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Cold climate window installation – Eakes to continue development of advanced methods at FenCon19

One of FenCon 18’s sessions surprised with the level of interest and “robustness” of the engagement in an informal follow up meeting – cold climate installation detailing. Jon Eakes invested considerable time, experience and cost to develop some unique concepts and details to execute a higher quality of effective and appropriate installation. A roomful of attendees were quite impressed with the level of detail that had been developed.  The resulting discussion ended up creating an “unplanned follow up” meeting the following day with a group including highly qualified building envelope engineers.  Months later, Jon Eakes was actively pursuing further finetuning and testing of installation concepts by way of some of Canada’s more advance technical training colleges, specifically George Brown College in Ontario and Red River College in Winnipeg.

Jon has found interest in the topic and followed up with another semi-formal meeting off-site at WinDoor 18 in Quebec City.  The Quebec City meeting was gauging the industry interest in providing input into the concept of testing prototype performance in lab settings.  Notably, Al Jaugelis, RDH based in lower mainland BC, encouraged the industry to look more closely at details that have evolved from the BC experiences, partially from the “leaky condo era”.   “There is a training program in BC whereby installers have an opportunity to test their “typical detail” which fails predictably while they also have a chance to implement a “true rain screen install” where the window or door is allowed to “leak outwards” while providing a positive seal on the inside,” said Al.  “We think this type of detail is quite suitable more broadly in Canada to advance this important element of fenestration.”

It was suggested that industry experts should be involved in the next steps including a proposal that was drafted by Red River College’s (RRC) building envelope testing group.  RRC in fact is highly qualified for some of this work as their testing equipment including a “cold simulation room” has the unique ability of assessing the performance levels of such an prototype.   In a very logical next step, Jon Eakes will be back at FenCon 19 with a more advanced set of proposals and concepts for the window and door manufacturing industry to consider.  In fact, FenCon 19 will incorporate another critical element as the facilities/capabilities of RRC will be an added feature of the programming as highly qualified building envelope/window installation experts will have opportunity to extend the discussion into a lab setting. 

Building envelopes are definitely getting tighter and more complex, fenestration components continue to get bigger, more complex and higher performance AND tighter quality control is resulting in more performance testing – in lab as well as on site during construction.  It is in the interests of the window and door manufacturing industry that they become more informed of the best options and develop and support the best procedures to create a real win/win for building owners as well as the associated costs to the our industry. 

Learning and potential benefits to you the conference attendee includes:

•                 In depth understanding of an alternative high performance, durable installation technique
•                 Engagement in the conversation about how to cost effectively achieve an excellent cold climate installation
•                 Gain lab tested insights into the procedures to achieve excellent perimeter insulation with “interior seal” installation
•                 Develop a broader, deeper range of connections amongst building envelope/installation experts

A better interface – a proposal for preventing wet window frames: Fenestration Review Fall 2018

FenCon19