• Glass Watch – North American Glass for Passive House windows

  Filed under Uncategorized
  Sep 14

  Update 27 Sept 2011:  I spoke with the Hood River Sales Manager for Cardinal Glass.  He said they can make a 1 3/8 inch triple pane LoE 180 unit with coatings on surface #3 and #5 instead of #2 and #5, for yet higher solar heat gain coefficient.  For 95% Argon fill it would have U=0.13 Btu/h.ft2.F, SHGC=0.59, and VT=0.70.

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  Update 26 Sept 2011:  I did find a mother lode of Canadian manufacturers on the Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance web site.  On the Certification tab, IGMA Canada (IGMAC) has a Certified Products Directory which gives company names and some details of construction though not performance.  At a glance it looks like maybe 60% are double-pane and 40% triple-pane.  There are even two quadruple-pane products listed, from ECO Insulating Glass in Mississauga ON and from Northerm Windows (RAB Energy Group Inc.) of Whitehorse, YT.

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  This is the current state of my knowledge.  Please comment if you have corrections.  I know of only a few North American manufacturers of residential window glass units:

   

  AGC Flat Glass North America

  AGC Residential Glass data sheet

  Formerly AFG Industries.  Now a subsidiary of Asahi Glass (Japan.) Their main factories are in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Kansas.  They seem to be unaware of Passive House.  They have double-pane units but no triple.

   

  Cardinal Glass Industries home page

  Cardinal Glass data table

  Cardinal specializes in Residential window glass.  Their HQ and R&D are in Minnesota and Wisconsin.  They have factories in 7 other states including Oregon.  They supply double and triple pane glass to multiple window manufacturers including Milgard, Atrium, and Inline / Cascadia.

   

  Guardian Industries home page

  Guardian residential glass for North America

  Guardian Europe coated lo-E glass

  Guardian is based in Michigan, and their European division makes the impressive Climaguard N3 also known as Flachglas which is Passive House certified.  However there is no evidence on their web sites that they are making or selling any triple pane units in North America.

   

  PPG Industries home page

  PPG Residential Glass home page

  The venerable Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania glass manufacturer.  They do not make multi-pane glass units themselves but they have a wide array of glass and coatings as well as a warm edge spacer.  They have a Find a Window Manufacturer page which turns up 9 or so listings for Oregon & Washington.  Their graphics and examples are all double-pane, BUT their window manufacturer support includes an online calculator which allows you to design a double or triple pane glass package and see what the center-of-glass U-value and SHGC would be.  (Similar to what the Lawrence Berkeley Lab WINDOW software does, but limited to the PPG catalog.)

  I made a triple pane with 0.60 SHGC and 0.15 U-value, see if you can do better!

   

  Serious Windows home page

  Serious Windows residential data sheets

  Serious makes both their windows and their glass in Sunnyvale CA.  The glass used to be called Alpen glass, and was purchased by Serious around 2008.  Their technology is 1-3 layers of suspended film in between the inner and outer glass panes.  These are the only North American glass manufacturers with the words “Passive House” on the their web site.

   

  5 Comments

5 Responses to “Glass Watch – North American Glass for Passive House windows”

1. 

   mike eliason said on September 15th, 2011 at 10:53 am

   someone recently mentioned guardian has a triple pane made in NA, though i haven’t been able to confirm.

2. 

   Adam Cohen said on September 27th, 2011 at 11:36 am

   Graham, I have used the plygem windows. I had to re-gasket all the windows to get them airtight and they had air bridges.

3. 

   Dan Whitmore said on September 30th, 2011 at 8:37 am

   Nice work Graham – A question regarding LoE on #3 pane. I recall being told that requires tempering the pane. Is that necessary?

4. 

   Graham said on September 30th, 2011 at 10:53 am

   @Dan, I don’t know. He did tell me it probably wasnt worth it to spec the i81 option for a triple pane.

5. 

   Shanna said on October 22nd, 2011 at 11:54 pm

   I cannot tell a lie, that really heelpd.

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