IGMA Summer Meeting Continues with Technical Presentations

The Insulating Glass Manufacturers Alliance (IGMA) Summer Meeting continued yesterday with technical presentations and a technical service committee meeting. Following a breakfast buffet at which IGMA president Luc Cormier discussed IGMA's strategic plan for the future, attendees filled the room to hear technical presentations from Ray Wakefield of TruLite, Jeff Haberer of Cardinal and Andre Piers of TNO.

Wakefield was the first to take center stage, making a presentation on mock-up testing-what it is, why it's important and how mock-up testing works.

"The importance of the mock-up is that it provides invaluable information to the design team to assist them all-from the architect to the building owner to the glazing contractor and even us as glass suppliers. In giving us unique information about how that particular system is going to perform, it isn't like an off-the-shelf storefront assembly, this is a highly-engineered product and needs this type of testing to assure that it's going to work," he said.

Haberer took to the podium after Wakefield to present the findings of Cardinal's residential field project comparing the energy efficiencies of clear glass, high solar gain low-E glass and low solar gain low-E glass. The company built identical houses in three different locations across the United States-two houses in Roseville, Calif., three houses in Windrose, Texas, and four houses in Fort Wayne, Ind. At least one house in each location was equipped with low solar gain low-E and each house was scientifically measured and monitored for energy used, solar heat gained and how much the air conditioning and heating units worked to keep the interior temperature at a consistent state.

Piers discussed European requirements for gas fill, explaining to IGMA members how gas fill is currently measured in Europe.

"In Europe, we have subsidized programs from the government so that homeowners can get price reductions if they replace windows with high-performance glass," he said. He explained that in Europe the U-value of the glass is taken from the center of the glass and "is only intended for comparison of performance of products under same condition and thus makes no statement for actual in-service of U-value."

After lunch, the technical services committee met to recap the accomplishments of the group as a whole as well as the headway made in working group meetings the day before.

The summer meeting closes today at noon, ending with technical presentations this morning. Stay tuned to usgnn.com for more information.