Glass Wars [Spoiler Alert: Probably Not] by Drew Vass With the Arrival of Energy Star 7, Will VIG and Thin-Triple Finally Have Their Day? A fter more than half a century of relying on double-pane insulating glass (IG) as a go-to product, you might expect U.S.-based door and window manufacturers to be ready for a new hero. But so far, no glass technologies have shown up to save the day. outcome by backing off of an originally proposed U-factor requirement of 0.24 for the North-Central zone, acknowledging that those measurements would be “a tough U-factor to get to with two panes of glass.” While triple-pane glazing is the standard in Eu-rope, U.S.-based manufacturers have so far avoided redesigning most mainstream products to accommo-date thicker and heavier glass, mostly by adding ad-ditional low-E-coatings. Meanwhile, regarding VIG and thin-triple, “Personally, I would have thought they After decades of development, vacuum insulating glass (VIG) and thin-triple glass (sometimes referred to as “skinny triples”) await their time in the main-stream. And with Energy Star 7.0 (ES7) set to take effect in October 2023, you might expect one or both to find their way in the weeks ahead. For now, though, it seems that manufacturers will be sticking with double-pane glass. In the development of ES7, officials for the Envi-ronmental Protection Agency (EPA) welcomed this 40 | Door and Window Market Magazine
Door & Window Market Sept/Oct 2023: Page 40
