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Windows &
Doors
HISTORY:
Rand & Merry Soellner toured the Marvin Window factory in
Warroad, Minnesota on 5/15/2008. This impressive facility
has over 2.1 million square feet of area. The plant has
been rebuilt several times, with additions through the decades,
dating back to 1912 (Marvin Lumber & Cedar Company) by
George Marvin. In 1939 Bill Marvin joined the company.
Merry and I met him. He is in his late 90s. We had
breakfast with Frank Marvin, who remains active in the business.
The Marvin family still runs the company. We were
impressed with the quality and dedication that the Marvins and
their staff put into their products. |
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Especially
impressive to Rand was the fact that in the Marvin museum they went
out of their way to mention several legal hassles the company has
had from time to time over the decades (what large company hasn’t?),
and how the Marvins’ handled themselves during these issues.
Without fail, the Marvin company went out into the world and
replaced and repaired any defective products (thousands of them at
their own expense), which were often created by suppliers of
materials to the Marvins rather than items they made. This is how
you test a big company: what do they do what something goes wrong?
In 1987, Marvin Windows & Doors was recognized as one of the “99
things Americans Make Best” by Money Magazine. We saw the
quality that goes into every Marvin window and door in person in the
factory. They are the largest custom, made-to-order window and
door manufacturer in the world.
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GREEN/ENERGY
EFFICIENCY/SUSTAINABILITY:
They
think “green”. They recycle everything and waste
nothing. We saw thousands of feet of conveyor belt systems
that take large boards (approximately 3”x12”) and cut
it into smaller pieces, then put them back together again using
fingerjointing and glue, to result in strong, straight sections
of wood for their products. |
CLADDING:
I
was impressed by how they clad their windows and doors. Most
aluminum cladding on other companies’ windows is thin,
roll-formed with baked enamel or other silconized polyester paint
and most other companies have this thin metal directly contacting
the wood frame for most of its perimeter. Marvin does not do
it that way. Marvin: extruded aluminum (thick, very strong)
with Valspar Kynar paint (which is the Rolls Royce of architectural
paints we architects like to specify) and this cladding is held away
from the wood frame for most of its perimeter. This means that
any condensation on the interior side of the Marvin cladding is less
likely to rot the wood structure inboard of the exterior metal.
While we by no means guarantee any aspect of Marvin’s product
performance, we were delighted to see that they have solved the
deficiencies that we have noticed with many other manufacturers of
windows and doors.
SILICONE
IN THE CORNERS:
Marvin
will probably ask me to remove this bit of information because
it is so smart that other manufacturers will probably start
doing it when they discover what Marvin is doing, if they
already haven’t. I watched with interest while robots
in the Marvin factory accepted a window frame, grabbed it with
caliper-like tongs, drew it square, then drilled holes in the
bottom of the doors and window frames near the corners, then
injected silicone into this drilled hole, allowing pressurized
silicone to squirt into the corners (inside the frames,
horizontally and vertically) for a couple of inches each way,
insuring their watertight performance there. What an
intelligent thing to do. |
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CUSTOMIZATION:
There is just
about nothing Marvin won’t do. I have tested them
with this and may have one thing involving very large doors that
they may not wish to do, but they told me they are thinking
about it. However, when us architects come up with sort of
“normal” sizes, Marvin is the company that seems to
get it right the first time. That is one of the reasons I
like to specify them. |
They never tell me
what their corporate policies are that do not allow them to do this
or that (like some of their competitors have informed me), they just
do it and I am pleased to say that on complex projects I have been
delighted that their shop drawing reviews are perfect the first time
on my work. I have had trouble with some other companies,
seeing 4 or 5 shop drawing reviews and those other companies still
didn’t get it right. I use arches frequently and in the
Marvin factory, I saw the reason why they get this right: they have
a whole are called “Round Tops” and also their “Signature”
section and they have multiple arch radii forms, presses, hydraulic
wheels, and other apparatus that allows them to make arched windows
perfectly.
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have one technique that allows them to bend aluminum extrusions
without damaging them and I am not going to reveal this.
They are so clever and have perfected this process that I
believe it should have the status of a trade secret.
Marvin has learned these techniques over about a century of
trial and error, spending countless millions of dollars in
research and development and now bring these wonderful products
for us to use in our designs. I am glad they are around. |
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BREATHER
TUBE USED IN HIGH-ALTITUDE MARVIN WINDOWS
This
looks like a thin wire. It is actually a very small
capillary tube, otherwise called a “breather tube”
that informed architects specify for windows being installed at
high altitudes. Rand Soellner wrote an article about this
on the “Articles” page of this website. Without
them, the sealant around the edge of the glass and the sash (the
sub-frame immediately surrounding the glass) can rupture and
fail, admitting condensation and fogging the glass of
double-pane insulated glass.
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CLOSEUP
OF BREATHER TUBE
Here
you can just begin to see that the wire is actually hollow; a
conduit of miniscule size. It appears to be approximately
1/32” in diameter. Several of these are inserted into
the edge of the sash into the edge of the insulated glass
perimeters, allowing a controlled pressure equalization so that
the sealant does not rupture.
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SEALANT AROUND
MARVIN WINDOWS:
TMarvin
has an inner bead of butyl sealant, then another bead of silicone
outboard of the butyl between the edges of the panes of glass in
their insulated panes. They believe that this combination
gives the best bond and uses the benefits of both types of sealants.
WHY
WE DID THIS:
Touring
manufacturing facilities is just one more way that we can come to
understand the quality of the products we specify. While we
have not done this for everything we specify and detail, it is one
more way of getting closer to what we do and building quality into
our projects for our clients to enjoy.
OTHER
WINDOW MANUFACTURERS
While
we love Marvin’s quality, clients often have budgets that are
tight and for those situations, we have other windows that we
specify and consider as well.
The
webpage is for people looking for information about:
Mountain
Homes
Windows
Doors
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| NAVIGATION:
click on the thumbnails below to go to those
subjects: |
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http://randarch.com
© Copyright 2004-2008 Rand Soellner,
All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
Photo background
of historic timbers courtesy of: Antique Cabins &
Barns (antiquecabinsandbarns.com)
00101
Visitors
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