We’ve all seen the construction around the Arts Building as of late. And although it’s clear that the windows are being replaced, not everyone is sure why.
The August 27 Whitney Young Weekly article states that the windows being replaced are 50 years old. Considering that 50 years ago was 1983 and Whitney Young was built in 1970, it’s safe to say that these windows are probably one of the oldest parts of the building. These decades-old windows only have a single layer of glass compared to the new windows, which have three layers of glass.
The gaps between the layers of glass are filled with an insulating gas, usually argon. This insulating gas helps to separate the temperatures of the outside and inside. Double pane windows are almost two times better than single pane windows at insulating temperature and can be up to 50% more energy efficient. But our new triple pane windows are even better at insulating temperature, and maximize window energy efficiency at 20% more energy efficient than double pane windows. This means that in the summer, our rooms will stay cool, and in the winter, our rooms will stay warm. When asked about the hot west-facing rooms in the Arts Building, Evan Assmus said, “I like to wear hoodies, and now I can.”
In addition to the energy efficiency, the newly installed windows will have a special coating of patterns on the outside. The coating will still appear transparent to the human eye, but the UV reflection will be visible to the birds that fly by, meaning significantly less birds flying into the windows. In an interview with Miller Jackson about the new bird-friendly windows, he commented, “It makes the birds happy, and that makes me happy.”
Although the new windows are drastically better than the current single pane ones we have, student Sam Li brought up a valid point in his discussion of the construction: “Why did they start working on this when school started?” And, he makes a valid point. The stark difference in the energy efficiency alone between single and triple pane windows indicates that we should have known how in need of an upgrade our windows were. One would think that if we knew construction had to be done, it would have been worked on over the summer in order to minimize interference with school activities.
Regardless of the minor inconveniences brought by the installations, everyone we interviewed agreed that these windows are going to be a much-welcomed improvement to the Whitney Young community.
