.png)
Let’s start with the Materials:
Andersen 400 Series has four (4) exterior materials
Interior is wood
The exterior is wood sashed coated with a FLEXACRON urethane pain
There is vinyl cladding around the frame
A fibrex sill which is made of wood fibers and recycled vinyl
Marvin Elevate only uses two (2) materials
Interior is wood.
The exterior is made from fiberglass material called Ultrex.
Ultrex is not an ordinary fiberglass that you might be more familiar with like say a Corvette or a boat hole those products are sprayed fiberglass. Ultrex is actually a continuous fiber material called pultrusion which gives it much more strength. Regarding the durability, Ultrex is not painted. Ultrex actually has an acrylic finish over the fiberglass. This acrylic finish is cohesively bonded, not mechanically bonded which is why we refer to this now unique material as Ultrex, not just fiberglass.
Leakage Issues
So both windows have wood interiors. The exteriors are however vastly different. Marvin Elevate uses the one product called Ultrex. While the Andersen 400 Series uses 3 materials which is important because these three materials are going to actually expand it contract at different rates from each other so we can cause gas issues later on
The Marvin Elevate uses only one material for its exterior glass material which is actually silica based. The silica base just like the base of glass means that the Ultrex and the glass expand at a very similar rate the glass and fiberglass just like the glass which in turn means that the friction of material expansion & contraction is very very minimal because they are very very similar. The minimalization of a lot of back and forth motion which whenever this happens is extremely detrimental to the performance of the windows are much less likely to form leakage issues because it creates gaps.
Overall Appearance
The differences in the exterior materials have a drastic overall effect on the exterior appearance of the window. As you can see, the Andersen 400 Series has a vinyl clad wood frame with putty corners as opposed to Marvin Elevate Ultrex with mitered corners which looks much cleaner look on the Marvin Elevate.
Lets talk about how the vinyl cladding on the Andersen 400 Series effects the overall appearance. Your have vinyl clad, you have FLEXACRON paint and you have a FIBREX sill. What does that mean? Your going to have three different materials that all fade at different rates which should be extremely concerning especially when you have darker colored windows.
The Marvin Elevate again is the one material – Ultrex which is not a painted material. It is an acrylic finish so that means that fading is kept to a bare minimum even in a very darkest colors. The Ultrex has fantastic color retention properties. Let’s take an example such as an old barn find. When you look at that red tail light on a junk car that could be 30 or 40 years old, a little spit polish to the red and the acrylic red comes right back out.
Cleaning the Windows
First we'll start with the Anderson 400 series. What you’re going to do is you're going to unlock the window, open it several inches, then you have these wedges that are up in the jams and you're going to bring them down on each side press and then it spreads to jam out you're able to grab the window and pull it in. Now the top is done differently. You don't have to slide those wedges at all however you have to slide them back up to then lower the top slash and press the sash retentions. This design is certainly not the greatest & it hasn't been changed in many many years but it does you will allow you to clean the windows from inside the home.
The Marvin Elevate requires the same procedure. You're going to unlock the window, slide the window up several inches however here are the differences. Here you have tilt latches. What you're going to do is you're going to pull the tabs in towards each other and the window is just going to simple tilt in for cleaning. The same applies for the upper sash.
So again, we’ve compared these two windows. We want to bring you more comparisons so you’re able to make a good educated decision for what window best suit your needs. In the comments if you want to see us make any other comparisons whether it's with Anderson, Marvin or any other windows and if we have access to them we'd be happy to do it.
留言