Adding choices and colors to vinyl windows

Orlando, Fla. — A year after launching sales of black vinyl windows, PlyGem Industries Inc. is out with dark bronze profiles and plans to release a gray profile later this year as the trend toward offering more color options expands beyond cladding.

For even more design flexibility, the Cary, N.C.-based company is offering interior window color choices of white, beige and clay to complement a wide variety of home decor.

The custom selections are available with PlyGem's 1500 Brickmould vinyl collection, which the company says gives builders and designers access to an affordable vinyl window with color choices previously only available on clad wood windows.

PlyGem unveiled the black vinyl windows at the International Builders' Show in 2017 and returned this year to get some feedback on its next color for single- and multi-family housing.

"We're showing a dove gray and it's ready for production, but we haven't launched it. We wanted to validate it at the show," Jim Horn, PlyGem's channel marketing director, said at the 2018 IBS, which is put on by the National Association of Home Builders.

About 85,000 people attended this year's IBS and Kitchen and Bath Industry Show. The two events make up Design and Construction Week in Orlando.

So, what kind of feedback did Horn get about the new gray color?

"What I'm hearing is that it is on point," Horn said. "One thing gray is able to do is give an anodized-aluminum look as well as a painted-gray look. This gray strikes a good balance from what we've heard, and that's what we were hoping for."

In the meantime, black window profiles are finding new homes.

"It's doing well. It's one of our fastest-growing colors," Horn said, adding that a lot of prospective customers are checking out the product online.

"We haven't see this kind of interest before. We did a blog on our black windows, and it gets consistent engagement from homeowners and from our channel partners as well."

PlyGem applies its colors in a coextrusion process that sends it consistently throughout the product as opposed to a surface film or laminate, Horn said. He described the facilities where the windows are manufactured in Rocky Mountain, Va., and Peach Tree, Ga., as versatile and efficient.

"We can fill a completely different order without retooling," Horn said.

For example, the lines can extrude white vinyl windows for a production builder or be "optioned up on the same chassis" for beveled frames and an Energy Star glass package to meet different preferences and code requirements.

"If you're looking for a net-zero house, it will get you there," Horn said of houses constructed with solar panels and energy-efficient building materials that create roughly as much energy as they consume.

The vinyl window series also features a proprietary technology that PlyGem says reflects sunlight and limits fading of dark colors.

The company, which has been positioning itself as a color leader, had estimated sales of $1.5 billion last year and is the second-largest pipe, profile and tubing extruder in North America, according to Plastics News' latest ranking.

Anderson Corp. also is growing its vinyl window series called Silver Line V3, this time with a nailing flange option that has no J-channel "for attractive trimming of exterior siding," according to the product literature.

"Fiber cement siding has become a lot more popular so a J-channel isn't used as often," Anderson spokesman Andy Karr said at the IBS. "We launched a new frame option to align with that trend."

The Silver Line already includes four colors — white, beige, sandstone and dark bronze (exterior only) — and upgrade options for glass, frames and sensors that indicate if the windows are open or closed when installed with a security system.

An Anderson subsidiary called Silver Line Building Products LLC produces the vinyl profiles. With estimated sales of $180 million, the business unit is the 24th largest PPT extruder, according to Plastics News.

Replacing windows with vinyl is one of the best ways to recoup the cost of a home remodeling project, according to Hanley Wood's cost vs. value report in remodelingmag.com. A replacement job that costs $15,955 should hold 74.3 percent of its value and recoup the seller $11,855 if the house is sold within a year of completion.

The costs are up for 20 major remodeling projects, while values rose for about two-thirds of the jobs, including vinyl windows, which the report says increased 5 percent in cost and 7.5 percent in value.

PlyGem points to another figure that indicates 85 percent of homeowners who completed an outdoor renovation project opted for a major remodel or a complete overhaul, which the company says means basic patio doors no longer will make the cut.

In response, the company says it has a new vinyl patio door that provides panoramic views, is impact resistant and opens with the touch of a finger. Billed as "affordable luxury," the selection of multi-panel and multi-slide patio doors is made in Alabama and called the EuroSeries.

Designed as 8 foot-by-9-foot panels that can be paired and tripled for different configurations, the patio doors are being marketed in the Southeast and Gulf Coast areas as seamless and strong transitions between indoors and outdoors.

The patio doors meet impact-protection requirements in the Florida Building Code, including Miami and Dade County, and come with different glass packages and color options of white or wood grain for the interior and white, gray or bronze for the exterior.

PlyGem showed an 18 foot-by-16-foot configuration at the IBS.

"Another great feature: You rotate the handle, and it lifts up the panels, and then it glides with just one finger. And, that's 400 pounds," Horn said.