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Comment by Gravityloss | Hacker News Reader

Here double pane has been the standard for about a century and triple pane after the eighties. No problems whatsoever. I don't even know what's the standard nowadays. Newer windows also quiet down traffic well and reduce the drafty feeling. So there are really very few excuses to not use them.

But I don't know what's the name of the phenomenon when someone who uses some primitive technology comes out with all kinds of esoteric reasons why they would not like to use these. Can't use an electric car. Can't use fluorescent or led lights. Can't use a heat pump. Can't use induction stoves. Can't put insulation into walls. Can't use double or triple or quadruple pane windows.

"Does light really come through a multiple pane window". Yes it does.

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I don't know what to call it on the consumer end, but on the builder side, it's often just laziness and greed. If they don't know how to work with a material, then it sucks. If it's hard to hire subs that know how to build something, then it doesn't meet code and won't pass inspection. If they misbid it, it will never work and needs to be redesigned.

In short, building contractors are a lot like software developers. There are some who keep up with the new materials and building systems and are excited to see new design techniques, and there are others who feel a sense of personal grievance that what they learned before they were thirty won't carry them all the way to retirement.

If energy was predictably more expensive, that would be one way to sort it out. You wouldn't buy a house or an apartment without analyzing living costs. Contractors would suddenly get very interested in building more energy efficient housing. I've also heard that in Russia, pensioners get a free amount of energy per month. That leads to a lot of wastage. For example if the pensions could be in cash, then the person would be motivated to save energy.

You do need cultural change too though. One way is to just demand visibility, not make any demands on actions. We have a published "energy class" for apartments and houses here. Our current apartment is class F or so - so we know our living cost is more sensitive to district heat prices than a class B apartment would be (those are newer and have in general higher purchase price).

You can measure the air-tightness of a house, and in the U.S, it has become more common to do so. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything else you can do to measure the quality of a build after the fact. The best way to monitor quality is for somebody knowledgable to keep an eye on construction.

All apartments and houses by law must have an energy certificate here. There's a high level EU directive but the details are by country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_Performance_of_Building...

However, it has its pitfalls and critics. Anyway, there the energy consumption is calculated from areas and insulation U values and so forth.

Don't know what would be the actual biggest problems against launching something similar elsewhere like in USA.

Probably one could build a software product to estimate these things. Especially easy during construction if the drawing data can be used directly. If things are drawn with CAD that is. But it might be relatively easy to estimate even from photos of paper drawings...

Estimates done from the design are pretty common, and BIM programs (Building Information Management) like Revit integrate all of the construction details into the design model, so they are able to automate some of those calculations. But BIM programs are not great design tools (not sure if that's an inherent conflict or if there simply aren't any good ones) so they are not popular for smaller jobs like single-family homes where you can use drawings produced directly from a tool that provides a better user experience for design.

Unfortunately, the drawings don't give you any assurance that the construction details are done correctly. Corner-cutting aside, a contractor may depart from the design with good intentions and accidentally create a thermal bridge that sucks heat in or out of your house.

Drawing estimation, outside vs inside temp + heating energy monitoring, heat camera pictures and some kind of other measurements could probably create a reasonable certificate that would be reassuring to house buyers. Or even if the owners are the same but there was some significant renovation being done, one could do that to see if the renovation was done properly.

To be a bit more charitble, I think there are builders who choose mastery of an older skillset over good enough with an evolving set of new skillets. I don't think that's such a bad thing, to be honest. Compared to software, in a building, it's a lot more expensive if you mess up.

I agree, that's cool, but some contractors take it a step too far and bid projects on the assumption that they can replace unfamiliar techniques, materials, and design details with alternatives they can do more cheaply and easily, and then they make themselves into a problem much later in the project when the client doesn't agree to the alterations.

I think it's something that contractors even do in good faith. They read drawings and think, "Oh, I know a lot of ways to speed this project up, they're going to be super happy with my bid." They can see it'll be easier if they use a different material, move a door twelve inches this way, move the electrical to another wall, replace a difficult detail with an easier one, etc. They've probably worked on projects where those details are chosen without much care, and the client is delighted if they can speed up the project a bit by changing them.

Yep, I can relate to that.

On windows: the seal between single pane windows never fails, because it does not exist. The original windows in my house have been working for 110 years. I put storm windows over them in the winter to get a little extra efficiency.

Some of the double panes added during the 90s remodel have busted seals and need to be replaced.

It’s a minimum $1500 to get a window replaced around here with a quality modern replacement. Assuming a generous 50 year life, that’s still $30/window/year for a replacement, plus the opportunity cost of not investing that money. Economically it almost certainly does not pencil out to replace the original windows.

There are quality of life benefits as you mention, but I can understand how someone who likes the aesthetics of old single-pane wood windows would choose not to replace them.

I dunno the single pane windows on my 100 year old house also have seals around them that let water through. They really need to be fixed or replaced.

1500 is not much if you compare it with any tech device upgrade cycle.

Another difference between single and multi-pane is repairability.

The seal between the pane and the wood is usually glazing. If that’s failing, you need to replace it. You can buy glazing putty at a big box store, and see how to do it on YouTube. With a little practice, it’s about ten minutes/window. $15 in materials will do a dozen or so.

If it’s leaking between the wood, you need to caulk. That’s $3-$13 in materials/tools (depending on if you already have the gun) and a couple minutes labor.

You may also need some flashing over the top to direct the water away from the pane. This is slightly more complicated. Probably $30 and an hour or so.

If you don’t want to learn these skills, a handyman should be up to any of them.

Multi pane windows also need to be flashed and caulked, just like your single pane. The only piece that I mentioned that is different is the glazing. Glazing can be replaced, the interior seal on a multi-pane window cannot

For that matter, it's not hard to learn to cut entirely new panes for old-school windows, and the tools aren't particularly expensive. Break a modern window and you'll most likely be replacing the whole thing, frame, casing(!), and all—the entire old window becomes trash.

... however, I do prefer the modern ones, myself. Energy loss through single-pane windows is no joke.

> does not pencil out to replace the original windows

Depends on the cost of energy and the interior comfort level you want.

>It’s a minimum $1500 to get a window replaced around here with a quality modern replacement

FYI, you can usually replace just the double-paned glass insert in those for a small fraction of that cost.

> and reduce the drafty feeling.

While the feeling may be similar to a draft (moving air), the actual phenomenon is radiant heat transfer. The warmth we feel is not just air temperature (which can be less than half), but also the surface temperatures:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_radiant_temperature

* http://www.healthyheating.com/Definitions/Mean%20Radiant.htm

If you sit near a heating radiator, fireplace, or campfire, you will feel warm because energy goes from high concentration (fire) to low/er concentration (your body).

But if you sit near a badly insulating window, your body has the higher amount of energy (heat) so energy goes from you to the window. You are the radiator for the window; the window is an 'anti-radiator' (it 'attracts' heat).

The window is still a radiator. Or more accurately, will still radiate heat received from a warmer source toward a colder destination.

Heat tends towards dispersal (currently predicted, eventually, to evenly spread in all directions), so it seems wrong to say that the window "attracts" heat. Rather, it just provides lower resistance to heat transfer than the typical wall.

> But I don't know what's the name of the phenomenon when someone who uses some primitive technology comes out with all kinds of esoteric reasons why they would not like to use these. Can't use an electric car. Can't use fluorescent or led lights. Can't use a heat pump. Can't use induction stoves. Can't put insulation into walls. Can't use double or triple or quadruple pane windows.

I don't know a term for that concept, but another term comes to mind that you might consider: empathy. More specifically, you should try understand the reasons someone might choose a more "primitive" technology a newer one. Your inability to understand why someone makes certain decisions is more a failing of yours than theirs.

What would be some concequences if someone installed two old single pane windows a few inches from each other into a wall.

IE - pseudo double panes via single panes.

Would it fog up like double pane glass with a broken seal? Could you put a desiccant in there? Is there a cheap way to be able to open it if you need to? Could it be worth it because it is more repairable than a broken double pane system -- even though it would cost more?

This is quite common in old buildings in cold areas such as northern Europe, the northern United States, and Canada. Two single pane windows are place a short distance apart. There are also "storm windows," a similar concept where a new window is retrofitted to the outside of an existing single window. Both windows are usually easily openable for summertime ventilation.

The outer window can acquire significant condensation, especially if it's fully sealed. This can drip down and rot the wood sill. The outer window is not supposed to be fully sealed. There's supposed to be an air gap at the bottom so that this doesn't happen, but some installers or homeowners are unaware of this and caulk all around.

Nothing bad, it's the way double pane windows were done here for about 60 years. My current windows right in front of me are just like that. It's impractical for triple pane, then you combine multiple panes to one frame.

Ancient Romans seem to have had double-pane windows in some places.

There are perfectly good reasons for preferring the primitive alternative for every example in your list, and as I can barely see out of my double glazed window due to condensation between the panes at the moment, they're not without their problems either.

I think if there is condensation between the panes then the sealed air cavity inside the window has been compromised- you might want to get a new window put in.

The large double glazed sliding glass door in one of my previous apartments had that issue, and it eventually became mold trapped inside the glass that was uncleanable.

I think in the context of this conversation, that failure mode is a reason for preferring the primitive option.

Is the failure mode likely to reoccur?

For most residential home scenarios I guess that's unlikely; wouldn't it be more convenient long term to fix the broken glazed window and enjoy its benefits for the next 10-20 years [1]?

[1]: "IG units typically last from 10 to 25 years, with windows facing the equator often lasting less than 12 years. IGUs typically carry a warranty for 10 to 20 years depending upon the manufacturer.", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulated_glazing#Longevity

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