Anyone who installs PVC windows in an apartment, house or office hopes that they will protect it from the cold and various extraneous sounds coming from the street. Double-glazed windows cope with these tasks just "perfectly". Not surprisingly, managers praise their products by focusing on these features.
But manufacturers try not to talk about the disadvantages of PVC windows. They hope that the population is poorly versed in plastic windows, and therefore will not notice the catch. Almost every average citizen of our country associates the word “thickness” with the word “reliability”. Surely, I will disappoint many now, however, I will say that there is practically no difference between three- and four-chamber windows.
In my statement, I rely on the words of an experienced craftsman who has been installing plastic windows for over ten years.
In any advertising brochure, you can read the following: a double-glazed unit with 3 cameras is 60% warmer than a two-chamber one. The truth is, it really will be warmer, but only if the temperature outside the window drops below -40 degrees. When the thermometer reads -34 degrees, the difference is 22 - 23%, at -28 degrees - 13%, and at -23 degrees - only 3%.
It turns out that there is practically no difference for the middle zone of our vast homeland, the Urals and the Central part.
The ad also says that three-chamber windows let through 25% less noiserather than two-chamber. Note that this statement is valid only for laboratory conditions when the noise exceeds 130 decibels. How many has ever heard such a noise? As a rule, in megalopolises it is maximum 75 decibels, and in villages and towns it is only 25 decibels.
The advertisement tries to convince us that the argon blown between the glass reduces heat loss by 25%. Here I will say that he does not cut them at all. Even if a double-glazed unit is ideally installed, then after five years the air will still completely displace argon.
The brochure also says that thanks to silver plating, heat loss is reduced by 30-35%. They are shrinking, but if the windows are installed on the sunny side, then in a few years nothing will remain of this coating. On the shady side, burnout will take longer. However, the window will turn back to normal.
Summing up, I will say that for an ordinary inhabitant of the middle lane there is no difference between the number of cameras in a glass unit.
I also cannot help but share the following: in our office there is a window from Leroy. Its price at the time of purchase was slightly more than 4.3 thousand rubles. Plastic profile of medium quality, double-glazed window with two chambers. We decided to test it too. I would like to loudly declare that there was absolutely no difference between this and the most expensive window.
However, she was! True, it was only 2.4 degrees!
Whereas the difference in price reaches 5 times!
Why am I telling all this? If you plan to install a three- or four-chamber double-glazed window, please note that it is more difficult to operate it than a regular window. The problems are as follows:
- 1.Large construction mass. There are as many as five glasses in a four-chamber package, that is, its weight is much higher than a simple plastic window.
- 2. Even the residents of the Far North such double-glazed windows are not needed. And for those who live in a temperate climate - even more so!
- 3. Problems can arise already during installation. Even professional craftsmen will not be able to perfectly install such double-glazed windows. The work will be complicated by their heavy weight.
- 4. The structure will overload the profile, because of which, over time, it will undergo deformation.
- 5. A lot of glass will prevent sunlight from entering the room. In a five-chamber double-glazed unit, light losses are 40 percent.
- 6. Such double-glazed windows strongly seal the room, so it you need to constantly ventilate.
- 7. The cost of multi-chamber double-glazed windows to say the least, "bites" compared to standard windows.
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