Insulating glass is made with a space separating panes of glass for the same reason people used to install “storm windows” on their houses. Air that does not move is a good insulator. Most insulating materials are designed in a way that traps air to create small pockets of “dead air”. This is true about the fiberglass insulation in your walls, the foam plastic in your beer cooler, as well as your favorite sweater. When two pieces of glass are placed close together and sealed around the edges it creates a layer of dead air in between. If the space between is too wide, the air has room to move, that is why all insulating glass is better than single glass windows with a storm window over it. If the gap is too narrow, there is not enough air to act as an insulator, making it less effective.

In an effort to improve on the insulating glass panel performance, a number of changes have occurred over the years. A chemical desiccant was added to the spacer early on to counter-act the tendency for small amounts of moisture in the air between the glass panels from condensing inside the unit and causing fogging. It was recognized that air is not the best insulator. The noble gases (once referred to as inert gases) were soon chosen as filler gases because they have a very low thermal conductivity, are colorless and odorless. Argon and Krypton were ultimately selected for the glazing industry because they are harmless to humans and, in Argon’s case, inexpensive.  Addition of the noble gases to the insulating glass panels nearly doubled their thermal performance. Krypton is rarely used because its thermal conductivity is only slightly lower than that of Argon, yet it is many times more expensive.

There is no practical way to “refill” older insulating units with Argon or any other gas. Internally fogged units cannot be cleaned and refilled either. Insulating glass that was manufactured more than 15 years ago has probably failed to some degree. It has almost certainly lost some of its insulating value and it may be showing signs of gross seal failure, manifesting as internal fogging. The only solution to either of these problems is replacement of the glass. Glass manufactured today has a much longer useful life due to improvements in glass seal technology and the use of noble gas fillers. Additionally, as mentioned in a previous blog, today glass is now coated with films called low e coatings that improve the performance of the glass in resisting radiant heat loss significantly.

While the better insulating glass will cost more initially, you will feel an immediate improvement in the comfort within your home because of decreased drafts and over time you will see cost savings as your energy use decreases.

Condensation is the process by which water molecules change from a gas into a liquid. This process can only happen when two conditions are present, the first being high relative humidity and the second, cold temperature.

Insulating glass is typically made from two or three layers of glass with a spacer between them. The spacer is typically made from aluminum tubing or structural foam, which assures a gap between the sheets of glass that is filled with dry air or another gas. Dry air is rarely used today because it is not as good an insulator as other gases that are commonly available.  Most often, Argon gas is used because of its superior resistance to heat transfer, thus providing an insulating barrier between the indoor temperature and the climate outside. The edges of the glass, where the spacer contacts the inner and outer surfaces, had been the “weak link” in insulating glass units in the past.  This is because the spacer was an aluminum tube, which is a very good conductor.  Using this type of spacer caused the edges of the glass to be significantly colder than the middle.  Moisture in the air would condense on the cold edges of the glass long before it was likely to form anywhere else.  Today, most glass manufacturers use a structural foam spacer that has very good insulating properties.  This, combined with the use of Argon gas fill almost eliminates the condensing problem on insulating glass today.

When condensation does form, solutions include lowering the humidity of the room, raising the glass temperature or replacing your windows. Glass temperature can be raised by removing curtains or blinds and repositioning furniture so that it is not in front of the windows. Windows that are blocked by any of these things have a lower exposure to heated air flow.

You can increase the air flow in your home by regularly using ventilation fans in bathrooms and kitchens (this also decreases the relative humidity in the house) and by opening doors and windows.  Make sure the vents in your attic or basements are fully functioning for even more air circulation. Older houses can be draftier than new homes.  This is an indication of two different problems.  One is that the house is not as “tight” as a newer home, allowing air to move from outside to inside through cracks and other openings.  A draft is also an indication that the outside walls, windows and doors are cold.  When the heated air in the house touches this cold surface, it cools down.  Cool air is heavier than warm air, so it drops down the wall.  This air movement is felt as a draft.  The leaks in you older home help with ventilation and reduce relative humidity, but can cause high utility bills and personal discomfort.

The other factor in condensation is high relative humidity.  This can be addressed as described previously using exhaust fans to remove moisture from kitchens and baths. If you have a lot of house plants, you may want to consider repositioning them or moving them outdoors as plants create humidity. Alternatively, you can also purchase a dehumidifier to remove excess moisture from the air.

Despite employing these methods, you may just need to replace your windows. Condensation and ice can form due to missing or defective weather stripping, faulty installation, poorly fitting or broken window panes, failed insulating glass and more. Even if you have windows with insulating glass, technology has changed a great deal in the past 10 or 15 years.  If you notice condensation in your windows, you may want to wait to make sure it is not simply due to unusually cold winter weather, but before making a decision that could cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars, you should definitely contact a professional.

Southern yellow pine is simply an outstanding building material offering a variety of advantages over other woods and manmade materials, starting with the unique combination of good looks and superior performance.

Structurally, southern yellow pine is the best lumber available for lamination.  It’s more durable, flexible, and versatile than any other wood – it even outperforms aluminum and vinyl. Wood offers better insulating properties, too, without any special treatment.

Even though southern yellow pine is naturally strong, we make it even stronger by laminating it. That involves cutting the wood into thin strips length-wise and then gluing them together to make a solid beam. By doing this, any natural weaknesses in the wood, such as knotholes, are eliminated because the lamination process minimizes the individual weak spots to just the tiny thickness of a single lamination strip. The result is a substantially strengthened wooden beam that can be architecturally formed into graceful curved supports through a bending and shaping process. In fact, wood is more easily customized than aluminum or vinyl, enabling a unique, more personalized sunroom design.

To ensure that every laminated beam is of the highest quality, we hand-inspect each and every one and finish it to precise tolerances. This painstaking process ensures that every beam fits exactly during construction for enhanced beauty and to minimize any possible structural problems, drafts, and leaks.

The end result is a far superior sunroom that is unmatched in beauty, durability, insulation, and longevity.

Post and beam construction, also known as mortise and tenon construction, is one of the oldest and sturdiest methods of building a home. Instead of using nails to hold the posts and beams together, a sort of peg, called a tenon, is cut into the end of one beam and a corresponding hole, or mortise, is cut into another beam or post. The two are fitted precisely together to form a remarkably durable joint which we then finish securing with heavy-duty lag screws. In fact, post and beam construction significantly reduces the affect of wind on a structure, ideal for homes with greater exposure to the elements, such as here in New England. Houses built hundreds of years ago using this method of construction are still standing today.

But strength is just one advantage of using post and beam construction. Another benefit is beauty. Post and beam construction — also called by yet a third name, timber framing — leaves the post and beam frame exposed rather than covered up with drywall or some other construction material. The result is an aesthetically-pleasing architectural feature that speaks volumes about the quality and durability of the construction work. A sunroom built using post and beam construction is one that will last a lifetime and beyond.

But we’re still not done. Post and beam construction also provides better insulation and energy efficiency because heat can’t travel as easily through the walls. Aluminum frame construction easily conducts heat in and out of your sunroom, so warmth during the winter gets sucked out of your sunroom, while outside heat gets easily transferred inside during the hot summer months.

We use special Split Silver Titanium Glass in all our sunrooms. Our coating and tinting formulas are optimized for the harsh New England climate so they perform well under a variety of weather conditions and temperatures while maintaining optimum insulating properties all year round.

Split Silver Titanium Glass is incredible stuff – it uses eleven different materials that are applied to the glass by a metal vapor deposition process, providing superior energy-efficiency and comfort during all seasons.

But what really sets us apart from the competition is our proprietary glazing system utilizing a structural silicone to more-efficiently seal the glass to the sunroom’s exterior for simply outstanding reliability and longevity. Unlike the rubber seals used by the competition, our silicone seal stays flexible for years and is unaffected by UV rays.

What does this mean to you?  You don’t have to worry about rainwater leaking into your sunroom or  cloudy glass caused by poorly sealed glass.  That means you’ll be able to enjoy crystal clear views from your Brady-Built sunroom for many, many years.

Do you have a unique glass request or requirement? We offer a wide range of high-quality, two-pane insulated glass from Guardian Industries, the world’s largest glass manufacturer, finished with our proprietary glazing system.  In fact, we work with virtually every major glass manufacturer, so if you have a preference for the glass used in your sunroom, we’d be happy to get it for you.

Whether you choose high-performance Split Silver Titanium or superior insulated glass, you’re assured peace-of-mind with a Brady-Built sunroom, crafted from the finest materials available.

The short answer is “yes”, if they’re designed and constructed to handle weather extremes. Every Brady-Built sunroom and conservatory is carefully manufactured in our own environmentally-controlled factory in Auburn, Massachusetts. Because our sunrooms and conservatories are specifically designed and manufactured to stand up to years of exposure to New England’s harsh weather, they remain comfortable and enjoyable year-round.

What enables our sunrooms to handle the New England environment so well? It starts with the materials we use – solid wood. Not vinyl, aluminum, or plastic. We use solid yellow pine and other species chosen specifically for New England conditions. Wood is warmer, stronger, more durable, and versatile than any other material – and it just looks better. Wood has better insulating properties, too, which means it stays cooler in summer and warmer in winter.

The glass used in your sunroom or conservatory is another critical component if you want to be able to use your sunroom or conservatory year-round. That’s why we use Split Silver Titanium™ glass that’s been optimized for the New England climate. Then we seal it with a special proprietary glazing system that offers the lowest seal failure rate in the industry.

The result is a beautiful, durable, solid sunroom or conservatory that’s not only comfortable year-round – it adds value to your home and more fun to your lifestyle.

We admit it – there are some people who think “factory-built sunroom” is synonymous with cheap, cookie-cutter construction and shoddy workmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth – at least not at Brady-Built! We strongly suggest that our customers – or anyone considering purchasing a sunroom – tour our factory to get the facts on factory-built sunrooms. Perhaps the best reason to tour our factory is because that’s the only way you’re going to be able to check out our sunrooms up close – all of our sunrooms and conservatories are built-to-order, so we don’t have a showroom!

Factory-built sunrooms and conservatories are far superior to on-site, “stick-built” models for many reasons. At Brady-Built, we have our own, environmentally-controlled factory that enables us to control every aspect of construction – starting with simply keeping our craftspeople comfortable and happy while they work, instead of being distracted and rushed by harsh, uncomfortable weather.

More than that, manufacturing sunrooms in a controlled environment enables us to maximize the environmental properties of all the materials we use – from maintaining optimal moisture and temperature during wood lamination, to controlling the cure rate of glues and sealants for weatherpoofing. Try doing that when you’re rushing to build a sunroom onsite, in summer’s relentless heat and humidity, or during a fall rainstorm, or a winter snow storm.

So to best tell the factory-built story, we think it’s important that all our customers actually visit our factory. Then they can see for themselves how a controlled environment enables us to manufacture the highest quality sunroom or conservatory possible. Once they understand that, they wonder why anyone would buy anything but a factory-built sunroom.

Every Brady-Built sunroom and conservatory is manufactured right in our own environmentally-controlled factory in Auburn, Massachusetts. Why? Because the only way a sunroom can be built to the highest quality standards is to do it in a controlled environment where it won’t be exposed to adverse weather or be constructed with materials that may have been compromised by being exposed to outdoor conditions for any length of time.

Our sunrooms and conservatories are designed and built specifically for New England’s harsh weather, so it stands to reason that if we constructed them on site, there would be a very good chance that some part of the process would be exposed to snow, ice, rain, humidity, heat, or cold. Any of these conditions can change the properties of the materials or, in many cases, enable moisture to get into the structure itself during construction, encouraging problems further down the road, such as mold, rot, or mildew.

By building sunrooms and conservatories in our environmentally-controlled factory, we have complete control over every aspect of manufacturing – from optimum temperatures that enable glues and sealants to cure properly, to comfortable working conditions that enable workers to perform at their maximum efficiency, unaffected by summer’s heat and humidity or winter’s freezing, damp conditions.

We encourage all our customers to come tour our factory and learn more about how we carefully manufacture each and every sunroom and conservatory. Once you see the Brady Difference, you’ll understand why we’ve earned our reputation as New England’s leading sunroom manufacturer.

Why Laminated Wood?

When considering the purchase of a sunroom, there are many decisions to make.  What the sunroom’s structure is made from is one of the most important from a practical as well as an aesthetic perspective.

Extruded vinyl or aluminum are commonly used to build the frames for sunrooms.  Both materials are very resistant to rot and require little maintenance but have the look and feel of a poor quality product.  Furthermore, sunroom built from vinyl or aluminum are “stick” built on-site with very little control over quality due to the variability of the skills between one technician and another.

Laminated wood sunrooms offer several advantages.  There is little doubt that wood looks “warmer and richer” than either of it’s competitors.  In fact, wood is literally warmer because it is a much better thermal insulator than either aluminum or vinyl.  The color and grain patterns in wood are beautiful.  Laminating wood to form the beams takes advantage of the beauty of the wood and enhances its structural qualities.  Sawn timber beams are weakened by knots and other natural variations in the wood.  When wood is cut into thin laminations and then glued together to make up a full thickness beam, the knots and other “defects” are limited to only the thickness of each lamination.  Since the natural flaws don’t line up from layer to layer, the effective strength of the beam is not impacted.

To protect the beautiful wood from the elements, the exterior surfaces of laminated wood sunrooms are clad in aluminum extrusions.  This technique offers all of the advantages of wood and aluminum.

Since wood is an easily machined material, it makes customizing the sunroom easy.  Manufacturers of aluminum and vinyl sunrooms will not customize their rooms to fit special customer requirements.  Building sunrooms from laminated wood makes customization a natural benefit.

Solar screens, the best way to manage sunroom temperatures year-round.

There are many competing claims by sunroom manufacturers about glass.  Some claim to have the “best” glass in the industry, others claim that their glass blocks out most of the sun’s heat in summer; others say theirs allows most of the sun’s warmth through in the winter.  Like so many things in life, you can’t have it all.  Magic glass is a myth.  Designing glazing systems is a science that requires a clear understanding of what it will be used for, what qualities are most important and where compromises can be made.  Glass, if not modified, allows most of the visible light spectrum to pass through and has virtually no insulating value.  What this means is any light that passes through the glass will strike another surface (inside your house or sunroom) and either be reflected or absorbed.  The light that is absorbed is converted into heat energy (remember the conservation of energy law from high school physics class?).  This heat in the winter is desirable and in the summer can make the room uncomfortably hot.

Since un-modified glass has no meaningful insulating value, most manufacturers of sunrooms offer “insulating glass”.  This is an assembly of two or more plates of glass that are separated by spacers,  The void in-between the sheets of glass is filled with a dry gas, most often argon.

Engineers have developed a set of values that allow us to compare the insulating qualities of one product to another.  In this system, a single sheet of glass has a “U” value of 1.0.  When two sheets are assembled with a small gap in between (usually less than ¾”) that is filled with dry air the U value is about 0.60.  In this system, the smaller the number, the better the material’s insulating qualities.  The insulating properties of the glass assembly can be further improved by using argon gas (less conductive than air) and by using non-metal spacers.  The standard insulating glass used by Brady-Built Sunrooms has a U value of 0.24.  Brady-Built offers as an option, triple glazed insulating glass that has a U value of 0.12.  These glass options are state-of-the-art in glass manufacturing.

The insulating glass panel described above helps to improve the sunroom’s insulating properties so that on a cold cloudy day or at night, the heat loss through convection and transmission from the sunroom is reduced.  To make the glass even better at reducing heat loss from your sunroom a coating is added to the glass that helps reduce radiant heat losses.  This coating, called a low e (for emissivity) coating reflects selected wavelengths of light (usually in the red to infrared spectrum).  The insulating glass with an argon filled space helps reduce convective and conductive heat loss, the low e coating adds significantly to the glass’ insulating performance by addressing the only other means of losing heat.  Obviously the measures described don’t eliminate heat loss from the glass; they simply reduce it to the extent possible without compromising the glass’ aesthetic qualities.

What about those hot summer days when any heat gain is objectionable?  Some sunroom manufacturers imply that their glass allows the greatest warmth inside the sunroom during the winter months, while preventing significant heat gain in the summer.  This is impossible.  When heat gain is objectionable, glass is modified by adding tints to the glass itself or by coating the outside pane of glass surface with a thin metal coating to create a reflective mirror surface.  Sometimes both methods are used in the same insulating units.  Scientists have come up with a system to measure this characteristic as well.  It is called the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC).  Like the U value system, the lower the SHGC, the less light is allowed through the glass and therefore the less heat gain in the room.  Brady-Built uses a glass assembly with an SHGC of 0.385.  Most other sunrooms manufacturers use glass with a SHGC of 0.15 (meaning much less light gets through).  What this means is in the winter months, the Brady-Built Sunroom will warm more quickly on a sunny day and will be comfortable at much lower temperatures with less dependence on auxiliary heat sources.  In the summer months, use of the removable Brady-Built externally mounted solar screens, in combination with the standard glazing will prevent 90% of the heat gain that would otherwise occur.  The solar screens act like an artificial shade tree without blocking views of the sky.  Other sunroom companies depend upon dark tint for most of their heat gain control.  The problem with this approach is you lose a significant percentage of desirable heat gain in the winter and though it reduces the solar heat gain coefficient in the summer, it does not reduce the actual heat gain as much as the lower SHGC numbers suggest.  The dark tint absorbs light, preventing it from entering the sunroom directly, but that absorbed light is converted into heat energy and the hot glass warms the air in the room.  Using externally mounted solar screens causes this waste heat to dissipate into the air outside of the sunroom.

Brady-Built Sunrooms have been designed with hot summers and cold winters in mind.  Our glass, manufactured for us by Guardian Industries, has been designed to give Brady-Built Sunroom owners the optimum comfort and energy efficiency when used with Brady-Built Solar Screens.