[Greenbuilding] Plastic interior storm windows [was: polycarbonate panels as porch roof?]

[Topher]

On 1/11/2014 3:37 PM, RT wrote:
> For ... interior storms of Reuben's other query, my preference would 
> be to use diverted-from-the-wastestream glass rather than 
> plast-echhhh! ... especially new plast-eccchhh!.

While I am no fan of plastic, I must disagree with this.  We used to 
have storm windows made of glass.  They were single pane, very heavy and 
no one liked them.  When Aluminum triple tracks came around after the 
war, people flocked to them in droves.  Making a double pane storm 
window  would be too heavy for most people to make, move, or change out 
every season.  In the workshop I run, we have gone through 1000 linear 
feet of plastic film this winter alone,  that is the equivalent of 125 
doors out of the transfer station.  That would require over 10 pick-up 
trips if our dump even had that many (it doesn't).  Call it 20 gals of 
gas (20 miles each way).  We are already over the entire embodied energy 
of that much plastic.  Then those door need to be disassembled, cleaned, 
the tempered glass needs to be cut, reassembled, and put in a frame, 
taken to home where they will used, and installed.  Most of that could 
not be done by the elder ladies, or kids that I get in my workshops.  It 
just isn't practical; the proof of that is that NO ONE is making double 
pane interior storm windows, while I long ago lost track of how many 
thousands are being made here in Maine alone.

Thank You Kindly,

Topher Belknap

-- 
Topher Belknap
Green Fret Consulting
Kermit didn't know the half of it...
http://www.GreenFret.com/
topher at greenfret.com