LESLIE: Don in North Dakota is dealing with a situation with his windows. What’s going on?
DON: Well, we built the house about 11 years ago and we put e-gas windows in the front, south side of the house with the picture windows …
TOM: OK.
DON: … and they started clouding up about two years ago.
TOM: Oh, boy. Well, Don, I’ve got good news for you and I’ve got bad news for you. What do you want first? (Tom snorts)
DON: No. (Tom chuckles) I’ve got to go. It’s going to be bad news; it’s going to be the cost to replace them.
TOM: Well, the bad news is that the fogging can’t be corrected by any type of repair because the seal is broken between the panes of glass and the condensate is building up and that’s what’s causing that sort of cloudiness to it.
The good news is there’s never been a better time to replace your windows because the federal energy tax credits, which are available through the end of 2010, will reimburse you for up to $1,500 of the cost of that window. So if you are going to replace it, now is a great time to do that. And being up in North Dakota, I would recommend that you use triple pane because the farther north you live, the better return on investment you will receive from using better-quality, very energy-efficient windows and the ones that qualify, actually, under the federal energy tax credit program are very, very efficient. So I think that you’ll enjoy the new windows that you’ll get under that program and it’ll save you some money at the same time through the tax credit.
LESLIE: Hey, Tom, another thing is will the failed seal impact the energy efficiency; especially because – I mean they’re living in a pretty cold area.
TOM: Yeah, it definitely will affect the energy efficiency. I wouldn’t tell you to replace it just because of that but because the impact – you know, even if you got a new window, it’s probably going to take you a bit of time to get a return on that investment. However, if the cloudiness is really bothering you and you want to improve your home and improve the value of your home and save some energy and cash in on a tax credit, for all those reasons added together, I think it’s a good time to do the project, Don.
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