Diane Mastrull: Malvern engineers marketing high-tech storm windows

Perhaps you were motivated by rebates or other federal stimulus
incentives. Or by your budget-busting energy bills.

Whatever the reason, to those who spent a small fortune in
recent years replacing home windows, you have the sympathies of
a couple of Malvern chemical engineers.

Jay Reyher and John Siegel, along with a Wisconsin partner,
Thomas Culp, have put their scientific minds together to create
an alternative to replacement windows that is more
cost-effective yet proven to be as energy efficient as new,
Energy Star units.

Their company, Quanta Technologies Inc., has developed a storm
window made with a low-emissivity (low-e) glaze to control heat
transfer that has impressed the U.S. Department of Energy; the
head of Pennsylvania's energy-conservation program; and the
Mark Group Inc., a fast-growing weatherization contractor in
Philadelphia that is partnering with Quanta on the sale and
installation of its panels.

Equally significant for a start-up, Quanta, founded in April
2009, has secured more than $1.8 million in federal and state
investments to broaden its product line for use in different
climates.

While there are other manufacturers of low-e storm windows,
QuantaPanel's creators say their product's uniqueness, in part,
is the glass-coating technology that maximizes insulating
performance while optimizing passive solar gain, and the
enhanced air-sealing qualities of its frame and sash system.

"These are smart people that are, I think, onto something
special," said E. Craig Heim, executive director of
Pennsylvania's Office of Energy Conservation and
Weatherization.

That is not likely to trigger rejoicing among manufacturers and
retailers of full window units, who are already experiencing
sales drops since the tax credits for new windows expired Dec.
31. Quanta officials say they are not out to make life
miserable for the replacement-window industry, but to serve a
segment of the population that cannot afford new windows - or
does not need them - but could benefit from improved
performance by the windows they have.

"We saw the opportunity to fill this commercialization gap,"
Siegel, Quanta's chief operating officer, said last week, at
the company's factory near Lancaster.

Quanta bought the assets of a Chicago-area window-manufacturing
company that was going out of business, and, in July 2010,
began moving the equipment into 50,000 square feet of what had
been an RCA television-tube factory just outside downtown
Lancaster. Timing could not have been better.

Studies by the federal Energy Department showed enough energy
savings from low-e storm window retrofits to enable them to pay
for themselves within five years. Consequently, Pennsylvania
added them to its Weatherization Assistance Program priority
list - recommended energy-savings actions - in the fall of
2010, about the same time Quanta introduced its first
commercial product.

It was that federally funded weatherization program, which
provides retrofits to low-income homes, that Quanta first set
out to serve. Its QuantaPanel 500 series, a low-e storm window
that attaches to the exterior of existing single-pane or
double-pane clear-glass windows, cost typically less than
one-fifth the installed cost of an Energy Star replacement
window, according to Quanta officials.

In this region, the QuantaPanel is expected to reduce heating
and cooling costs on a single-family residence by 15 percent to
30 percent, which could amount to about one-sixth of a home's
total utility bill, said Reyher, Quanta's chief executive
officer.

Last year, Quanta launched a product line designed for interior
installation, targeted for multifamily buildings, as well as
light commercial and historic properties. All window units are
custom-made.

Quanta's game plan sounded promising from the time Reyher and
Siegel approached the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of
Southeastern Pennsylvania for funding in 2009, officials there
said.

"To find a technology that basically can do what a window
upgrade would do but at a substantially lower cost I found very
intriguing," said Mark deGrandpre, director of investments in
the physical-sciences area. Ben Franklin has issued Quanta two
grants totaling $500,000.

From the U.S. Department of Energy, Quanta received $853,962 in
stimulus funds in June 2010. In essence, Quanta was a dream
come true, suggested P. Marc LaFrance, technology-development
manager.

"We've been trying to get companies interested in developing
and promoting low-e storm windows for a long time," LaFrance
said. "Having a company interested in making this their sole
business model was very interesting to us."

By the time Jeff Bartos joined the England-based Mark Group in
August 2010 as president and chief executive of its U.S.
affiliate, the company was already intrigued by what Quanta was
selling. He was soon sold.

If a homeowner "is already spending resources, time, and
dollars to insulate walls, you should insulate your glass as
well," Bartos said, adding that a typical Mark Group
installation of a Quanta panel costs $225 to $250.

Not that a storm window is the answer for everybody. Quanta's
founders are the first to say that if, for instance, your
window frames are rotting out, buy new ones.

That still leaves plenty of potential for low-e storm windows,
Reyher said. By some estimates, 43 percent of all residential
windows in this country are single-pane glass. Assuming that
Mid-Atlantic winters do not remain balmy and natural gas prices
start inching up, Reyher foresees a potential market for low-e
storm windows of nearly $1 billion, and Quanta sales reaching
$100 million. They currently are under $2 million. Its
workforce of 12 is expected to expand to 60 within a year,
Reyher said.

Diane Mastrull:

Quanta Technologies Inc. founders Jay Reyher and John Siegel
discuss the QuantaPanel insulating glass system and its
energy-efficiency role at http://www.philly.com/business

Contact staff writer Diane Mastrull at 215-854-2466,
dmastrull@phillynews.com,
or @mastrud on Twitter.

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Diane Mastrull: Malvern engineers marketing high-tech storm windows