The Great Window Debate

As one of the most crucial factors affecting the energy efficiency of a building, choosing the new windows for the Zeller house is one of the most important decisions we need to make. If money was no object this would not be a hard decision for us. Our goal is to make the house the most energy efficient it can be, but cost does restrict us from the best of the best. For a while now we have been talking about Anderson windows. Anderson is a well known company that makes very good windows. Like any company that makes windows they have different lines for different budgets, but they make high quality windwows from top to bottom. We looked at their 200 series of windows, but with Low E, high efficieny glass. Anderson makes a window that has a vinyl exterior and a wood interior. The vinyl is better than an aluminum exterior, because it doesn't conduct heat or cold, but unfortunately it is a PVC (a composite plastic material) product, so the production is not environmentally friendly. Despite the vinyl production, this looked like our best overall option until we found out that Anderson was unwilling to use the Low E glass in their 200 series line. So we turned to another company called Pella which is pretty comparable to Anderson. They make a similarly priced line, but were willing to use Low E glass. The drawback of the Pella windows is that the exterior is aluminum, which drops the energy efficiency. So we weighed the pros and cons and decided to go with the Pella for overall better efficiency. Ryan went to order the windows the other day and found out that the store he planned to order through had stopped carrying Pella, so he ended up getting a price quote on the Anderson instead. With a new hitch in our plan Ryan headed to another store to get a competitors price quote on Anderson to compare. While he was there, the window specialist mentioned that they now carry a higher end brand called Marvin. We know Marvin, because we have been looking at their doors and have been pretty impressed. It turns out that Marvin now makes a window with a fiberglass exterior, which is more environmentally friendly to produced and the newest, most efficient window-frame material on the market. They also offer Low E glass in their more affordable lines. With this exciting development we have some more to think about. The Marvin windows have two drawbacks. First, the estimate comes in about $2500 above the Anderson and they don't make the same sized windows for some of the more modern, horizontal windows that we planned for. This isn't just a change in plans, because Ryan will actually have to re-size the openings for quite a few windows if we go with Marvin. Not only is re-sizing a bunch of work for Ryan, but on our horizontal windows that will be high on the walls of most of the addition, we will have go with windows that are in some cases 15-20 inches shorter in width, which compromises our design quite a bit. Despite these drawbacks, the prospect of using the the newest, most innovative high efficiency prodcut for the house is hard to deny. We are looking at the project from the viewpoint that this may be the last time that the Zeller house is fully renovated and we want to do it as well as well can with the means that we have.

So, we have some things to think over in the next few days, but I wanted to let our readers in on one of the decisions we have to make and the process that we go through.