If you’ve been inviting window salespeople into your house lately the odds are good that you’ve heard all about the virtues of virgin vinyl in window frames. What they don’t tend to tell you is that it doesn’t matter. That is why we’ve made our newest Window Wednesday YouTube video.
You see window salespeople can be a funny bunch. They tend to just repeat stories about windows that they’ve been told without much concern for the truth. Virgin vinyl is a great example of this.
You’ll hear them tell you that their windows only use virgin vinyl. They’ll tend to insinuate that other windows aren’t so virtuous. That’s where their story tends to go off the rails.
Why doesn’t this matter?
The part they tend to leave off is that every window uses virgin vinyl. I’m not aware of any window that uses recycled or regrind vinyl. So, it may be true that the product your friendly window sales rep is selling uses brand new fresh virgin vinyl that has never before been anything else. Unfortunately, every other window out there also falls into that camp.
Does excess vinyl get recycled?
Now the scrap vinyl material at the window plant does typically get recycled if possible. Manufacturers can sell scrap vinyl to other companies that produce products that don’t need the same structural integrity as a window.
For example a vinyl siding company can sometimes use regrind vinyl in accessories like j-channel or finish trim or my favorite, the f-channel. Those parts aren’t structural. They’re not sealing out the elements. Using recycled material in them typically won’t hurt anything.
They can also sell the scrap material to companies that make completely unrelated products like trash cans or park benches.
So, when you hear a salesperson talk about the wonders of virgin vinyl just know he or she is probably just repeating what his boss said at the training meeting. It’s a fine feature, but it doesn’t differentiate one product from another.
As the YouTube channel gets going we’re going to be looking for new and interesting topics to use for our new videos. If you have a window question that you’re struggling with post a comment to let us know. We might just use it for an upcoming video.
If we use your suggestion we’ll send you a TheWindowDog t-shirt of your very own!
As always if you’d like to get a quote for your project from my company or a company I recommend check this section here. To stay updated on our new Window Wednesday series you can subscribe to our YouTube channel here or just come back to the site every Wednesday.
Have fun!
We had a see rep tell is that their windows are off-white because their vinyl is better quality and that windows that are bright white are that way because they are bleached since the inferior vinyl those companies use is a bluish-gray color when extruded.
Is there any truth to that?
Generally no. There are some super cheap box store type windows that can have a funny blue tint, but that’s not an issue with any reputable brand. Window salespeople that are still trying to scare customers with recycled or regrind vinyl need to up their game in my humble opinion. That hasn’t been a thing in 10 or 15 years.
So if a window company tells me that it’s going to be 12-18 weeks before they can get my windows. Then all of the sudden 2 weeks later they said they found a local manufacturer that can make the windows and can get them to me within a month. Should I be concerned? Would this be a case of someone possibly using a regrinded material?
Not at all related to regrind or recycled vinyl. That’s mostly a sales myth that doesn’t exist in real life. It’s a thing that commission window salespeople are taught on their first day to use to scare people.
Some manufacturers are able to produce windows faster than others. Maybe that’s a good thing or maybe there’s a reason that one company is busy and another is not. Why is nobody else ordering from the company that isn’t busy?
Ultimately the windows will be in the house for decades so it’s usually not a huge deal if it takes a few extra weeks. Better to get good quality products than to rush into something that isn’t great. Who is the local manufacturer?
Window world. Just doesn’t make sense though .Why they would have another manufacturing site in the same city randomly. When they were originally having them made from there home manufacturing site. I told them I’ll use the franchise manufacturing site instead if the local one they found.
Sounds like you might have gotten a little creative storytelling from the salesperson. Window World doesn’t manufacture anything. They’re not a manufacturer, they don’t have any plants. They buy windows from various manufacturers and then install them for you. Did they tell you they had their own manufacturing? I’m not sure what franchise manufacturing means, but their franchises are just installers, not vinyl window manufacturers.