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Cheap Aluminum Windows: An Ecological Disaster or Triumph?

It's easy to disparage cheap aluminum windows. They're ugly, they leak cold and heat and moisture, they leave a funny chalky feeling on your fingers when they're old, and they look, well, like cheap aluminum windows. They do not shut with a firm resounding thud nor slide open gracefully as the breeze they admit. If someone should ever compare you to a cheap aluminum window, chances are fair they're not delivering you a compliment.

Still, there's a reason home builders once got really excited about putting these windows all around the sprawling suburbs they were constructing, and there still are advantages. One, of course, is price. They are called cheap because they are. They can cost less than half what a wooden or wooden, clad window will cost.

What attracted builders to aluminum in the sixties and seventies is still true today. Aluminum is strong and lightweight. It is about 3 times as strong as wood and up to 43 times as strong as vinyl. Try to hold up a wood framed window to install on the second floor of a house, then hold up an aluminum window and guess which you'll want to install! It's why airplanes use so much aluminum.

Aluminum is also the most "green" or recyclable window frame material. It takes a lot less energy to convert aluminum than wood, while vinyl pretty much stays vinyl forever. Aluminum is paintable (where vinyl is not) and resists denting and weathering. It does, however, conduct both heat and cold and leaks moisture, and these charges have lately outstripped its other advantages.

It's changing, though. Advancements like multiple glazings, new sealants, filler gases, and coatings are making cheap aluminum windows thinkable again, so if you're looking for replacements for those old aluminum windows, you might just want to check them out again.

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