Wood Windows

We could perhaps write a book regarding the evolution of the wood window industry and it’s wrangling with the issue of designing windows.

For example, there’s the issue of trying to make a window sash with insulated glass look like it has multi-panes, or what they call “divided-lites.”

A number of the major modern day wood window manufacturers (Pella, Marvin, Pozzi, Etc.) began around the late 1980’s, trying to manufacture true-divided-lite windows using insulated-glass, but the muntins necessary to house and cover the spacer-bars that separate and hold the panes together…

…necessitated muntin dimensions that were too much of a departure from the classic 7/8″ muntin. These new muntins were huge by comparison, and we suspect that architects and home owners rejected them in mass.

And thus was born the “Simulated-Divided-Lite” feature so common today in the modern wood windows & doors.
It has been our experience to observe that this feature has for the most part, gone…

…unnoticed by the general property owning populace, because we are continually having to explain why it is a bit more difficult to replace…

…failed or broken glass with “Simulated-Divided-Lite” glass with the muntins that have been adhered semi-permanently to the glass.

Such as these Eagle brand wood clad windows have in this northwest Portland Condo building.

Learning to order the glass correctly with the corresponding simulated spacer-bars that align internally with the simulated…

…muntins, and learning how to correctly re-adhere the simulated muntins to the glass has become a skill-set in and of itself.