Custom home design often serves as a showcase of best practice in building specification. The owner may not be as constrained by builder grade budgeting and allow the architect and builder to specify best-in-class products.
Take wood windows. When the design calls for awning, bay, bow, casement, double-hung, fixed, sliding, or tilt-and-turn wood windows, it may make sense to specify a product that has proven itself in conditions no wood window should ever have to face.
One such environment delivers the triple threat of termites, rain, and salty ocean air—a corrosive trifecta that makes the rigors of a Carolina coastline, Minnesota winter, or Arizona summer pale in comparison. It is, of course, the Big Island of Hawaii.
Nature Unleashed
The Big Island is an ideal proving ground for building product manufacturers to test products—especially wood products—to the extreme. Where annual rainfall is measured by the foot, nature delivers a rainforest bounty that’s perfect for Formosan subterranean termites, the most destructive kind. What hope can a wood window have surviving devastating rain, termites, and ocean air?
“One of the wood window tests we did was in Hilo, Hawaii, located on the Big Island,” explains Jennifer Matson, wood window product line manager for JELD-WEN, a leading global building products manufacturer based in Charlotte, N.C. “We built a pair of little structures resembling a child’s playhouse. We outfitted one mini-house with a standard wood window purchased at the local lumberyard and the other one with a window made from our AuraLast Wood.”
“Both structures were outdoors for 18 months. Both buildings were also placed on top of active termite colonies,” she said. A typical Hawaiian Formosan termite colony numbers more than two million insects, with large ones topping 10 million. It is “by far the most economically damaging pest in Hawaii,” according to University of Hawaii entomologists.
Surprising Result
AuraLast Wood is treated differently than other window wood, so that intrigued JELD-WEN researchers. Instead of dipped into a vat of harmful chemicals, as is typically done, wood in the AuraLast process undergoes a surface-to-core treatment through a proprietary vacuum/pressure process. This environmentally-safe, water-based application fortifies wood to the core. Any window penetration, say by sanding or nailing, does not expose untreated wood.
But would that be enough?
“The wood structures were reduced to spongy shards in a few months. The termites went through shingles, concrete, everything to get to the wood. Nothing stopped them except AuraLast Wood. All the AuraLast windows needed was a wipe-down and paint. Otherwise, they were fine. No rotting, water swelling, or termite damage of any kind,” reports Matson.
A generic wood window is no match for Hilo’s termites
Confident Choice
Matson says AuraLast Wood windows, patio doors, and door frames have been in the market for over 10 years, representing “millions of windows in the market.” For residential architects, home builders, remodelers, and owners looking to confidently specify a wood window that stands up to termites and moisture like no other, it may make sense to look West … way West … and keep the lessons of Hawaii’s tropical deluges and termite swarms in mind. To learn more, visit here.
