Windows | Door | Building Science / Envelope & More

Thermal Bridge vs  Thermal Break If you’re new to building science these terms may seem esoteric but hopefully you will come to a better understanding of them after reading this.  Think of the term thermal as HEAT .  Think of term bridge   (in thermal bridge) as a connection between point A and point B - which is what an actual bridge is. So thermal bridge is simply the act of heat transporting through or on the “bridge” from point A to point B. Think of the word break (in thermal break) as in shutting down a lane of traffic on that “bridge.” Now it’s a one lane road, cars are going much slower and there is a greatly reduced number of vehicles crossing. During peak hours more cars might travel through then other times of the day. But nonetheless there has been a great interruption. In terms of heat transfer (or thermal bridge), once a thermal break is incorporated, heat (and cold) has a much harder time traveling from point A to point B.  Heat/...

CLAD WINDOWS Clad windows simply refers to the different materials “capping” the wood window so that it becomes more durable and less likely to rot. Many window manufactures design a wood interior, clad exterior window. Often times there are interior wood specie options as well  as different exterior cladding choices such as vinyl, fiberglass and aluminum. I will be focusing on an aluminum clad exterior in this post. There are a number of aluminum clad wood windows on the market and they are not all created equally.  When comparing various manufacturers to one another, it is important to understand the differences in materials and construction that windows are made out of.  The aluminum exterior is made in one of two ways: roll form or extruded. HOW THEY ARE MADE ROLL FORM The roll forming process uses a pair of rolls to fabricate the metal. Metal sheets are passed through the rolls several times until the desired shape or profile is achieved. EXTRUDED The extruded alumin...