16 | SEPTEMBER 2020
News
Read online at www.proinstaller.co.uk
SMALL BUT MIGHTY – HOW SPACER
BARS CREATED THE MODERN WINDOW
Spacer bars are tiny, and most people in the world don’t know they exist. They existed long before us;
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 highly-advanced
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,
high-performance 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
metal-free, 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
Outstanding longevity, durability and thermal efficiency
It was already one of
the world’s most outstanding
flexible warm
edge spacers – but now,
Edgetech has launched
an even better version
of the celebrated Super
Spacer® T-Spacer™.
Super Spacer® T-Spacer™
SG is a metal-free,
silicone-based warm
edge spacer made of
structural foam with an
integrated desiccant,
that’s been designed for
the toughest commercial
applications.
On demanding glazing
projects using extra-large
glass panes,
its extremely durable
edge seal guarantees
decades of exceptional
performance and stability.
“Structural glazing
continues to be hugely
in demand, and Super
Spacer® T-Spacer™ SG is
a world-leading spacer
product for the toughest
commercial glazing projects,”
comments Edgetech
Managing Director
Chris Alderson.
T-Spacer™ SG offers
enhanced shape memory,
which is critical for
the long-term integrity
of the edge seal. Its
elastic structural foam
follows climate-related
movements of the glass,
relieving a large proportion
of the load from the
butyl seal.
This is a huge advantage
in parts of the world
that experience fluctuating
temperatures.
T-Spacer™ SG also follows
in the long-established
Edgetech tradition
of offering superb energy
efficiency, achieving
thermal conductivity of
just 0.19 W/m2k – much
lower than the commercial
metal and hybrid
rigid spacers on the
market.
www.edgetechig.co.uk