year it is, and on what you need to make you comfortable.