New Window Treatments = More Efficiency

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Mike Wilson

New Member
Nov 19, 2005
1,003
Orient Point, NY
Well, I let the wife order new window treatments for two rooms in the house, and I think she found a hit. We did all 20 windows in the living room, and another 11 windows in my office using a new Hunter Douglas product that they call Architella. Its like their cellular shades, but different. In the old cellular shades, if you wanted double or triple honeycomb for efficiency, they literally stacked the honeycombs on top of each other, and the end result was about a 2 inch thick stack of cells with three air pockets to trap air. We have all casement windows, and anything that thick makes it impossible to use the little cranks to open the windows, even after you replace the Andersen crank with a thin little flipper (which barely works). What they've done on these cells is incorporate the three air pockets within the one main cell, so from the exterior, it is only 1 cell thick. Picture a cell within another cell, and see the photo below (older version is below also, for comparison). Hunter Douglas is claiming a 7.73 R value for these, and considering that an R value of 4 supposedly stops 75% of heat loss through a window, I'm thinking that we're in for warmer winters and cooler summers! The Jotul will have an easier job of keeping things warm this year. Plus, they look great. The previous triple honeycomb design they sold had an R value of 5.69. We ordered the top-down bottom-up option, and the installers were here all day yesterday putting them in. Toss a small valence over the top of them and they look well in the house.

Anyway, just throwing that out there in case anyone's wife is in the market for new window treatments. You can't get these at Depot or Lowe's yet, only independent Hunter Douglas dealers, but the price is very reasonable, all things considered.

-- Mike
 

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Mike thanks for the info. another way energy can be saved.
 
Great tip. Can you post a shot or two of the installation?
 
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