Replies

1. 
   Piffin | Feb 20, 2004 03:10am | #1

   Seems like they would be hard to see through, but then Canada doesn't get much daylight way up north anyways.

   :-)

   Sorry, couldn't help myself. It was a hard day.

    

    

   Welcome to the
   Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
    where ...
   Excellence is its own reward!

1. 
   UncleDunc | Feb 20, 2004 03:17am | #2

   No worse than wood or aluminum. At least they'd let some light through, like vinyl windows.

1. 
   liam | Feb 20, 2004 04:27am | #3

   Have you used them?  You don't seem impressed. Are there any good reason to use them or just stick with wood?

1. 
   UncleDunc | Feb 20, 2004 06:26am | #5

   It was a joke, an intentional misunderstanding of your question for humorous effect. Taken literally, Piffin was saying fiberglass windows would be a really bad idea because you can't see through fiberglass. I just carried the joke a little farther by noticing that you can't see through wood or aluminum, either, but at least fiberglass and vinyl will let some light through.

   It's a delicate balance. If you leave the smily face :-) off, you risk the reader missing the fact that it's a joke. If you put the smiley face on, you risk the reader being offended that you think he's too stupid to realize that it's a joke. I generally prefer to leave the smiley face off. The third choice, of course, is not to post jokes, but I reject that possibility altogether.

1. 
   misfit | Feb 20, 2004 06:46am | #6

   The third choice, of course, is not to post jokes,

   but that would take all the fun out of this place :-)

   ya know...all work and no play, yadi yadi yadi A bad day at home is still better than a good day at work

2. 
   IMERC | Feb 20, 2004 07:07am | #7

   It's a delicate balance. If you leave the smily face

   DITTO!! 

   Who ever invented work didn't know how to fish....

2. 
   Piffin | Feb 20, 2004 05:31am | #4

   Sorry again.

   I really have not used them. I would want to check out the thermal expansion thing in comparison to vinyl so the watertight seals don't collect moisture to freeze in the track after a few years.

   Vimyl originally had problems with thermal movement but they have developed profilres that tend to absorb that with exception of the largest opnes. It seems to me that fibreglas would have a bit more resistence to saggiing, but again, it would depend on the profile shape and thickness of material. I have used fibreglas doors that legft me unimpressed. The concept is good and the material is too ( they make boats out of it that handle water and lots of pounding on the seas) but The material thickness in the doors was not enough to stabilize things.

   Hope this helps

   IMO, the best value in windows on this continent is from Andersen. There are better and there are cheaper, but Andersen is a good company with a good product. wood clad with vinyl

    

    

   Welcome to the
   Taunton University of Knowledge FHB Campus at Breaktime.
    where ...
   Excellence is its own reward!

1. 
   liam | Feb 21, 2004 03:54am | #11

   I did get the joke. You have good wit! I am not as inventive. Did you ever use the renewal series from Anderson. They are popular in my area. I must agree that bang for the buck has always been Anderson. Thank you for the reply and help.

3. 
   MikeCallahan | Feb 20, 2004 07:28am | #8

   I went with fiberglass windows for my house at Tahoe. They have negligible thermal expansion compared to vinyl. They can be painted any color. Vinyl comes in only white or bisque. Any darker color in vinyl will cause the frame to heat and sag. We did a lot of searching and found out that vinyl could not be painted. I have had the windows for a year now and so far they seem to be doing fine. They have low conductivity compared to metal and will not rot like wood. There was a wood clad option but I went with white inside because the wood would not match any wood I would use for interior trim anyway. Thirty low E mostly single hung windows was about 13,000 dollars. The bid was a little more than twice the price of vinyl. What clinched the deal is that they came in a color that matched our trim. These are photos of inside and outside of the fiberglass windows. They are Milgards

   Mike Callahan, Lake Tahoe, Ca.
1. 
   AndyEngel | Feb 20, 2004 08:06pm | #9

   Nice house, Dogwood. Did you ever get the pics I sent of mine?Arguing with a Breaktimer is like mud-wrestling a pig -- Sooner or later you find out the pig loves it.

2. 
   liam | Feb 21, 2004 03:44am | #10

   Beautiful house. Lots of snow. Thank you for the reply and the info. I may use them.

4. 
   UncleDunc | Feb 21, 2004 07:40am | #12

   I'm not sure including the smiley face would have helped in that case.

   "Some men you just can't reach, so you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it."

5. 
   markls8 | Feb 21, 2004 09:13am | #13

   Hi Liam -

   No intentional kidding here. Let me see... where to begin.

   Fibreglass is, in my opinion, the best-suited material for a window frame that you can buy, bar none. But ya gotta pay for it. Costs about the same as a high-end vinyl window, or more.

   This performance advantage is also the opinion of the Canadian government's National Research Centre. Wood and clad wood are among the worst performers, although for historic reasons it is the only appropriate choice in some applications. In my own house I specified "any fenestration material but wood" on the drawings.

   In my odyssey for windows I toured, among others, the production facilities of In-Line Fibreglass and Fibertec, two Toronto-area fibreglass window manufacturers. Both quality operations with quality products. Both used quality Truth hardware. Well-designed dynamic sealing and weatherstripping details. Quality casement winders, quick-releasing, wide swing angle, move away frome sash for easy cleaning of both sides from the inside. Good air leakage, water leakage, wind load resistance and forced entry performance numbers.

   There is another company in Montreal (Fibretherm is the name, IIRC) which I cannot tell you about other than that their quote for my house was considerably more than the other two. And it would have been a much longer drive! Toronto's "Healthy house" experimental energy house chose one of the other two above to supply its windows.

   As mentioned previously, fibreglass and plate glass have almost identical coefficients of thermal expansion, which is to say that the integrity of the seal between the glass and frame is much more static and less failure-prone... "Glass on 'glass"as they say. The expansion due to both temperature and moisture is also much less than some other materials.

   Fibreglass is stronger and stiffer than other window frame materials, although it is reinforced in some areas with steel, as are better-quality vinyl windows (which by the way are apparently more common in Canada than the US.) BTW- not too long ago, I believe that THE strongest (as measured by Dade county standards- withstanding a 2X4 fired lengthwise at it) window frame was one of vinyl , reinforced with steel, made by a Canadian manufacturer. Just thought I'd throw that in there for all you vinyl nay-sayers who looked at one low-end vinyl window and pronounced them all garbage. I've read FHB's reviews of different window materials and by and large those assessments do not apply in Canada. That's not a criticism- it is a US magazine and it otherwise beats the heck out of anything Canadian publishers have to offer.

   Ditto what Dogwood said about PVC. More colours here, but all of them lighter. FG can be had in darker colours.

   The manufacture of fibreglass windows was revolutionized (and really made possible at all) by a relatively recently developed process called "pultrusion", where a resin-soaked roving is drawn through heated extrusion dies under tension. I would liken the process somewhat to the pre-stressing of concrete. The cross section of the fibreglass profile is not unlike the cross-section of a PVC window - channeled and cross-braced.

   Fibreglass is also very stable, non-corrosive in salty environments, low-maintenance, and paintable. It's an environmentaly sound choice because its energy cost of initial production is low and because it has a long life expectancy.

   And for those who like a wood interior a wood veneer can be laminated and finished on the inside surfaces, and stained or finished however ya like.

   A smaller, narrower frame profile is a desireable characteristic in any window because it allows a larger area of glass per area of rough stud opening. So you have less area of frame to lose heat through, and more insulated house wall for any given size of window pane. Fibreglass windows allow this and still give a stong, rigid frame.

   Now the choice of frame material is only one half, or less, of the story. The fenestration is also very important and that's a whole 'nother story... a much more involved and very critical decision to be made.  Without quality fenstration the choice of frame is irrelevant. At minimum I would suggest, in a northern climate, - a Low E coating, gas fill, and thermo-edge spacer. Proper choice and location of a window can actually result in a net energy gain in winter as it adds more heat to the house than it loses.

   Now - having said all that, you might ask... what did I put in my house?

   Well - none of the fibreglass manufacturers could supply me with windows with the Pilkington self-cleaning glass feature which we wanted. So, in the end we ended up with a higher-end vinyl window which incorporated this and the other features which we wanted. Life is full of compromises.

   Good luck Liam.  - Brian.

1. 
   liam | Feb 22, 2004 04:11am | #15

   Thank you Mark LS8 and Rick W. I have looked into the windows you mentioned and I am impressed.  The more I check the more I like Fiberglass.  Did you ever hear of Accurate Dorwin from Canada.  They are the company that was first recommended to me.  I am going to give Fiberglass a try, and  I am going for triple pane. Thanks again for the information and the endorsement.  It is good to have a place to discuss this kind of stuff.  There is a lot of info from companies but they of course are biased.  It certainly helps in making a decision. Liam 

1. 
   RickW | Feb 23, 2004 03:44pm | #17

   Liam,

   There are only three fibreglass window manufacturers in Canada that I'm aware of: Accurate Dorwin in Winnipeg, Thermotech in Ottawa and Inline in Toronto.

   I think the advice to ignore window materials is a mistake. Aluminum transmits cold like crazy and is subject to a fair bit of expansion and contraction. Vinyl tops the list for out-of-control expansion and contraction; I presume that's Fine Home Building readers seem to be less than enthusiastic about it as siding as well. Pultruded fibreglass appears to be the best material available to date.

   We also looked into Marvin windows. They're mass-produced and so have good prices for a good quality product. My information is that they are essentially a fibreglass-clad wood window. (The guy from Inline quipped that half a fibreglass window is better than none at all!) 

   Rick

   Edited 2/23/2004 7:58:59 AM ET by Rick.W.

2. 
   poisk | Sep 12, 2007 08:35pm | #18

   Liam,

   Was wondering about your experience with Accurate Dorwin, if you had decided to go with the fiberglass? Any thoughts?

    

   Edited 9/12/2007 1:35 pm ET by poisk

   Edited 9/12/2007 1:36 pm ET by poisk

1. 
   liam | Sep 13, 2007 02:23am | #19

   I could not find a daler network. I have heard they are good. I have not finished the project and I have been told that Owen Corning is planning a fiberglass window that comes out soon.  I do think that fiberglass pultrusion can be a strong and long lasting window.  Marvin may have some as well.   Thanks  Liam

6. 
   RickW | Feb 21, 2004 09:48pm | #14

   Liam, MARKLS8 is right on the money about the fibreglass windows. Because they don't expand and contract like vinyl and aluminum they cause far less seal failure. Also, being dense and tough you can use a slimmer frame which means less thermal loss and more glass. A net heat gain is not unrealistic on the sunnier exposures if you couple it with low-e glass, argon fill, and insulated spacers.

   We're gonna be using 'em on our Fundy house. We'll be getting 'em from Inline in Toronto. (Phil Warnell over there is amazingly knowledgeable.)

   The only caveat about fibreglass frames is that you can't mess with them. They have to be fitted level, plumb and square; they don't take to being twisted, I'm told.

   The Canadian Government NRcan website has further information.

7. 
   gdavis62 | Feb 22, 2004 05:24am | #16

   Marvin's "Integrity" line of windows, if they are still selling them, are fiberglass.  I used some about 8 years ago and they were very good.  Still are.

   The exterior frames of every Andersen Frenchwood hinged patio door are fiberglass, and have been so ever since they introduced the product line.

   I believe that the materials used in a window product are of less importance than the product design and the quality controls used in manufacturing and purchasing.  In choosing a window or patio door, don't get so focused on materials, like "fiberglass," or "vinyl," but instead, look at the whole package.