With a depressed housing market and high interest rates, most door and window fabricators are seeing softer demand these days. But with the first day of spring less than a week away, window fabricators are hopeful that the market for doors and windows will pick up as it usually does this time of year. During […]

The Inflation Reduction Act, passed in August, provides rebates and tax credits to homeowners investing in energy-efficient upgrades, including new windows. It will also help the economy as well, said Vice President Kamala Harris when she addressed the Sheet Metal Workers Local 17 in Boston earlier this week. “We are fighting together to lower home […]

Many window manufacturers are reporting that sales are slowing down. The last few years we really didn’t have to worry about demand. We had other things to deal with like supply chain. Now, many fabricators are finally seeing a slowdown and are feeling uncertain about 2023. Well, when it comes to demand, it would be […]

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published final specifications for Energy Star 7.0 Thursday, handing manufacturers their final marching orders if they’re to keep the program’s sticker on their door and window products. The news arrived amid the final hours of GlassBuild America—a week in which some companies said they were shopping new glass packages and […]

The latest cover of Door & Window Market ([DWM]) magazine didn’t mince words regarding ENERGY STAR 7.0: “It’s go time.” The new criteria for the prestigious EPA label will hit in just about a year, and the significant changes for U-factors and solar heat gain coefficients (SHGCs) will be driving manufacturers to make major alterations […]

I was visiting a customer yesterday discussing the upcoming revised Energy Star requirements that will go into effect sometime in mid-2023 (Energy Star 7.0). He felt confident that, utilizing triple-pane insulating glass (IG) configurations, the majority of his window designs would meet the new U-value criteria, even in the Northern climate zone. This led to […]

Well, here we are once again heading for a new version of Energy Star that will begin in 2023 with even tougher requirements. As I completed my travels during the first half of this year, I noticed an overall lack of concern regarding the upcoming Energy Star changes. My customers seemed focused on the present […]

Right now, window and door fabricators live in a world where creating demand for their products is no issue. The day-to-day challenges of their business are driven by supply chain issues, labor shortages and long lead times associated with new equipment. But with inflation on the rise, interest-rate hikes being doled out by the Fed […]

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released details for Draft 2 of Energy Star 7.0 today, including several updates for doors and windows. Officials tell [DWM] updates to the proposed criteria result partly from industry comment, but also from fresh data gleaned from a new version of Energy Plus, the modeling software used to make […]

In the Shop Talk blog, we’ve talked a lot about the here and now: how to be more productive with fewer employees, health and safety in the COVID-19 era and tips to improve quality and efficiency. We’re all focused on how we get through the next day or week, and we need to be. But […]