Additonal Product Options
from Coastal Exteriors
Coastal Exteriors windows come with a wide array of individual product options that allow you to completely customize each and every window in your home. Whether it be a specific glass package designed to meet the energy codes in your market, or a decorative option to compliment your style...chances are that Coastal Exteriors can give you exactly what you're looking for.
Foam Enhanced Profiles
The word 'Vinyl' in Vinyl Replacement Windows, refers to the raw material used to construct the frames and sashes of your window. This is opposed to a wood, aluminum or fiberglass frame for example.
Vinyl is short for Polyvinyl Chloride...and is also referred to as 'PVC'. Is this the same PVC or Vinyl that you've heard about in numerous other products? Yes. The KEY difference is how that raw material is blended with other ingredients to give it the properties it needs, for the job at hand. In our case...we've teamed with VEKA, Inc., a company that works specifically to blend vinyl into the right recipe for use in windows across the globe.
The vinyl components that are used to construct frames and sashes are called 'profiles'. This is because if you cut the frame with a saw and turn it on end...you will see a specific design, or 'profile'. This profile differs amongst window companies, and give a vinyl window many of the properties it depends on.
One of those properties is thermal efficiency. Vinyl window frames are designed with multiple chamber in them for both strength and thermal efficiency. You see...a frame is actualyl a better insulator with small pockets of air, than if it were a solid material. Think about the insulation in your home. It isn't a solid block of fiberglass...it is a weave of fiberglass that allows for thousands of air pockets. This comes from the laws of thermal transfer and two physical properties called conduction and convection.
One of the additional options from Coastal Exteriors Window Company gives you the ability to fill certain profile chambers with polystyrene foam...we call this 'Foam Enahanced Profiles'. Only certain chambers are filled to maximize effect, because sometimes...filling a chamber actually hurts the thermal performance.
The net result of filling a chamber with this foam is typically an enhancement along the lines of 0.01 in the overall U Factor of the window. Sometimes that difference can push the window into the next range of energystar or other energy code compliance. This is usually what the option is used for.
