LEARN ABOUT WINDOW COMPONENTS IN PHOENIX & MESA, AZ

An inert gas injected between the 2 panes of glass of a dual pane window. Argon is twice as dense as regular air which slows down how fast heat transfers through the window. This affects the U-rating of a window. A lot of windows use capillary tubes to transport the windows through mountainous regions to compensate for huge fluctuations in altitude and atmospheric pressure during transport. Capillary tubes enable windows to endure these changes, but also result in the argon being pushed out of the airspace during these changes. Any window with capillary tubes cannot use the argon in the NFRC calculations for the U-rating because they don’t know how much gas remains in the window at the point of delivery. A lot of companies take advantage of this. They tell people they do not want to pay for argon filled windows because it is invisible & they will never know if it is in the window because it leaks out anyway in a few years, so why have it. It does leak out in windows that have a box spacer or intercept spacer. In a window with hermetically sealed warm edge spacer and no capillary tubes, the gas does not leak out. It will migrate through the glass & spacer at a rate of 3% per year. Think of it this way. If you poke a hole in a helium balloon it deflates quickly. That is a leak. But if you fill a balloon with helium gas it will slowly fall to the floor in a week or so. That is migration. The hermetic seal & glass takes decades to migrate through. Any window that incorporates the technology to hold the gas is a great window that is moderately improved by the gas, is still a great window without the gas. If a crappy window needs the gas to improve it’s #’s then once the gas is gone you are left with a crappy window. Another gas that is used by some manufacturers is Krypton gas. Krypton gas is a little more effective than argon but it is lethal to breath. The workers must wear hazmat suits when working with it.