Partner Products

Architect Don Evans designed our Project House to have an open, airy feeling — using big, open, naturally lit areas with a lot of windows - 93 windows in all.

It's wonderful to have a lot of windows and natural light in any home, but windows that aren't energy-efficient can be a major source of heat gain or loss, discomfort, condensation and increased utility bills.

Simonton Low-E Vinyl Windows in the Project House

All the windows in the Project House are from Simonton Windows. They are top quality full-vinyl windows with fusion-welded frames and sashes to prevent air infiltration and leakage. The windows feature Low-E double glazed glass panes with Argon gas filling the space between the panes. Argon is an inert gas that is better than air at impeding the transfer of heat and cold from pane to pane.

These windows are 40% more efficient than products manufactured to meet common building code guidelines.

Efficiencies like this can save you money on your monthly utility bill and can even help determine the size of the furnace, heat pump, air conditioner and fans that need to be installed.

For example, one study done by the Efficient Windows Collaborative compared the amount of air conditioning required to cool a typical 2000 square foot house outfitted with different kinds of windows. The house that contained clear, single pane aluminum frame windows required almost five tons of air conditioning, whereas the house with Low solar-gain Low-E, double pane, wood/vinyl frame windows required only 3.5 tons of air conditioning.*

Energy Star® and the NFRC Label

All of the Simonton windows in the Project House meet EPA/Department of Energy "Energy Star®" program specifications for energy efficiency. All the windows are also labeled with the National Fenestration Rating Council (NFRC) label. The NFRC is a nonprofit, public/private collaboration that provides standardized, unbiased methods of comparing various brands and types of windows.

The NFRC label assigns numbers to window energy efficiency characteristics in four categories:

• *U-Factor - The measure of heat transmission due to a temperature difference. The smaller the U-factor, the less heat is transmitted. This rates both the window and frame.
• *Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC) - Measure of the rate of solar heat flow through the window. This category, and the U-Factor are the most important in choosing energy efficient windows. SHGC also rates both the window and frame.
• *Visible Light Transmittance - Measure of the fraction of visible light that passes through the window.
• Air Leakage - Measure of the rate of infiltration through this particular window.

The Simonton windows in the Project house have an extraordinarily low Solar Heat Gain Coefficient of .27 and a very low U-Factor of .30.

About Simonton

Simonton Windows® began in 1946, as Pen Vent Awning, founded in Pennsboro, West Virginia, by Fred Simonton and his wife, Sybil. The company specialized in aluminum awnings and marquees, until 1968, when, under the leadership of Fred and Sybil's son, W. Sterling Simonton, the company branched out into the aluminum window and door market.

In 1981, recognizing the superior performance of vinyl over aluminum, Simonton began to fabricate vinyl replacement windows. Simonton rocked the industry by guaranteeing delivery of windows in just two weeks, when the industry standard was four to six weeks.

In 1989, upon Sterling Simonton's retirement, SBR, Inc., a holding company, joined with a group of longtime employees and purchased Simonton Building Products.

In 1993, Simonton Building Products, Inc. became Simonton Windows and the second production facility was opened in Harrisville, West Virginia. With the opening of the second full-service manufacturing facility came a new guaranteed delivery time - seven days.

Several other production facilities have been built since then, and today Simonton is one of the largest and most respected vinyl window manufacturers in the country.

Contact Information:
Simonton
(800) SIMONTON

*SOURCE: Efficient Windows Collaborative/www.efficientwindows.org