Glass Technology News For The Window Cleaner

Infomercial ruined by the most breakable “unbreakable” glass ever: The hosts in this video are touting a bit of unbreakable glass that’s part of their grill product. Small problem: The glass might be the most breakable thing ever. Oops.

Vandal Shield repels vandals but welcomes visitors: A sports and youth centre in the North West has found the ideal security solution – a lightweight window shield that repels vandals yet retains the building’s inviting aspect to visitors. Copley Young Persons Centre in Tameside has fitted 2317m2 Vandal Shield on two large glass elevations of its new extension, which opened in June 2010. The building offers a range of child and youth services, as well as outreach work with community groups and families – so it was important to make it vandal proof, yet keep its open and welcoming look. “The centre was not a particular target for vandals before the extension went up, but there was concern over the potential for attacks, with the large amount of glass used. Without Vandal Shield, the project simply would not have gone ahead,” explained Lindsey Thomson, project team leader for the centre. “Because of the materials used in the design of the building, we needed a lightweight system, and this was the only one that was suitable.

“It protects the building but does not put people off using it, which is very important in a facility of this type, which needs to continue engaging with the whole community. We needed a solution that was unobtrusive, and allowed the glass to do its job of allowing plenty of light into the building.” Vandal Shield, from Manchester firm Fingershield Safety (UK), fitted the bill perfectly. From a distance, it looks like tinted glass but the durable perforated galvanised steel mesh, set in an extruded aluminium frame, provides a tough physical barrier to vandals, yet lets in maximum light.  Vandal Shield is designed to complement existing windows, whether modern or classical, and can be mounted in front of or behind existing windows, in a range of different coloured frames. It is more cost effective than re-glazing, an increasingly expensive solution. The product is recommended by police crime prevention officers and has been fitted in a number of public buildings across the country, including schools and churches.

The riots at Millbank Tower shows protesters destroying windows. Business owners are responsible for keeping their glass safe, it's the law. Most readers will have seen the striking photograph on most newspaper front-pages of a rioting student demonstrator kicking in a window at Millbank Tower. To most observers, this was an act of reckless violence. But to any business premise owner, the image of how the broken glass actually stayed relatively intact after being shattered tells another story. The remarkable fact is, despite press coverage being full of reports of broken glass, no one was seriously injured or killed by a lethal shard of glass. This was not down to luck. It was down to a micro-thin technology that all business premise owners should be aware of – safety window film.

Ever since 1992, when Health, Safety and Welfare Regulation 14 came into force, business premise owners have been required to ensure that “every window or other transparent or translucent surface in a wall, partition, door or gate should, where necessary for reasons of health or safety, be of a safety material or be protected against breakage of the transparent or translucent material; and be appropriately marked or incorporate features to make it apparent.” This regulation, designed to protect building occupants as well as passersby, applies to a wide range of workplaces including offices, shops, schools, hospitals, hotels and places of entertainment. In other words, the business owner is responsible for keeping their glass safe, or they could be held liable and face legal consequences if someone gets hurt or killed due to poor safety practices.

Last year, the media reported the death of a young man who died after cutting himself when he threw his girlfriend through the front window of a well-known high street retailer. Many of us will also have seen the newspaper photographs of the windowpane that fell dozens of stories onto Old Broad Street, narrowly missing passersby. With the 2012 Olympics around the corner, let’s not forget the growing threat of terrorism – almost 90 percent of all injuries from a bomb blast are related to flying glass, rather than the blast itself. Millbank Tower was built in 1963. Like most British business premises it was built before 1992, when Regulation 14 came into force. Fortunately, the owners of the building took the necessary steps to retrofit safety window film, which kept both the baying mob and our brave boys in blue safe. Although retrofitting safety window film is a relatively inexpensive and unobtrusive process, most business premises are not up to scratch when it comes to glass safety. The main advice is this: before taking on a new lease, prospective tenants should seriously question the landlord whether the property meets Regulation 14.

NanaWall Systems, the leader in large opening glass walls, announces the introduction of its newest product: NanaGlass SL25. NanaGlass SL25 has evolved from the European concept of balcony glazing and provides developers and builders advanced architectural technology for energy-efficiency and expanded living spaces. The NanaGlass SL25 is a frameless opening glass wall system installed on the exterior of balconies, patios, and under second-story decks to create a pleasant living area sheltered from the elements. With no vertical stiles, the NanaGlass system provides uninterrupted views and natural light while forming an insulating air pocket over the building facade. The NanaGlass panels easily slide wide open and stack to one or both sides for natural ventilation on a beautiful day or quickly close to protect the balcony, deck or patio from wind, rain, pests, and birds. The NanaGlass individual sliding panels are top-supported in a single track and can ride a fixed balcony railing or extend all the way to the floor. The NanaGlass SL25 1/2 inch glass panels are engineered to withstand wind loads up to 80 stories in 90 mile-per-hour wind zones. A NanaGlass system installed on a high-rise balcony transforms unusable windy space into a pleasant year-round entertaining area and adds immediate collateral value to the unit.

Glass: Newest material for extra-sturdy homes - Simon Parrish says he has spent about 20 years developing a method of housing construction that can stand up to just about anything. Now, he is letting the rest of the world know about it. Parrish is production director for the Ambiente brand of manufactured housing. Ambiente is a division of Abersham Commercial Services LLC, based in the Town of Brookfield, Wis. A key ingredient of Ambiente's houses is waste glass. In a process that was developed and eventually brought to market by Parrish and his father, Malcolm, waste glass is transformed into a very fine powder similar to sand. It is then combined with a resin to form reinforced wall sections that are resistant to fire, water and mold. They are also engineered to withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. "It's absolutely the best material to make a house from," Simon Parrish said. The process is also environmentally friendly. "Each house has 13 tons of waste glass in it," he said. There is no wood or metal in the house. Channels for plumbing and electrical wiring are built into the panels. Once manufactured, houses are shipped out as kits to be assembled at a construction site.

Glass company invests $2.6 million in NLAB Solar’s cheap, transparent solar cells: NLAB Solar just landed an investment of $2.6 million from Fasadglas Bäcklin, Scandinavia’s largest glass facade company. NLAB Solar manufactures energy-producing dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC). The cells which can be integrated into transparent and colored facades such as those produced by Fasadglas. The funding will be used to accelerate product development in NLAB’s new plant in Stockholm.

DSC operate in a similar manner to photosynthesis in plants. In nature a dye called chlorophyll, which gives plants their green colour, absorbs solar energy. That energy is used to convert carbon dioxide into sugars which feed the plant. DSC cells use an artificial dye to absorb the energy in sunlight. Most solar cells available today are based on silicon. When sunlight hits the silicon, electrons flow through the material to produce electricity. Although DSC has a lower efficiency rate than silicon cells, it can be made transparent and produced in different colors, which explains Fasadglas’s interest in the technology. The DSC film can be built into windows and building facades where sun shading film is normally used. Based on an energy efficiency of 5.1 percent, one meter of glass facade in Stockholm (1000 hours of sun per year), could provide electricity for approximately one square meter of office space. NLAB aims for 4 percent efficiency in transparent cells for window applications in urban environments.

DSC cells also have other advantages such as higher efficiency under low and angled light conditions. DSC cells are much cheaper to manufacture than silicon since they do not require pure silicon as a raw material or the related complex manufacturing equipment. NLAB Solar’s twist on DSC technology is to add a one-dimensional photonic crystal (1DPC). This is a transparent mirror placed inside the DSC that reflects certain wavelengths of light back through the dye layer. This increases the number of photons striking the dye and leads to higher efficiency. The company claims to have seen a 37 percent improvement over standard DSC, which would improve the efficiency from 4 percent to approximately 5.5 percent.

The global market for Flat Glass is projected to exceed 34 million metric tons by 2015. The industry that was hard hit by the global economic meltdown is gradually witnessing signs of recovery, particularly led by economic growth in developing countries. Huge governmental stimulus subsequent to the economic turmoil coupled with high construction activity in the developing world is expected to fuel future growth in the global flat glass market. The industry is also deriving growth from new smart-glass products such as electrochromic, switchable glass, self-cleaning window glass and heads-up display windscreens.

What to do with the Gardiner Expressway? Whether it be tearing it down and replacing it with tunnel or a widened Lake Shore Boulevard or its conversion into an elevated park reminiscent of New York's High Line, it's one of those pieces of infrastructure that continually sparks debate amongst architects, city planners, politicians and residents. Although a Waterfront Toronto environmental assessment to evaluate the proposed removal of a portion of the expressway that runs between Jarvis Street and the DVP got underway in March of 2009, that hasn't put a stop to the novel alternatives that continue to be tossed around. Last year, Les Klein's Green Ribbon plan (pictured above) to turn the expressway into an elevated park was cause for much discussion -- both positive and critical -- but another plan from around the same time has flown a bit under the radar. In an October 2009 article in The Bulletin, Michael Comstock, president of the Toronto Association of BIAs, wrote about architect Peter Michno's proposal to enclose the Gardiner in a glass dome. Without many renderings readily available online, however, it never garnered the attention that Klein's idea enjoyed.

A Window That Can Tint Itself: We've seen windows that can serve as solar panels, and thanks RavenBrick we now have windows that can become tinted based on the temperature. The company has developed a type of glass that can change it's tint based on the temperature outside. So when it becomes hot and sunny, the windows will become darker allowing less sunlight to come in, thus reducing the amount of air conditioning necessary to keep a building or a home cool. The windows are able to do this by using what the company describes as a "an organic, nontoxic polymer which changes its molecular structure in response to temperature." It's actually a filter that's placed between two panes of glass and it can be adjusted to suit the needs of one particular location.

A window into the future - Here’s a futuristic notion: Windows that darken on hot sunny days to block heat and glare, clear  up on cool or cloudy days to allow in sunlight and warmth, save lots of energy, eliminate the need for blinds or shades and, most important, allow people indoors to be connected all the time to the natural world. This may sound like magic, but electrochromic windows are here today. You can see them, above, at the student center at Chabot College in Hayward, CA. They’re made by a small Minnesota-based company called SAGE Electrochromics, which is about to get bigger: This week,  SAGE announced that it sold 50% of itself for $80 million to  Saint-Gobain, a global building materials firm based in  France. Until they worked out their deal,  SAGE and Saint-Gobain had been competing to develop windows that would electronically control the sun’s energy that flows through them. Also here.

Germany closes famous glass dome at Berlin's Reichstag to visitors as terror fears mount: Last week the interior minister announced 'concrete indications' of a terror plot about to come to fruition. Security spiked at all major airports and railway stations across Germany. Police believe at least two members of a jihadi hit squad are in Berlin. Al Qaeda and associated Islamist groups are planning to take hostages and fire at people in the Reichstag, said news magazine Der Spiegel, citing intelligence sources. News of the plot reportedly came from a jihadist who contacted the German authorities.

Governments worldwide have successively established their own energy-efficient standards for buildings, and implemented a variety of policies to promote energy-efficient building materials, which has greatly boosted the application of low emissivity (Low-E) glass. The sales of Low-E glass worldwide grew rapidly during 1990-2005, and exceeded 250 million m2 in 2005, with a CAGR of around 18%. Currently, Low-E glass is widely applied in developed countries. The utilization rate of Low-E glass is 92% in Germany, 90% in South Korea and 75% in Poland. While in China, the penetration rate of energy-efficient glass is only 10%, and the Low-E glass' 8%. Therefore, China will have a large space for the development of Low-E glass in the future, and will see rapid growth of Low-E glass in the coming years. It is projected that a total of 148 million m2 of Low-E glass will be applied in the public and residential buildings by 2012.

New Energy Technologies, Inc. today announced plans to advance its efforts to commercialize the Company's novel SolarWindow(TM) technology, in order to accelerate to-market the 'first-of-its-kind' product capable of generating electricity on see-thru glass windows. Electrical power is generated on glass by spraying New Energy's SolarWindow(TM) coatings onto surfaces using commercially available equipment. Through the Company's patent-pending process, company researchers spray SolarWindow(TM) coatings onto glass at room temperature, eliminating expensive and often cumbersome high-temperature or high-vacuum production methods typically used by current solar manufacturers. Unique to SolarWindow(TM), glass surfaces remain see-thru, and generate electricity in both natural and artificial light conditions. In artificial light, New Energy's SolarWindow(TM) technology outperforms today's commercial solar and thin-films by as much as 10-fold under low-intensity irradiance. This feature was recently demonstrated at a public unveiling of SolarWindow(TM).

Architects - Making Work for Window Cleaners

Looking through the glass: Location may be real estate's best friend, but the view is the home's soul-mate. Windows frame our vision of the outside world. As more people are looking for the best possible perspective, they are also hunting for smart ways to increase the value of their homes. Windows are a good starting point. Newer, bigger, wider, taller, more efficient windows are a hot upgrade and there are options galore.

Christopher Simmonds, one of Ottawa's leading architects, works on the premise that, aside from providing shelter, a house is primarily a place to experience nature from within. "For me, windows are all important. So when we are designing a house, we are always thinking, what are the views trying to capture? Is it a tall tree? Is it a horizon? And how wide should we take the window to capture the view but screen out what we don't want to see, like the side of a neighbour's house or the road." In the past, windows were the absolute weakest link in the home, says Mr. Simmonds, who has crafted a reputation for connecting inside and outside spaces by using a lot of glass. In the early years, when log cabins were the house of choice, people kept windows small for structural reasons and because they let in the cold.

Technologies have vastly improved, even if winters are still raw, and many Canadians are attracted to a Mediterranean concept of living with lots of light. "There is such a desire to open up to the outside, to create integration," says Mr. Simmonds. "Fortunately, we have the technology to go along with it. It's common to see triple-glazed windows with low-e coatings and argon gas, says the architect. "The thermal performance of these windows is significantly better, three or four times better, than windows used to be 25 or 30 years ago."

Manotick Windows and Doors owner Bob Milne has seen a lot of changes in the past 20 years, with owners of older homes and those building new homes looking for the best windows to stop drafts, resist mould and rot and provide security. Typically, they choose from four types of frames that carry their own strengths and weaknesses. These include PVC, fibreglass, wood and aluminum.

• PVC windows

PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, are well suited for buyers looking for low maintenance. These windows require no painting inside or outside; and are popular for starter homes right up to million-dollar properties. "You don't have to paint against weather stripping," says Mr. Milne, adding the frames come in trendy colours, including shades of brown, grey, and green. "You don't have to paint against handles or cranks. You just clean your windows." But one of the downsides to PVC is its tendency to expand. So why would you want it? "PVC is the most economical product on the market," says Mr. Milne. "So say windows are $10,000 in PVC, they may be $14,000 in fibreglass." Given that PVC is cost efficient, they are the current industry standard - which is why most companies that make the cranks and the hardware for window companies are designing them mostly for vinyl windows. The price A 60x60-inch picture window costs $900 to $1,100, installed.

• Fibreglass

Fibreglass has been around for years, but it's still a relatively small player in the world of windows. Its big advantage is that it expands very little, allowing the caulking that holds the seal to outlast other installations. "Fibreglass does not expand any differently than glass," says Mr. Milne. "It's made of glass. It's glass fibres." People concerned about having the highest energy efficiency will search out fibreglass products. But they are more expensive, and there are limitations, such as it's hard to get them made into curves. The price A 60x60-inch picture window costs $1,300 to $1,500, installed.

• Wood

Wood is the original window frame material, but these days it's used for high-end jobs and comes with regular maintenance. "It's usually someone who appreciates a wood finish on the inside," says Mr. Milne. Given Ottawa's weather extremes, it's hard to keep paint on a wood window. Wooden windows usually have aluminum cladding on the outside and wood on the inside. "Some people forget the wood and let it go. Then it peels inside and it's not as good a look as the vinyl window." The price Wood windows have a bigger price range, just like wood furniture, because there will be different qualities of wood. Prices range between $900 and $2,000 for a 60x60-inch picture window, installed.

• Aluminum

Aluminum has been widely used in high-rises for its strength and longevity, which is of utmost importance when dealing with high winds several floors up. They are light, strong, low-maintenance and easily formed into complex shapes. However, they conduct the cold, so it will tend to be a chillier window. "You go on the balcony of a 17th-floor apartment building and feel the wind blowing. You want a window that's stronger to hold that glass," says Mr. Milne. He says aluminum expands a certain amount too. "It's less than vinyl, but more than wood or fibreglass." The price Similar to vinyl for a 60x60-inch window, ranging from $900 to $1,200, installed.

Life behind a wall of glass: As a nation we Brits like our privacy and generally prefer to play out our home lives with blinds closed and curtains tightly drawn. Not Henry Squire, pictured, who lives in a house in which the entire façade is clad in huge sheets of glass. This floods his rooms with light — but also gives anyone walking through Paradise Park in Holloway, North London, an eyeful of his supersleek kitchen and taste in soft furnishings (white). Contemporary architects have embraced expanses of glass because of the way it maximises natural illumination. Agents say that enthusiasm for this kind of design is growing and prices regularly exceed comparable properties with regular windows.

Squire, 37, is a director of Squire and Partners, the architectural practice working on the controversial Chelsea Barracks redevelopment. Having helped to design the Holloway glass home, he put his money where his mouth was and moved in some six years ago. Living behind a glass wall sounds frightening to the bashful, but Squire has embraced it. “Fear of overlooking is a very English phenomenon,” he says. “You can walk through very nice parts of Chelsea and Belgravia and you are looking straight into people’s houses. It is terribly easy to deal with: you just shut a blind.”

Trevor Abrahmsohn, the managing director of Glentree International, is about to put the glass-heavy Hillside House in Highgate up for sale for about £5 million. “Walls of windows do wonderful things to a room,” he says. “It is almost shocking when you go into a house like that on a dull day and see how bright it is.” Living in a glass house is not without complications, however. “The big issue I have found is maintenance, because unlike brickwork, you do have to clean it,” Squire says. “To keep it looking really good, you ideally need to clean it once every six months, or even every quarter.”

Some environmentalists take issue with glass. But Chris Wilford, head of sustainable design at PRP Architects, says it does not necessarily produce an environmental calamity — boiling in summer and requiring air-conditioning, and expensive and difficult to heat in winter. “There are some fantastic glass products on the market with good insulating value, so you can build houses that are flooded with light but are very efficient too,” he says. “And a lot of glass means you don’t have to have the lights on all the time.” When it comes to investment potential, Paul Jarman, a director of Savills estate agents, says that glass houses do a little better than their brick-built peers. “The young City money would much rather have a glass house than something traditional,” he says. “The sub-forties want a house that has all the latest technology built in and a glass house will have that. “Buyers also like to have nice, open, airy rooms, and by having glass the feel is much more spacious and open and connected to the outside.”

One concern that comes up again and again, though, when it comes to glass houses, is security.
No official data exists about whether you are more likely to be burgled if all your worldly goods are permanently on show. But Abrahmsohn believes that glass houses could actually be a turn-off for burglars. “If you get a bit of glass that is 8ft high and 6ft across, it’s very difficult to try to cut out a portion of it,” he said. “You could cut your leg off. It is also usually toughened and very hard to break and you can’t jemmy it open like you can a rotten window frame. In the trade it is a known fact that they [glass houses] are very hard to get into and therefore burglars hate them.”

The pros:

• Expanses of glass flood a house with light, making rooms feel bigger and taking advantage of any views.
• Natural light eliminates the need to have so many lights on.
• Glass properties are relatively rare and popular with young house-hunters. This can push prices higher than for equivalent, conventionally constructed properties.
• Glass houses are low maintenance — aside from the window cleaning.
• There is no need for painting or repointing.
• Glass houses are usually contemporary and so tend to come with the latest technology, from ambient heating systems to computer-controlled lighting.
  

The cons:

• Some people may find being so exposed a problem, although this can be mitigated with opaque or tinted glass or blinds.
• The glass will need to be cleaned every four to six months, possibly by specialist window-cleaners.
• If whole walls are glass, there is less space for shelves and cupboards, or to hang pictures, than in a conventional property.
• A badly designed glass house can be too hot in summer and very costly to heat in winter. Check the energy performance certificate in the Home Information Pack. Look for a rating of D or better.