I’m thinking of using Fibertec windows on an addition to our house in Maine. Any comments, good or bad, on Fibertec?
Thanks,
Joan
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Replies
Greetings Joan,
This post, in response to your question, will bump the thread through the 'recent discussion' listing again.
Perhaps it will catch someone's attention that can help you with advice.
Cheers
http://www.quittintime.com/
damn, am I fat!
Hello J1,
If the Fibertec you are considering is the one I have been looking at ,(pultruded fiberglass frames), I have no actual experience : only pre-purchase leanings!
I will be purchasing (4) fixed windows within the next 12 months for a building newly erected & will probably choose a fiberglass framed window manufacturer to supply me.
I am leaning toward Fibertec due to their experience & history in the market. I began researching windows more than 10 yrs. ago & their name popped up at some home shows way back then.
I am generally sold on fiberglass as the material of choice for a window frame for a variety of reasons. Longevity & freedom from maintenance are the main benefits I believe that fiberglass can offer. The material is strong,(think boat hulls smashing through heavy waves on a power boat), long lasting ((again consider how many old fiberglass boats you see around that receive little or no maintenance) and overcomes many of the shortcomings of conventional materials.
Aluminum is strong but too good a conductor of heat to help me conserve energy, wood is better at insulating but is the ultimate in biodegradable materials; unprotected & un maintained on a constant basis it was created to self destruct in only a few years, vinyl has a coefficient of thermal expansion so different from glass that the extremes of my climate make sealing out the wind and rain on a window framed in vinyl a cruel joke.
All the top window performance figures seem to come from fixed (ie. non opening)windows with fiberglass frames.
I am familiar with the material:it is not new and has a history of long life while exposed to the harshest of the elements for as long as decades on end.
I am aware that it is a high-end, premium product, however my own buildings are keepers for me, not disposable stepping stones to a fast profit & my time on this earth is too valuable to me to spend it maintaining or replacing elements of my basic shelter if I can avoid it.
Hopefully this post will encourage others to offer their .02 pro &/or con on the subject.
Regards,
STAINLESS.
If you look at NFRC, there are three Canadian Fiberglass makers that can achieve their performance levels: Fibertech, Accurate Dorwin, and Thermotech. The claim is that their top windows have the world's best u-values. I guess you are talking $900 per hole, which is quite a bit
less than you would pay for the top windows from Germany or Sweden.Here's the NFRC page for Fibertec:http://cpd.nfrc.org/pubsearch/psLineDetails.asp?CPD=FWD-M-2_9571Probably a good cost performance ratio, if you have enough degree days
to justify it.
Felicitations TD!, Given your whereabouts the significance of the Accord our Prime Minister recently opted us out of is not entirely lost on me, I'm not surprised by your interest in energy saving strategies.
I will follow your link and continue my attempt at self education, many thanks.
Somehow it seems intuitively obvious to me that claims of any sort that don't originate with an un-biased 3rd party are immediately suspect. The problem for me is always to sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak.
I have tremendous respect for the engineering efforts of the German & Swedish manufacturers & am always interested to research the best of the best.
My location clocks in at slightly more than 4500 deg. days and nudges at the Cold/Severe Cold demarcation distinction.
Within a span of 6 months some years ago I experienced temperature extremes ranging from -40 deg. C in the dead of winter to +38 deg. C during a humid day in July.
An unclothed & unprotected human can not survive where my children play in the snow for many hours a day in the winter months. Shelter from the elements is not a luxury but a necessity.
Regards,
STAINLESS
I hear ya about that cold.In my climate, where we seldom get ice on the mud puddles,
a U-factor of below 0.35 is hard to justify, and thus as
for fiberglass windows, Marvin Integrity would occupy the
sweet spot. Lead time is only two weeks, too.
I have heard that the Germans claim lower U-values than
the Canadians; however, their U-values are somehow calibrated
in a different, teutonic, way, so the result is about the
same: best performing windows in the world, take your pick,
Canada or Germany.At the same time though, I think the the European superwindows
are all vinyl, and as far as I know the Canadians are the only
ones into pultruded fiberglass, so it may be that the Canadian
windows are actually superior, since fiberglass apparently has a
slight edge due to its contraction with cold at the same rate
as glass (gaps form with vinyl).
Integrity by Marvin is a product line from them that offers pultruded fiberglass sash and frames, and a choice of natural wood trim on the inside, or pultruded fiberglass.
Have you priced the Integrity windows as an alternative to your Fibertecs? I don't know all the features and benefits of each, but a comparison would be informative.
Fibertecs are about the same price as the Integrities from Marvin.
We are looking for a fiberglass window that has a high Solar Heat Gain Coefficent for our south facing windows. Fibertec has the option of using different glass on different windows, whereas the Integritys do not have any different glass options, and don't have a very good SHGC.
Joan
Another thing to like about Fibertec is that their
casements, if you like casements, are tilt and turn,
a fairly unusual feature. I like it very much as it
makes the window a lot more versatile.
Speaking of tilt n' turn, and I don't know if you
are considering vinyl, but there is another
manufacturer out in your neck of the woods
that reportedly makes some very good high
performance windows: Eurobuilt. I get the
impression from their website that they
have some sort of JV agreement with Trocal
or another German maker.http://www.eurobuilt.com/index.html