Chile Forum

Windows in Chile are funky; they are too small, open in when they should open out, open out when they should open in, slide the wrong way, have no screens, are too low...are too high...open to nothing or worse, they open into a wall and no view...they do not ventilate but serve to cook you by solar refraction...or freeze you with antartic cold...in general, they suck doad...yes, doad or doade or dode or doude or le doude if you are french, das douden if you are german or dooaade if you are from austrailia...sturslonge if you are norwegian like we are...or el palo duro if you are south of peru and west of argentina,,,start a window business in Chile and you will do well...its always la media celda here where ever you go...i dare you to find a nice view in any hotel in Chillan, send me a photo, its impossible, its always a brick wall, a nasty roof on a parvulario or the .5 meter wide alley view of the upper facade on the club espanol that closed down 2 years ago...

p out.

The only good windows i have seen are in the house of P/Neruda in Valpo at his house La Sebastiana. His Bella Vista house is okay but not as good as La Seba, isla negra i haven't seen so i can't say.

My windows don't drain properly either; we had a couple of big rainstorms last winter in La Serena and I had to keep going around the house mopping up puddles under the windows. I know it's not supposed to rain up here, but you'd think they could have drilled a drain hole or two into the wooden frames. No weatherstripping either, and they rattle in the wind.

Today I looked at a const project near my place in region 5 as the maestro had been recommended to me for finishing (I am particular). The project was a new, ocean front contemporary house, for a prominent actor and his boyfriend, . The windows on this job opened in, weren't weather stripped and were made from wood. The chance (eventuality) of leakage is 100%. I didn't want to be critical as the overall finish in the house was great, but I mentioned this detail. The maestro agreed but said that the architect was insistent, even in the face of multiple opinions, that this would be fine.
I got the impression that the architect had been hired by the owner to project manage the job.
Imagine my surprise when he showed up. I mentioned that I too was a "maestro" but from Ca and he asked what I thought of the place. I complimented him on his use of natural light but mentioned that eaves and overhangs would have saved the owners much future heartache. Further, I mentioned that I too build in an earthquake zone. I said that the installation of pieces of glass between the 2nd story floor joists instead of frieze blocking wouldn't fly and there was hardly any shear in the all glass, front and back walls. "It's the structural engineer's problem, I just draw it" he said.
I should mention that I would say he is about 25.
So, EP, gotta say, I agree, and not just about the windows!

MikieO wrote::D Today I looked at a const project near my place in region 5 as the maestro had been recommended to me for finishing (I am particular). The project was a new, ocean front contemporary house, for a prominent actor and his boyfriend, . The windows on this job opened in, weren't weather stripped and were made from wood. The chance (eventuality) of leakage is 100%. I didn't want to be critical as the overall finish in the house was great, but I mentioned this detail. The maestro agreed but said that the architect was insistent, even in the face of multiple opinions, that this would be fine.
I got the impression that the architect had been hired by the owner to project manage the job.
Imagine my surprise when he showed up. I mentioned that I too was a "maestro" but from Ca and he asked what I thought of the place. I complimented him on his use of natural light but mentioned that eaves and overhangs would have saved the owners much future heartache. Further, I mentioned that I too build in an earthquake zone. I said that the installation of pieces of glass between the 2nd story floor joists instead of frieze blocking wouldn't fly and there was hardly any shear in the all glass, front and back walls. "It's the structural engineer's problem, I just draw it" he said.
I should mention that I would say he is about 25.
So, EP, gotta say, I agree, and not just about the windows!

Well there is your problem right there. Don't you know, Architects in Chile don't live in houses. They have no clue that human dwellings are suppose to shelter humans that are on average about 5 feet tall, breath air, like to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer, consume food, and so on.

"It's not my job, man!"...

I guess that they just picked this guy out of the local yellow pages without talking to him much.

By the look of him, I'd say they knew him pretty well, so to speak. Maybe they talked too?

The Chilean window opening on the inside is because you can have a "malla-mosca" or screen on the outside...thats it...remember to watch you head after you stand up from plugging in the vacumn cleaner...ouch!!!!

Miguel'O caught the whole thing...increase the eaves on the house and really the windows will be okay...not even needing weather stripping if the angles on sill and the hung window are done in the way they should be....there is another issue of thermal windows and coatings but whatever...

Chile is caught up in an era where the olde guard had the constant gardner/handy man, around to do all this on a year round basis...scrape, prep and paint....and now it is not there...the standards where relaxed...now its carlos consumer that must do it and if it means no saturday soccer games, well....whatever glory is'nt had on saturday, a sunday game will certainly redemn...and the messy olde gate hinge will just have to wait...

IN a way...and most likely the worst way, the proffessional and the vocational have met head on in Chile and the outcome will be rundly be the worst for both sides of the argument.

P.



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We've been shopping for windows and are going to buy double glazing 4-12-4 PVC windows which are sold as pretty high-end here, but would really be your averagish window in, say, France. 4-12-4 stands for 4 mm of glass on either side with 12 mm of air in between. You can get an inert gas in between like argon, as well as more space (say, 4-20-4) but it's more expensive and doesn't seem necessary here on the region V coast where it never freezes. (As an aside the French market is distorted by tax incentives that force people to gold plate their windows regardless of the local climate - you gotta love national standards in a country as geographically diverse as France.)

We'll get some windows with one side that embeds a layer of PVB to filter out UVs which would otherwise yellow our flooring (we'll mostly have a mix of hardfloor and cork parquet). In the future I might also get asymmetrical windows to maximize sonic insulation in some rooms (8-10-4 I believe, or something to that effect - we have about 15 windows and 6 french doors to replace so that's going to take a while to happen given the budget involved!)

The whole thing is called cristal termopanel here in Chile. Even on new houses people are still often skimming on double glazing which, given energy prices, is entirely nonsensical. The things that we have in the house we're currently renting really don't deserve to be called windows, given the huge gaps between them and their frames. No insulation whatsoever, sonic or thermal. We're glad to get our own place!

yea, the whole insulation thing including windows is going to have to be one of those things the government is going to have to mandate as an energy policy across the country. Even when Chileans have the money, know better, they will cut the corner. The maestros simply do not know better for the most part, and the construction companies are not going to spend one peso on something you can not see if they can get away with it.

I was just thinking about the difference the other day. If I had a house in Chile, built to even the lowest insulation standards of Minnesota (you know that state so cold the U.S. military test their helicopters there rather than Alaska), we could likly get by without ever needing heating system in the house in Temuco more than a few days a year. With a little planning for solar heat or geothermal, it would be totally possible to have a completely 100% green / free energy house. The environment is just not that harsh.

This morning is one of the coldest days so far this year in Temuco, and it is hovering around just freezing. In MN, I remember -30 F and -40 F below zero being common, with wind chill factors approaching -60 to -80 F in storms; yet, people where able to heat much larger homes with a single wood stove. No such luck in most houses in Temuco. In fact, besides enjoying curling up to a wood fire, I don't think anyone in MN ever started a fire until well below 10 F or lower.

There are a lot of people that will jump on this and say they can not afford it, or what about the poor people. Well, we use to go to our hunting and ski cabins in MN at well below -20 F and they where not anything special. They where simply built correctly. The materials where often inferior or cheaper than what was found in most peoples houses even on the very low end in Chile.

OTV I'll confess that the high price tag got to me too and I'll bet my house is a lot smaller than yours! I had originally solicited bids from the two biggest Chilean firms. While their products are nice, I got sticker shock during my last visit and went with a local aluminium window vendor, albeit with thermopanel units, low E coating on the West facing elevations. The price was 40% of the vinyl units.
I hope to see the completed job when I next go back, fingers crossed.

We used VEKA. http://www.Veka.com.

Windows are double-paned and ratchet seal around a gasket. We really like them.

Showrooms in Puerto Varas and Santiago.

Thanks. We're looking at Kömmerling windows right now for the first batch (3 windows and 1 pair of french doors). We'll go with that contractor we talked to in Concon because it comes recommended by friends as a company that delivered and set up their windows on time - and right now, time is of the essence. For the next batches of windows we'll have more time so we'll want to get more bids and might extend our search to Santiago as the big city offers more options than what's available on the coast.

Veka and Kömmerling look like they're relatively similar German windows. Do you recall how much you paid for what size and type of windows?