Quote:
Originally Posted by S-F
No. They are pine frames with plastic on either side with qlon around the edges to create an air tight seal. There is a company in a city about 20 Mi south of me (Springfield) that has a small shop making these things. It's entirely staffed by low income individuals and the unemployed. You can make these things for a lot less yourself though.... but you have to actually do it, which can be a PITA depending on your schedule and level of motivation. I myself swore that I'd have some made by the winter. Oops. No inserts yet. Hopefully next year. All you do it rip #2 pine to make a frame, put a supporting brace in the middle and kerf the perimeter with the table saw for the qlon. Your "pane" can be either that window film (on each side) or something a little more durable. Just make sure it's all air tight. Is it going to perform as well as one of these high tech billionaire windows? Probably not. If you have a small house and are thrifty with everything else How long is it going to take to see a return on the $35,000 windows compared to the $8,000 windows? I did the math when I moved into this house and assuming that I live to be 90 and the cost of energy doesn't rise (yeah right) I would never see a return on replacing the windows which are already installed. The only place I'm going to get 3 pane glass is for two picture windows I have. They are inoperable. I'm going to source 3 pane glass from a glass dealer, not some crazy company like Serious or Thermotech, and frame them in my self using a liberal amount of spray foam. If they were already 2 pane replacement windows I probably wouldn't do it but they are the original single pane jobs so replacement makes sense there. Really all decent casements allow about the same amount of air movement. I've seen this plenty of times with blower door testing. At least enough to convince me. Just replace a couple Sq. Ft. of 2 pane glass with R 40 wall and call it a day. Every foot of glass you can replace with super insulated wall is a point for humanity in my book. I'm fortunate in that the clever 1950's builder who made my house did some clever things like: double drywall on ALL walls, low ceilings and small windows.
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Say, S-F...
I was talking to a friend of mine who had a couple of double-low E fixed window in his living room. He got the windows made to fit the spaces he had. He just got the glass, with no frames. He said it wasn't so expensive that way.
Such an idea!
-AC