While natural disaster newshounds watch alternating seasonal threats of East Coast hurricanes and West Coast wildfires like a tennis match, building codes have been shoring up the defenses in hopes of mitigating disasters such as 2005’s Katrina and 2007’s Witch Creek. We have devoted much discussion in these pages to the evolving codes and standards for hurricane wind, water and ...
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Those who ignore the knowledge, buying power and participation of women in the home improvement marketplace, a longtime male-dominated niche market, do so to their economic peril. The Lowe's home improvement chain set out to prove this premise about five years ago and came up not pink, not green, but golden. The blue's answer to Home Depot's well-established orange, which included wider aisles, ...
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Last March I suggested in this column that the handwringing over the housing slump and the general recession that many were sure it would bring were overwrought. Let's see, some six months later, where all that stands.In essence, the jury is still out. True, the housing crunch and its economic downturn have reached epic proportions and remain the highlight of campaigns for Presidential hopefuls. ...
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Given numerous well-publicized issues and events over recent years-the 2004-2005 hurricanes, mold from building envelope leakage, high energy costs and terrorist bomb threats-state and international building codes, industry standards and a variety of other rating programs have been steadily raising the performance bar for windows and doors. The primary focus has been on energy efficiency, impact ...
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While defining and meeting codes for window and door performance are clearly important, especially in areas subject to extreme conditions such as water penetration due to hurricane wind-driven rains, the practical realities of "bang for the buck" have to be considered. How much cost and hassle-in the form of performance testing and documentation-is justified by the degree of protection ...
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National Window Safety Week, scheduled for April 23-29, focuses on family safety by educating caregivers about taking a balanced approach to window safety, considering both the danger of children falling from windows and the benefits of windows as emergency fire exits. This education event is organized by the National Safety Council's Window Safety Task Force, an industry coalition comprised of ...
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It is important not to lose sight of the long term and fundamental strength in the residential housing market. Admittedly, it is difficult to see this silver lining through all the doom and gloom publicity about the housing slump. It can be even more difficult when we now hear talk of recession. Maybe certain politicians are, for reasons of their own, saying we’re on the precipice of ...
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We have often spoken of the “101” series of international window and door performance standards. The current version of this is AAMA/WDMA/CSA 101/I.S. 2/A440-08, which allows window and door products of different framing materials and operator types to be objectively and fairly assessed for structural performance in response to wind loading, air leakage and water penetration ...
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The first priority in the wake of the devastating 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons along the U.S. Gulf and Atlantic Coasts has been to upgrade construction requirements to prevent damage from excessive winds and wind-borne debris. Stronger code requirements for impact-resistant windows have since been adopted in many jurisdictions, ranging from those that reference current International Code ...
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