However, I’m going to start breaking down some common and even uncommon reasons (that we’ll learn about as we go) for turning to replacement windows for your home.

The first replacement reason that we will explore is a problem many homeowners in Atlanta face: Single Pane Windows.

A Single Pane Window Provides No Insulation

Now if you’re looking at this blog, chances are you’ve already become fed up with your single pane windows. Today, we’ll look at one major reason why you would want to get these windows out of your home.

Insulation

If there is no other reason to replace your windows, I would suggest that this in itself is enough to prompt a a change. Single pane windows provide minimal insulation for your home from the elements outside. They are great to see out of, providing maximum visibility, but one layer of glass will not cut down on the massive heat gain you experience in the summer or the great heat loss in the winter.

The Switch to Double Pane

Double pane windows on the other hand provide so much more than just another layer of glass. Here’s a breakdown of what you get when you replace the single pane energy eaters to energy saving vinyl double pane windows.

• The vinyl frame and sash components are much more thermal than what you will find on a wood or aluminum window (which is what every single pane window employs). Often times, vinyl window manufacturers will even fill their windows’ frames and sashes with an insulated foam to further reduce heat loss/gain.
• Glass thickness is much greater in double pane windows thus slowing down heat transference.
• The space between the two panes of glass in a double pane vinyl window is filled with a dense, inert, gas (usually either argon or the much denser krypton) to slow down heat as either enters or leaves your home. Don’t be fooled, even with double pane insulated vinyl windows, you will still gain or lose heat, (just as you still will in every other area of your home… heat is active!). But the point is to reduce the rate at which heat is gained and lost in your home every year and a dense gas between the panes reduces that rate by large margins.
• Low-e and spacer systems. Both of these elements are also common in a vinyl double pane window. Low-e (low emissivity) is a coating that actually goes on the glass in the windows to reflect heat back to its warmer side or its source. A spacer system, simply put, is the material that is between the two panes of glass that also reduces heat transference and heat loss because of it’s non-conductive properties. On that note, make sure you avoid spacers that are metallic, particularly aluminum. Though they do not rust,  they are one of the most conductive substances you can have in a window. “Warm-edge” spacers are used in vinyl windows and some recognizable, reliable names are Super Spacer, Intercept, Dura-Seal.

Call it playing hooky if you will but the guys at Atlanta Area Window and Door Co. took a day off and flew out to Chicago on June 12th to see the Braves play the Cubs, amongst other things.

Here’s our funfilled- and I do mean FILLED- day went.

6:02 am- Depart from Hartsfield-Jackson Aiport in Atlanta.

7:15 am (Central)- Touch down in Chicago

8:07 am-(Still Chicago time) Grabbed breakfast at Mitchell’s. One of Chicago’s oldest diners and home of the World’s Finest Coffee, free doughnut holes, huge omlettes.

9:30 am- Made our way up to the top of Sears Tower.

11:05 am- Toured downtown Chicago, went by the Chicago Board of Trade, Millenium Park to see the giant bean…

and then started making our way to the train for a looooooong ride to Wrigley.

12:00pm- Got to Wrigley Field early to get to our seats, Chicago dogs, and some photos.

1:00 pm- Game Time! First pitch for the Braves vs Cubs game.

4:35 pm- In extra innings, the Braves lose to the Cubs 3-2. A heartbreaker but still a good time at the park.

6:35 pm- Chicago Deep Dish Pizza at Giordano’s

8:00pm- back to the airport to catch our flight home.

9:05 pm- take off for Atlanta and 4 exhausted dudes fly home.

11:30pm (EST) – touch down back in Atlanta.

There’s our itenarary. We loved every minute of it but as you can see it was a long day.

The best story for this outing is that Mark ended up sitting three seats down from his cousin from Rockford, IL (which is where Mark is orignally from) at Wrigley! Talk about a coincidence!

Well, thanks for letting us fill you in on a little fun we got to have in Chicago.

Keep in touch and don’t forget to visit us at AtlantaWindows.com

-Jaq Baldwin

Yesterday I talked a little bit about why staying cool in the summer is largely due to keeping heat out of the house more than it is about pumping cooler air into the house. If you really want to stay cool in the Atlanta summer, you have to keep your home well insulated year round.

I thought I’d take just a minute to go a step further with some heat gain 101. And to understand heat gain better, it helps to understand how heat functions and how your windows can slow heat from coming into the house.

Heat is active. And it warms the areas that it is effecting by two means; Radiation and Convection.

It’s gonna get a little bit like science class in here so hold on. But in this post we’re only going to talk about…

Radiation

You don’t have to get our your yellow nuclear jump suit, Marty. Not all radiation is going to kill you. For our purposes we’re gonna stay focused on radiation in general terms. Without getting into all the very technical descriptions, the most basic definition I can give you is that it is how heat is transferred between two substances that are not in contact with one another.

With that in mind, the best way to fight off radiant heat is to reflect the heat back to its source. Once an uninsulated window is heated by radiant heat, it has a high emissivity factor. That’s why you’ll hear of windows that have “Low-E” or “low emissivity”. These windows with the “low-e” coating (a film that is actually coating the glass in a double paned glazed window) are reducing the heat transference by reflecting radiant heat back to where it came from.

So for starters, keeping your house cooler starts with windows with Low-e that will reflect heat back to its source and cut down on heat infiltration.