The first year Kara Ullmann and her husband Paul lived in their historic rowhouse, she never gotaround to hauling out a ladder to wash the outside of her windows.
“It was just too much of a pain,” she admits. “Obviously the last thing you want to do on the weekend is wash windows.”
Now Ullmann may never have to get up there and wash those windows. Since August she has been one of a handful of U.S. homeowners testing windows with so-called “self-cleaning” glass that producers say needs little more than the occasional spray from a garden hose to maintain.
“I was a bit apprehensive at first,” admits Ullmann, whose rowhouse is in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Baltimore.
“I was concerned that the glass might be a little opaque . . . This is a historic area so I was concerned the glass might look different from the old windows. I was so pleasantly surprised when we couldn’t tell the difference.”
The old windows in the Ullmann home were replaced for a demonstration of the new SunClean glass from Pittsburgh-based PPG Industries Inc. for Custom Home 2001, a trade show of custom builders, architects and interior designers which met in September.
If Ullmann was apprehensive initially, she now says she is genuinely impressed.
“I honestly think our windows look so clean in comparison to the other houses,” she says.
“We had a a big storm (several weeks ago) and we were paying attention to the windows to see how they would work out. The next morning there wasn’t any dirt or residue.”
While a few months is hardly a definitive test of a new product, the possibility of windows that stay cleaner longer with little care is sure to intrigue many.
Self-cleaning windows were the No. 1 fantasy product in a survey conducted last year for Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Today’s homeowner “wants more windows, bigger windows, more light,” says Gopal Ahluwalia, director of research for the National Home Builders Association based in Washington, D.C.
At the same time, homeowners are demanding lower maintenance homes, Ahluwalia says: “The husband and wife are working, they want to be able to come home and relax.”
The big question is whether they’ll be willing to pay more for self-cleaning glass.
PPG and its competitors are taking aim at a big market. More than 55 million window units for homes were produced in the U.S. in 2000 reports Alan Campbell, president of the Window & Door Manufacturers Association based in Des Plaines. And the average new single-family detached home has 18 windows, says Ahluwalia of the NAHB.
PPG, which says SunClean will be available to consumers by next spring, is not alone in this quest.
Glass developed at Ottawa
Earlier this year, Pilkington PLC, a British-based maker of glass for the building, automotive and technical markets, introduced its own self-cleaning product dubbed “Activ.” The glass, which was developed at Pilkington North America’s plant in the Illinois River town of Ottawa, 75 miles southwest of Chicago, has been sold in Europe since February and now is available in the U.S. and Canada.
Cardinal Glass of Eden Prairie, Minn., a Minneapolis suburb, also has a self-cleaning product under development.
The concept of low maintenance windows certainly is not new. There are coatings available which can be applied to the surface of glass to help make windows easier to clean, but they tend to wear off over time and the coating has to be reapplied.
PPG and Pilkington say they have found a more durable solution. Both companies are applying a microscopically thin titanium oxide coating during the manufacturing process while the glass is still liquid.
Titanium oxide has intrinsic properties that, in combination with ultraviolet light, break down and loosen dirt from the glass surface.
At the same time, titanium oxide-laced glass causes water to spread, or sheet, thus readily slipping off the glass and avoiding the spotting left by dried water droplets.
“This coating is performing in a similar way as rinse-aid in a dishwasher,” says Richard McCurdy, a chemist who was part of the Pilkington’s international research and design team that worked on Activ’s development.
Titanium’s properties are well known — it has been used as a cleaning and deoxidizing agent in molten steel and in the manufacture of aircraft, satellites and chemical equipment.
The challenge has been applying the titanium oxide coating without changing the look of the glass, says McCurdy, a Chicago-area resident who now works with the specialty glass division of Pilkington North America.
Until this summer, all of the product was shipped from Illinois to Ireland and Austria where initial reaction has been positive, says McCurdy.
Pilkington’s coating, like PPG’s, works on only one side of the glass so homeowners still will have to clean window interiors.
Rinsing is recommended
And while the ultra-violet rays necessary to help disintegrate dirt particles work at night and even on glass in protected areas, such as behind screens, rinsing windows periodically still is recommended by both producers.
“It’s not a product that means you never have to wash your windows again,” stresses McCurdy. “It is less time-consuming” to clean this glass, he says.
Not everyone is convinced.
“We are not yet sure that the expectations of self-cleaning can be fulfilled by the products on the market,” says Roger O’Shaughnessy, chief executive officer of Cardinal Glass, which expects to launch a lower-cost alternative coating called Plus in mid-2002.
Without the occasional driving rain to cleanse the windows, including those in protected areas, self-cleaning glass windows look gray and dirty to some consumers who have seen pictures of them, says O’Shaughnessy. He thinks homeowners who spray their windows with hoses often use too much pressure, forcing water through small cracks or imperfections in insulated windows. The result is a permanent cloudiness or fog which defeats the whole self-cleaning notion.
Then there is the cost.
Campbell of the Window and Door Manufacturers Association says the idea of self-cleaning glass is “very intriguing” but wonders if consumers are willing to pay higher window prices.
“If it’s a 1 or 2 percent factor, the public may buy into that,” he says.
Although the new PPG and Pilkington glass will cost 10 to 20 percent more than basic glass, it is difficult to predict the impact on the cost of finished windows where prices vary widely.
Nick Limb, who does market research on the glass industry for Ducker Worldwide based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., thinks price is less of a hurdle for homeowners than performance and aesthetics.
“This particular product could have appeal both to homeowners and to commercial builders so the stakes are particularly high,” he says.
Self-cleaning glass has the potential to be excellent, he says, but performance is key.
“Does it take rain to wash it off? What does it actually look like? And how do people react?” he asks.
More than 1,000 North American window manufacturers will mull those questions.
Many can be expected to take a wait-and-see attitude if the past is any guide. Energy-saving low-E glass, for example, was introduced in the early 1980s but is not used in even half of the windows sold.
O’Shaughnessy suggests new-home builders, who buy almost half of the new windows produced each year, may be cautious about giving self-cleaning glass a try.
“Our feedback is that builders don’t care about this product,” he says. “Low maintenance is a consumer product. The builder doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to pay one penny more. They want whatever is easy for them.”
Eye is on remodelers
But those who work directly with homeowners in remodeling or window replacement, a market that accounts for more than half the windows sold each year, may be considerably more eager.
John Buse, operations manager at Ducana Windows & Doors Ltd., in Tilbury, Ontario, 30 minutes east of Detroit, has signed on to purchase Pilkington’s Activ which he estimates will add about $500 to $600 to the cost of 250 square feet of windows.
“I see this being promoted largely in the renovation market and I see a tremendous opportunity in the larger homes being built today,” he says, especially with “the architectural shapes and the inaccessibility of some of the windows way up high.
“Also, I see it being used commercially,” he adds. “I’ve been told the window cleaning bill in some high-rises in Chicago is several hundred thousand dollars a year.”
Self-cleaning glass
How it works:
– A titanium oxide coating that is integral to the glass is applied during the manufacturing process
– Ultraviolet light reacts chemically with the coating to loosen and dissolve dirt
– The coating causes water to spread, or sheet, slipping off the glass without leaving spots when rinsed by rain or a light spray of clean water
– The inside glass is not coated and still requires normal cleaning
