Administrators at the Southminster Presbyterian Church have selected GThurm high-efficiency windows from Graham Architectural Products to renovate the steel window frames of the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based church.
Top: The old steel-framed windows at Southminster Presbyterian Church. Bottom: The newly installed Graham Architectural Products GThurm high-efficiency windows featuring G2RP pultruded glass fibers reinforced with polyurethane.
The building’s steel window frames have been in a bad condition for 50 years due to wear and tear. The problem has been solved with the use of window lineals produced using a polyurethane pultrusion process.
Graham Architectural Products’ GThurm windows feature G2RP glass fibers reinforced with a unique polyurethane resin, which is supplied by Bayer MaterialScience. Polyurethane resin contains low VOC and is free from harmful styrene emissions, which is common in case of vinyl esters and polyesters.
GThurm polyurethane composite windows offer enhanced thermal insulation, durability, dimensional stability and environmental friendliness than ordinary windows. The windows also offer better insulation value and greater strength, which is attained through a pultrusion process. The process involves a combination of 80% of continuous stranded glass content with 20% of resin to create window lineals. The replacement of window frames delivers higher thermal conductivity than the old steel window frames.
The GThurm window lineals reinforced with polyurethane do not require any additional support for structural integrity. In addition, the manufacture of GThurm lineals is anticipated to utilize less energy than aluminum window lineals. GThurm window products are the first US-made, architecturally rated windows (AW) to possess thermal transmission measuring as low as U 0.15. Thus, GThurm window is a more energy-efficient product than a thermally broken steel frame window or aluminum window.