From my experience everything Ralph and John say is true.  The school where
I work had an addition built in 1981 and another in 1983 or 4.  Both of
these have "termopane" windows that have "leaked."  And they do look like
HELL!!!!  There is no point in washing these windows because the film is
between the glasses, not on the outside.  They also have some that were
replacement windows in classrooms and those seem fine, so far, but they are
newer and also seem to be better quality.  Then there are the ones that
were put in right after the war, in a military suplus building that was
supposed to be an airplane hanger but is a classroom building instead.  The
front, I suppose where the airplanes would normally go in and out so no
wall, is all glass.  It is about 4' square windows put together to form the
front of the auditorium.  These have been there about 50 years with no
problems.  Condensation forms and runs all over the new windows but we
never seem to have any on the old ones.  Don't know if that is window
construction or just the side of the building they're on--East.

As Ralph so delicately put it those new windows are NFG, stay away from
them at all costs.  Ruth




At 10:23 PM -0400 9/4/03, [log in to unmask] wrote:


Question 2: This same woman (she's retired with lots of time on her hands)
was recently in Bennington VT and noticed that all the downtown buildings
have a double pane thermal setup where the 2 windows have a 3/4" or so
metal gasket inbetween.  These are insulated glass windows, often called
(by me, anyway) Thermopane. Our downtown businesses are concerned with
heating/cooling costs They are the only people in the world with this
concern. and she wanted to get more information about these particular
windows.  Would anyone know of good references for this type of thermal
setup?  I was wondering if they were custom or a commercial standard design
and possible sources for the materials.  The (well, one) problem with
insulated glass is that it takes (or used to take) a very long time to get
to the "payback" point, where the amount of money you save on
heating/cooling equals the fortune you spent to remove your historic
windows that have been there for 100 years and replace them with new
Thermopane windows.  The (well, another) problem with insulated glass is
that the seals between the two sheets of glass have a limited service life
(maybe 5 years, maybe 15, maybe 20 at best; who knows, but it sure as hell
ain't as long as the original windows were there) and when the seals fail,
the space between the glass gets all steamed up and looks like shit, and
you have to replace the whole damn window AGAIN with yet another custom
made window (glass and frame), or spend the rest of your life looking at
fog.  The (well, another) problem with new windows is that they're built
using shit: sometimes plastic (it's a better insulator than wood! it
doesn't have to be painted! it doesn't rot! it's cheaper than wood!),
sometimes wood (which is never as good as the original wood in your
original windows, unless you pay billions of dollars for very high-end
custom-milled wood sash and frames), sometimes aluminum (much stronger,
lighter and cheaper than wood! more durable than plastic! doesn't need
painting!), and they NEVER look as good as the original windows: mullions
are too wide, improperly spaced, glass is either too perfect or has
oil-canning (funny reflections that make the glass look like the cheapest
plastic you ever saw), etc.  John Leeke will no doubt have more (and
better) reasons why new windows are NFG, and I'm surprised he hasn't
erupted yet.  Best yet, have John come up there and explain to the locals
why they should keep (and fix) the windows they have rather than spending a
fortune to get shit.

Ya gotta be real careful not to wind up with a bunch of well-intentioned
people with more money than sense who have unintentionally messed up what
sounds like a nice, more-or-less pristeen downtown.   As soon as
Christopher gets his gunwales fixed (and the ice melts), we'll all cruise
on up the river for a look-see.  Meanwhile, keep us posted.

How much snow you got so far?

Ralph



--
Ruth Barton
[log in to unmask]
Dummerston, VT

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