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What a gorgeous day this is! I can see from the window of my cage, er, office, the wheels of commerce spinning away as emissaries from Thrifty & Alamo shuttle back & forth perhaps ensuring the stability of prices between the two companies, or possibly getting their stories straight prior to the arrival of the insurance adjuster, or more likley checking to see if any of their buddies want to have one last lunch at the soon to be shut down Kabob House. And speaking of wheels, motorcyclists are out in force, taking advantage of one of the few beautiful days allotted to this area in our far too short spring. I love motorcycles. Due to fear of death, I haven't ridden one since the summer of 1975 when I sold my last one, a 1972 3 cylinder Triumph Trident. Yeah, I know. British bikes are just oil-leaking dinosaurs designed by Monty Python-like twits using 1940's technology. But to my mind they're far and away the best looking motorcycles ever made (unless you think Harleys look cool; I think they're kind of embarrassing), and nothing made since handles better than a British bike. Just how pathetic would it be, I wonder, for me to get an old 60's Triumph Trophy or perhaps a Tiger and restore it to its original glory? Would it be symptomatic of some raging mid life crisis on par with say, buying a convertible Miata? Not that owning a Miata is necessarily symptomatic of a mid-life crisis. For example, let's say you were the wise, fair, and handsome Director of the Trademark Office, and coincidentally, my boss. Whatever vehicle you owned would be cool beyond words. But for me? Well...I think I'd better re-read Tom Lamone's Tower Bell article on aging gracefully; this from a guy who lives his philosophy in that he drives a restored classic Mustang to work. My hero! But, I digress. I'm looking out the window and I see...the window. Double pane, aluminum frame. Not necessarily the best choice for this place, but not a bad one either. Let's talk about windows. It's pretty obvious that there are two main parts to windows: the part you look through, the glass, and the part that holds glass in place, the framing. But there's a third invisible part to every window which must always be taken into consideration: the price. Choosing a window means making compromises between these three window parts. We'll discuss frames first. Good old wood window frames have a lot going for them. They can be great looking, and generally not so expensive as other types. The down side of wood is that it rots. This means that the wood frames must be painted and maintained regularly. Wood also expands and contracts with humidity and at a different rate than the glass. This is the principal behind the "pickle jar phenomenon." When the pickle jar is held under hot water, the metal top expands faster than the glass jar allowing the jar to be opened more easily. Great for pickles, bad for windows. The problem is that leaks can develop between the frame and the glass, or between the frame and the house. Modern flexible butyl rubber gaskets and caulks generally take up the slack pretty well. All-wood windows can be found at any home center, and are easily and not too expensively made up to order by any good woodworking shop. Vinyl-clad wood frames get around the maintenance problem of all-wood windows by putting a layer of vinyl on the exterior side of the window, as if you couldn't figure that one out. While this means more time in the La-Z-Boy looking at the lovely wood interior, it'll put a bigger dent in your bank account. Also vinyl can be very brittle in extremely cold weather, and can soften in extreme heat. This is the product of window giant Andersen as well as many others, so you'll find a huge number of varieties, styles, and bells and whistles to choose from. Aluminum clad wood is a variation on the above theme. There really isn't much difference between the aluminum and vinyl cladding except that some people like the way the new anodized aluminum looks as compared to the vinyl. There are more choices and finishes available. Brand names include Peachtree, Pella, and Marvin. The problem with all-aluminum windows is that aluminum is a lousy thermal insulator. The cold goes right through them into the interior room. Aluminum also has a great "pickle jar coefficient." These guys move around like crazy as the temperature changes. But, they have one thing going for them: they're cheap as hell. Which explains their presence here in South Tower. But don't be so hard on them. The new ones, like the ones here in our building, incorporate a thermal break, that is, a piece of foam, or a dead air space, which stops the cold from passing through the window frame. These have all of the advantages of the above windows plus they won't rot, and they cost less. Don't use these at your beach house; they'll corrode in the salt air. All-vinyl windows are the most common replacement window. They can be easily made to fit any opening, they're easy to install, low maintenance, fairly inexpensive. On the down side they don't look as good as most other windows, they get brittle in the cold, and soft in the heat, and they move around a good bit, so you'll have to caulk them every couple years or so. Almost every replacement window company in the phone book is dying to sell you these windows because they're so easy to make and install, and there's really nothing wrong with them. There're just not the best. Fiberglass is. Fiberglass windows are stable, low pickle jar coefficient, great insulators, they look OK, and are low maintenance. Unless you paint them. The fact that they can be painted is supposedly one of their "pluses." Once you paint them, and you will, you'll have to keep painting them. Bye-bye La-Z-Boy. Oh, and they cost buckets of money. Steel windows are the stupidest windows of all. They cost a lot, they're high maintenance because they must be constantly painted or they'll rust, and they're lousy insulators. I can't imagine why anyone would buy them except for use in government buildings. Now to the glass. A single pane of glass has an R-value of less than 1. "R" is a measure of some building product's resistance to heat flow; the higher the number, the greater the resistance. So it's pretty clear that that single pane of glass has the same insulation value as yelling at the cold to go away. But two panes of glass with an air break between has an R-value of about 2. Change the air to argon or krypton gas and it goes up to around 4. Add a low-E film which is a metalized coating which reflects heat, and the R-value will be about 6. You can get any of these features in any of the above frame types by simply paying more money. I was going to discuss installing windows but it looks like I'm running out of room (collective sigh of relief, or was that just the wind? Breaking?). Suffice it to say that it's easier than you think. Remove the trim from the outside and the inside, remove the screws or nails holding the window to the jambs, pull out the window, and put in the new one. You say forgot to order your new windows? Well, turn off the AC for a few weeks, and go pick up about a case of bug repellent. You know, the more I think about it the less I want to end up as a stain on the pavement. Maybe that motorcycle idea really is as stupid as it sounds. I wonder what a convertible Miata is going for these days, or maybe a rebuilt '67 302 Mustang?
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