 | Bob Crager of Lewis Street Glass is a 26 year veteran in the glass business. Lewis Street Glass is a leading Wichita Glass company, serving the entire Wichita/Sedgwick County area since 1919. They do anything and everything having to do with glass, both residential and commercial. They also do Auto glass. They are located at 743 South Market, facing Kellogg on the South, and you can reach them by phone at (316) 263-8259. You can email Bob Crager at bcrager@lewisstreetglass.com |
Glass
2008-03-01 09:38:00
Low-e or not low-e...that is the question
Question: My husband and I built a brand new home a couple of years ago and we requested that our builder install Low-E glass for each and every window in our new house. We thought that by doing that, we were protecting our hardwood floors and our furniture from all of the fading we see all the time. It hasn’t helped, even a little bit. All of the curtains, chairs, whether the wooden ones in the dining room, or the material covered ones in the living room and family room, have all faded out and lost their color and finishes considerably. I have reason to believe that my windows may not actually be Low-E glass…could we have paid for that and been cheated?
Answer: What we need to do first is clear up a misconception about Low-E glass, and that is that it is not supposed to block the ultraviolet (UV) rays of the sun. These are the rays of light and heat which are responsible for your color-fading problems. Low-E glass does an unbelievable job of blocking heat out, using a thin metallic coating on the inside surface of those insulated-glass panels. To protect the possessions inside your home that you speak of, you would have wanted to have covered the windows with a film designed specifically for that purpose that does stop UV radiation. Window films are plastic sheets of varying thickness that perform a lot of different functions. Some window films stop UV rays, some stop infrared (IR) rays, which cause things to heat up inside your home on a summer day.
If you have ever walked in front of a window where the sun is streaming in without interruption, you can instantly feel the IR radiation on your skin. Other window films do double or triple duty. Some thicker window films will not only block UV and IR rays, but will also stop large objects from coming into your home. Some of these thicker window films are used to attempt to stop windows from being blown out during hurricanes or other large windstorms. You can often see the ultra-thin metallic coating of Low-E if you look at clean windows on a sunny day at an approximate 30 or 35 degree angle.
The glass will often appear to have a bluish or even light green cast to it. Regular glass that has no Low-E coating never has this kind of coloration. You may have to look at your windows at different times of the day to be able to detect this coloration. It is not readily apparent. You might even want to buy a piece of regular glass to help you determine if you have Low-E glass. If you have someone hold the regular piece of glass next to your windows, taking pains to ensure that the glass is parallel and in the same plane as your pane of window glass, you might see that the regular glass looks very different from your windows.
In summary, it’s unlikely that your builder intentionally sold you Low-E glass and installed regular glass, because if he did, he owes you the complete replacement of those windows, and you would want to pursue your remedy completely and as soon as possible. But before you go there, do the testing to determine for certain what kind of glass you have installed in your home. Also, remember that the Low-E glass will not prevent the loss of color or fading of your woods, because it’s not designed to do that. Your local glass dealer can give you all the information you need regarding window glass, whether specialty glass, commercial glass for business or industrial installations, or any other kind of glass making your life more comfortable. Imagine life without glass! Not a pretty sight, huh? Some information researched on the world wide web…More Next Month…
