GLASS&SEALEDUNITS
Small but mighty – how spacer
bars created the modern window
» CHRIS ALDERSON REFLECTS ON
the crucial importance of warm-edge
technology to the development of the modern
window, and Edgetech’s ever-growing range of
advanced spacers.
Spacer bars are tiny, and most people in the
world don’t know they exist. But as everyone
in the glazing sector knows, they’re a vital
part of how modern windows can deliver
exceptional thermal and acoustic
performance.
At Edgetech, we’ve been
passionate about the power of warmedge
technology for over thirty years.
It might’ve existed long before
us – it was invented in Victorian times,
when wood or rope was used to separate the
panes in the earliest double glazed windows –
but we’re proud to have played a major role in
bringing it firmly into the mainstream.
When Edgetech was first founded, metal
spacers were still the norm – but they came
with significant drawbacks.
Metal conducts heat, and that means that
windows made with metal spacers very quickly
let the warm out, and the cold in. Draughty
homes and higher heating bills were the result.
Our modern iteration of warm-edge
technology rectified that. By using highlyadvanced
plastics and foam rubbers rather
than metal, warm-edge spacers – like
Edgetech’s pioneering Super Spacer® which has
been in continual use for over thirty years –
were able to offer vastly better performance.
FLEXIBLE AND RIGID
Flexible spacers like Super Spacer are
extremely versatile and their flexible design
means they can be used to easily create
unconventionally-shaped units, freeing up
architects to be as bold and ambitious as they
like.
It’s Super Spacer® TriSeal™, for example, that’s
in the over four-thousand irregularly-shaped
IGUs that make up Dubai’s The Opus tower,
one of the world’s most striking and complex
buildings, and the Qatar National Library.
Its matt material finish means that it blends
in with all window colours too, offering
homeowners and architects alike seamless
aesthetics.
Another key strength of a quality flexible
spacer is its memory. In parts of the
world where strong winds or fluctuating
temperatures are the norm, IGUs are put
under a lot of pressure.
Super Spacer’s 100% memory means that
no matter how much an IGU expands or
contracts under pressure, it will always return
to its original position, but is flexible enough
to move with the glass which reduces the stress
on the glass edge.
This is one of the reasons it’s commonly
found in ambitious buildings in the Middle
East, where day and night temperatures can
drastically vary.
Super Spacer isn’t just suited for grand feats of
architecture, however – its exceptional strength,
reliability and performance have seen it used in
millions of households all over the world.
FAST MANUFACTURING
Even using our most basic, entry-level
manual application tools, we’ve seen some
people assemble a unit with it ready for
secondary sealing in under 15 seconds.
Upgrade to a fully-automated Super
Spacer line, and the efficiency gains
drastically increase. A nine-person line
applying traditional rigid spacers can
produce around 1,200 units every shift.
A high-speed automated Super Spacer
line, by contrast, can produce 23.5%
more units and requires just three to four
employees to operate.
In total, that equals savings of
approximately £180,000 every year.
WIDEST RANGE
Our flexible spacer range also includes
Duralite® – a durable, single-seal, highperformance
product that can be applied
in a single step for outstanding thermal
performance and cost effective volume
manufacturing.
Rigid spacers, like Edgetech’s TruPlas®
offer improved thermal performance
over metal spacer bars, and companies
can switch to them from their metal
counterparts easily, using their existing
machinery.
TruPlas is made of high-performing
glass-reinforced thermoplastic, and has
delivered stability and thermal efficiency
for homes all around the world.
But befitting Edgetech’s long-standing
commitment to constant innovation, we’re
currently hard at work developing several
innovative new spacer bar products.
We’ve just released the latest evolution
of our heavy-duty T-Spacer™ product line
– T-Spacer™ SG, offering enhanced shape
memory, and thermal conductivity of just
0.19W/m²K.
Super Spacer® T-Spacer™ SG is a metalfree,
silicone-based warm edge spacer made
of structural foam, with an integrated
desiccant that’s been specifically designed
for the toughest commercial applications.
On demanding commercial projects
its extremely durable edge seal guarantees
exceptional performance and stability.
At Edgetech, we’re committed to
continuing to push spacer technology
forward, and helping glazing products offer
the outstanding performance we’ll need to
hit net zero carbon by 2050.
www.edgetechig.co.uk
70 » SEP 2020 » CLEARVIEW-UK.COM