Low-E Glass

Manko Window Systems has chosen to work with select vendors who provide high performance low-e glass products to help meet the needs of your project. Each of Manko’s facilities stock a variety of low-e products from vendors such as AGC, Cardinal, Guardian, and Vitro. If you need to meet a certain performance requirement, aesthetic look, or both, but are unsure of how to get there, please contact your Manko representative for a suitable product.

What is low-e glass?

• Low-e glass is designed to help control both heat leaving (U-Value) and entering (SHGC) a building. Depending on the type of low-e you choose, thermal performance and ascetics will vary. There are two different categories of low-e; pyrolytic and sputter coat.
• Pyrolytic – commonly referred to as hard coat. This type of low-e is baked into the glass surface during the float glass manufacturing process, creating a very durable and easy to work with product.
• Sputter Coat – commonly referred to as soft coat.This type of low-e is applied offline after the glass has been fabricated into stock sheets. At that point the glass is placed in a vacuum chamber at room temperature where very thin layers of metal are placed onto the glass to create a small film on the surface. Within these multiple layers are 1, 2, or 3 layers of silvering. Typically the more layers of silvering the better your solar heat control will be.
• U-Value – A measure of how well the glass maintains the heat inside a building due to the difference of indoor and outdoor temperatures, or how well the glass helps limit heat loss. The lower the number, the better insulator the glass is.
• SHGC (Solar Heat Gain Coefficient) –a percentage of solar energy that is transferred indoors through the glass, or how well the glass keeps the heat out of the building. Typically the lower the number the more efficient the glass is.