What a fiasco with meager attempts to save on energy, not only with windows, but with other means. Ha, purchased ten CFL lamps a few months ago, so far, three of them exploded and most of them that were rarely used. Friends electronic ignition went out in his furnace, really stupid compared to the cheap thermocouple and reliable units we had years ago. That little bit of heat was helping to heat the home and would always turn it off during the AC season, so how much energy is being saved? Friend had to pay $560.00 to get a new ignition module, what a ripoff. Did have to replace my gas hot water heater, and looked into the power vented models, is eligible for a tax credit, but still a major loss initially. Building inspector said I cannot mount it in my basement, because the snow could cover the vents, but it's okay to mount a vented furnace, you figure that out. But in comparing energy cost, would only save about a therm per month, and with the problems in the electronics, vent motor, ignition, and the very poor warranty, only a year on these parts, could cost an extra fortune. Cheapest one was over twice the price as a conventional hot water heater, but the conventional one had a 12 year warranty, where the vented version had a 6 year tank warranty, but only a year on the electronics.
Ethanol gas is yet another ripoff, first off, they didn't figure the price of corn with the increase in demand would rise the price of corn from a buck and a half per bushel to over nine bucks, this drastically affected all of us at the grocery store. Still takes over a gallon of fossil fuels to make a gallon of ethanol. Got a bad mix at a Milwaukee station, that is all you can buy, detonation was so bad, had to drive home with a MT vehicle in third gear to keep the engine from blowing apart and averaged a very poor 17 mpg instead of the usual 36 mpg I get from using real gas. On an older Toyota, ethanol swelled up the fuel pump made with plastic parts, 450 bucks for a new fuel pump, I was really teed off, took a picture of it and sent that to my governor that is really pushing ethanol. No reply as usual.
Son has a 14 month old energy efficient furnance, control board went to hell, his dealer said it was under a five year warranty, wanted a 150 bucks to come out plus another 110 bucks an hour to change it, but with my vast electronic knowledge, convinced him, I could change it to save my son a couple of bucks. But what happens after warranty? I did note they changed the new board, old board was crap. Guess they didn't hear about surge protection with microcontrollers. More made in China crap. I dropped everything when his furnace went out, have a new two month old granddaughter and determined his control board was a piece of crap.
So are our windows, have you checked these out lately? With many, even the multiple pane type, one baseball at the wrong spot means replacing the entire window and the also includes the frame! Breakage is not warranteed by anyone. And if you have a mortgage paying for that window at three times the price, you are really in bad shape.
My first approach was to contact
http://www.crystalclearwindowworks.com/Default.html, what a load of BS I got from these people, no service guy in my area, so asked if I could buy the check valves, no, it takes great skill to install them, if they do even work. Later learned that this great skill is gained in a two day training period, but I never did get a quote.
Second approach is to treat the window as a broken one, a guy in town claims he can get the glass panels, would have to see the window, but would run about 200 bucks per panel, I have casements that I can remove in seconds, that would save me a lot as opposed to him coming out here, all these guys are charging a small fortune now to come out. Also contacted the window manufacturer, also about 200 bucks a panel, but comes with new weather stripping and just snaps in, but have to go to a dealer, they don't sell direct anymore, and screw you if you have a problem after the warranty. Mine were warranteed for twenty years, started having problems after twenty-one. The window manufacturer was kind enough to come to my home and look at them, asked him if I could buy that vinyl molding that holds the glass panel in, he was kind enough to give me his souce of the glass, a factory only 70 miles from me. Haven't contacted them yet, as can no longer get that vinyl molding, and any attempts to remove it will break it into tiny pieces. Did point out, they don't use that anymore, has been a source of problems for them, but did tell me the source of fogging is caused by that vinyl skinkage. On this note, did use silicone seal on the joints for the good windows.
I do have a wooded lot, but the windows exposed to the south sun are the problem ones, thank God or whoever, my large picture windows are on the north side of the house.
Well, I haven't done anything yet, but yearn for the days when I had very good storm windows on my older homes. Thinking about building a new home, but would really look into windows with easy to change panels if such a thing really exists. My neighbor with the same age home simply spend over 40,000 bucks for all new windows, that is also a solution. But where is the savings with these pieces of crap if you have to go through all that. Did write my congressman about these so called energy saving devices, said something about a war in Iraq. Maybe if enough of us wrote we could make a difference.
Best window is no window, but kind of hard to convince a wife of that. Ha, we want to bring the outdoors into the indoors, the whole concept is stupid.