How to Choose Modern Windows for Your Modern Home
Learn how to choose the right window and doors for your modern design vision.
In many homes, windows and doors were picked to blend in rather than stand out. With that, most people don’t think about them until they’re planning a new home or a major renovation. But take a closer look at all those pretty pictures on social media, and you’ll quickly see what an impact windows and doors have on the design language and style of a home.
In this post, we sharing insights on how to balance your design considerations to pick windows and door products that meet all of your needs, including budget, energy efficiency and longevity.
There are 4 key questions you need to answer before picking your windows & doors: budget, design, size, & energy efficiency.
Whether you go to a showroom or shop online, the huge number of window and door products in the market can make choosing feel overwhelming.
We recommend answering the following questions with your architect and/or builder before you start shopping so that you can make educated decisions that meet your needs:
What’s your budget?
What’s design are you going for?
What size do your windows and doors need to be?
How important is energy efficiency?
You’ll also learn the impact of these four essential questions on the options available to you. Let’s jump in!
Disclaimer: Nils runs a high-end European windows and door distribution company, so we had access to a different set of options than might be common in the US. We’re also biased. Still, this piece is our honest advice sprinkled with some industry insights, not a sales pitch.
What’s your budget?
We hate to start here, but we want to save you the frustration of going full circle and realizing at the end that your perfect window product is outside of your budget. If you have/want to keep your building cost at a minimum, your choices will probably be limited to vinyl windows. (We’ll talk more about the impact of material choices on design and sizes options later.) If you have a little extra to spend on your modern windows, you can upgrade to wood with aluminum cladding, full aluminum and finally steel, unlocking more style and sizing options and, frankly, more upscale looks.
If you have a confirmed an overall budget with your architect or builder, the best way to start answering the window and door budget question is to ask them which type of product they have budgeted for. Make sure to confirm if they’ve accounted for all design consideration and sizes that you’d like to see incorporated (again, read on to understand why this matters).
If you have a design but you want to build the budget bottom up, you’ll want to get quotes from a few window and door companies to get the ballpark numbers. In this case, answer the next three questions first so that you have all necessary information when you request the quotes.
What window & door design are you going for?
Design is where style, materials, and functionalities come together. It defines the product experience, from first impression to all the little details you’ll notice once you’ve lived with your windows and doors for a while. Here are the consideration you’ll have to balance:
Style is what you could call the visual language of a window or door. This is where the connection to the visual language of the whole home becomes most obvious.
The cubic, minimalistic design of a modern home calls for equally clear lines on the windows and doors calling for flush frames and vents, square shapes, and large, uninterrupted glazing panes.
Traditional design on the other end call for windows and doors with plenty dimension, beveled frames and glazing grids.
Materials drive both to the visual appearance and product capabilities. Even the nicest vinyl finish cannot compete with power-coated aluminum or steel. The warmth of wood on the interior can change a whole room, but require regular painting or aluminum cladding on the exterior to assure sufficient durability. Also, certain sizes and configurations will only be available in certain materials (read more about this in the Size section).
Functionalities determine how you can operate a window or door. They define the ease of use of each individual element. For example, most American windows are double hung, while European windows use tilt and turn functionalities. Your choice will limit the number of product lines available to you. While there are hundreds of product lines that offer matching double hung and panorama windows, finding one that offers matching windows, patio doors and speciality products like folding doors will be much harder.
What size do your windows need to be?
If you’ve admired two story-high pivot doors or sliding elements on Instagram or Houzz, you’ve probably looked at frames made from steel or, in some cases, aluminum. These doors might have also used something that is called structural glazing, which basically means that the glazing is adding to the structural integrity of the frame. Also, they most certainly had hinges and mechanism that are designed for for extremely big and heavy vents.
This is to illustrate that the maximum sizes that you can get to are driven by various technical aspects of the product and each of them might determine the sizes limits. Sometimes the frame material isn’t stiff enough to go any bigger, sometimes the hinges can’t carry more weight, and sometime regular glazing might bend too much (yes, it does that) to increase the size any further.
While only the manufacturer will be able to define the exact size limits of a specific product, here are some basic considerations that you can apply to understand if your design aligns with your product choices:
Vinyl has the most limitations, steel has the least.
You might have held a piece of vinyl siding or cladding in your hand before and noticed how easily it bends. While vinyl windows are made from thicker, more stiff profiles, the underlying issue remains the same: vinyl is a rather soft material. Accordingly, you’re limited in terms of size because the frames wouldn’t be stiff enough for larger and heavier pieces of glass.
Steel on the other hand, as you probably know, is one if the stiffest and strongest materials out there, allowing frames from steel to carry large and heavy glazing packages while keep the sight lines minimal.
Aluminum and wood are in the middle of the pack. Wood (and especially hardwoods) is actually much stiffer than most people think, making it a noteworthy competitor to aluminum when it comes to material limitations to sizing. However, wood window and door products run into more size limitations when it comes to manufacturing (available size of wood profiles, joinery, matching hardware) and installation (skilled carpenters need for wall connections and onsite glazing installation), leaving second place to aluminum.
Aluminum profiles can be very stiff if designed well (and are available in almost any length), while making the window and door assembly easy and onsite installation less complex. That’s why most curtain walls of high rises are made from aluminum systems.
Consider configurations and functionalities.
You probably already guessed that the specific product configuration and functionality that you’re looking for while drive your size limits as well.
Fixed windows (also called picture windows) are your best bet if you want to go big. Because there are no hinges or changes in weight distribution during operation, the only question is if the frame can carry the weight of the glazing and if there’s too much deflection of the frame and/or glazing to assure sufficient performance.
If you’re opting for opening elements, sliding doors are your next best bet. As they move on continuous rails, changes in weight distribution are less of a problem. By using lift and slide mechanisms, you can also minimize the effort of moving larger elements.
Hinged doors and windows, as well as double hung windows on the other hand limit your sizing options the most. That’s because the full wait of the glazing has to be carried by hinges (or springs) and the weight distribution changes as you’re operating the door or window.
How important is energy efficiency to your project?
Energy efficiency drives cost, comfort and environmental impact. At the same time, just the the visual design, it has to match your overall concept of your modern home.
The energy efficiency is driven by just a few factors:
The thermal performance of the glazing
The thermal performance of the frames, and
The air tightness of the assembled product.
With glazing, the big factors are the numbers of glazing panes (nowadays either double or triple glazing), the low-energy (low-e) coatings on the glazing panes, and the distance and filling (air or insulating gas) in between the glazing panes. The final product is called a glazing packages (because it’s a sandwich of glazing panes with airtight spacers on the edges) and, if you had to rank them in terms of performance, double glazing without low-e coatings or insulating gas would be the worst, while triple glazing with low-e coating and insulating gas would be the best. Learn more about it here.
The thermal performance of the frames is determined by the insulating properties of the frame material and the insulating air or foam chambers in the profiles. Both the glazing and the frame performance are measure in what’s called the U-value. They can be provided as a combined number for a fully assembled window or separately for the glazing and the frame. The lower the U-value, the better the thermal performance. In addition to that, there’s also something that is called the Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC). It basically captures how much a room is heated by the sun that is shining through the window. You want a high SHGC if you’re living in a cold climate and spend most money on heating and a low SHGC value if you live in a hot climate and spend most money on cooling. Again, learn more about it here.
The concept of air tightness is pretty simple. It determines how much air can escape (or get in) through a window or door while it’s closed. The less air exchange there is, the less energy your spending on heating or cooling air that’s coming in from the outside.
The energy efficiency translates to cost, comfort, and environmental impact in the following way:
Cost of energy efficiency.
Using energy efficient products drives your cost in two ways: How much you have to spend on the product and how much the product will cost you throughout its lifetime. You’re probably familiar with the concept: higher upfront cost will give you lower energy cost down the road. We’ll talk about balancing this in just a little bit.
Comfort of energy efficiency.
You’ve probably sat next to a window and door and felt a draft of cold (or warm) air that wasn’t pleasant. And even in the absence of a draft (which is usually a sign for a bigger air leak), you might have felt like the cold (or heat) of the outside is radiating from the window or door. The more energy efficient your products are, the most comfort they’re providing because they’re minimizing or eliminating these effects altogether.
Environmental impact of your window choices.
We could have written a whole article about the environmental consideration and it may have been controversial to some of our readers. We decided to leave it with a truth that will apply to both those who are opting to reach a net zero energy balance and readers who are just trying to build a beautiful home in a cost-efficient manner:
If you’re considering your energy cost down the road and your personal comfort, the level of energy efficiency that you’re expecting from your products will most likely be in the top 20% of available energy efficiency.
If it makes sense for you to take it a step further, will depend on the overall energy performance of your home, your budget, and your personal priorities. This is a conversation you need to have with your architect, builder, and yourself.
Either way, we’re strongly recommending that you’re taking a long-term perspective on your window and door choices. While we know the feeling of just falling in love with the look of something, it’s a shame if your choice would bother you a few month down the road, no matter if it is the heating bill, the cold draft near the kitchen window, or your carbon footprint.
Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be sharing more about how we made these decisions in our modern home renovation!
Stay tuned:
