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Musings of an Energy Nerd

New Green Building Products — September 2011

High-performance windows, doors, and tapes for your next superinsulated home

This high-performance tilt/turn window was manufactured in Maine by Linwood Windows. The company uses European shaper blades to mill the Douglas fir frames. Most customers order the windows with triple glazing.
Image Credit: Lindwood Windows

About every six months, I report on new products that catch my eye. This round-up features products from both sides of the Atlantic Ocean: high-performance windows from Maine, Ontario, and Lithuania; high-performance doors from Poland; and high-performance tapes from Switzerland.

Linwood Windows

Linwood Windows is a small window manufacturer in Tenants Harbor, Maine. Owned by Richard Cohen, the company makes European-style tilt/turn windows out of Douglas fir. All windows are custom made; the usual lead time is 12 to 14 weeks.

The fir frames are milled in Maine using European shaper blades. According to Cohen, windows using frames milled with similar shaper blades have met the strict Passivhaus Institut standard for certified Passivhaus windows.

Linwood Windows can be ordered with double, triple, or quadruple glazing. A wide variety of glazing options are possible, including triple glazing with a center-of-glass U-factor of 0.13.

Linwood’s triple-glazed tilt/turn windows cost between $120 and $160 per square foot.

Intus Windows

Intus Windows are manufactured in Lithuania and distributed by Intus Consulting in Washington, D.C. Intus sells both vinyl-framed and wood-framed windows. All Intus windows are tilt/turn style windows with triple weatherstripping. The company’s triple-glazed vinyl windows are some of the least expensive high-performance windows available in the U.S.

Most of the windows that Intus sells in the U.S. have triple glazing with two low-e coatings and warm-edge spacers. (However, if the customer prefers, double glazing can also be ordered.) The windows are glazed at the Intus factory in Lithuania. Intus assembles its own insulated glazing units (IGUs), using Saint Gobain glass for Intus wood windows and Guardian glass for Intus vinyl windows. High-solar-gain triple glazing is an available option.

Intus vinyl windows use vinyl lineals (profiles) manufactured by Deceuninck Group (Belgium). None of Intus’s vinyl windows are Passivhaus-certified.

Intus sells…

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11 Comments

  1. Expert Member
    ARMANDO COBO | | #1

    DOE's RFP???
    Does anyone knows what ever happened to a DOE’s RFP, a year or two a go, for several window manufacturers to produce a triple glaze window at reasonable costs?

  2. GBA Editor
    Martin Holladay | | #2

    Response to Armando
    Armando,
    As Texans say about fake cowboys, the DOE R-5 window program is all hat and no cattle.

    You can read about it here:
    http://www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/windowsvolumepurchase/

    Basically, the DOE invited window manufacturers to be listed. But no one posted prices; no one guaranteed prices; and there is no evidence that the program resulted in any builders getting a better price than they would have otherwise.

  3. user-1026988 | | #3

    Intus Windows
    Although the Intus uPVC windows are not PH certified, (The wood line is) They do meet the the PH standard of Uw .14 or .85 W/m2K. and are suitable for PH construction in cold climates. We are currently using this product in a PHI and PHIUS pre-certified PH that we are building in Maine.

  4. davidmeiland | | #4

    Martin... photo size
    I have found several times that the photos you take and post with your articles are MASSIVE... they take way too long to download and display, and are large enough to print at 8"x10". You could reduce them to 800x600 pixels and well under 1MB and they would be fine for the web.

    Other than that, great article!

  5. GBA Editor
    Martin Holladay | | #5

    Response to David Meiland
    David,
    Good suggestion!

  6. propeller | | #6

    David...photo size
    David, I understand your point and at the same time I value these images as they are. Only a high definition image can render the details of that gourgeous window! Wouldn't it be nice if we could have our cake and eat it too? Until then, I'd prefer to keep the icing if possible.

  7. davidmeiland | | #7

    Marc
    Martin's image of the double-hung window is more than 3000 x 4000 pixels and almost 6MB. The only reason you need that size is to print it. It could be more like 1000 x 1300 and still be plenty big enough. Take a look at the sizes of the other images in the series attached to this article. They are typical web-sized images and load in a fraction of the time, but are still very detailed.

  8. user-622614 | | #8

    Quad glazed windows
    Martin:

    On a trip to Nova Scotia I saw installations of sliding windows and sliding patio doors where there are two complete insulated glazed sliders in the same opening, with the inner one set just inside the exterior unit. This results in four layers of glass. To open the sash, you first slide the inner one open and then the exterior one, in separate operations. It appears that this is not a home-brew setup but a manufactured item, with all four sashes running on a single track. But I have been unable to find a manufacturer's name on the units or track down a manufacturer on the web. Has anyone else seen this sone?

  9. GBA Editor
    Martin Holladay | | #9

    Response to Carl
    Carl,
    The only examples I have heard of were home-brew set-ups -- two windows in one rough opening.

  10. user-939142 | | #10

    pictures
    i notice at times too the diff picture sizes create a lengthy download delay. the viewer widget works as far as display sizes go, but it downloads the entire full rez file which causes delay.

    it is difficult doing content for the web when you take different sources and publish from the same pc, as you don't see what happens on others, especially if you have local fast access to the content

    i appreciate the detailed pics, but for some images, it is not needed; and i've had to skip them entirely because i couldn't get them to download without a timeout from greenbuildings server.
    might save some bandwidth costs too

  11. hudson_valley_gregg | | #11

    http://linwoodwindows.blogspot.com/ Linwood seems to have been out of business for almost five years now.

    I went with these guys (or guy) - Austrian make with a rep in the Hudson Valley: https://www.cembra.us/

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