Build with Abun­dant Energy & Glue Lam Posts and Beams

When in doubt and if your not sure about build­ing with wood or metal imag­ine the possibilities..

More to come.…

What is an aluminum glazing system? 

If you’re building a greenhouse or any type of solar structure and you’re using polycarbonate multiwall sheathing or glass. This type of system is used primarily to fasten multiwall polycarbonate sheets or glass to any type of structural supporting substructure such as glue-lam post and beams, steel and or custom timber, such as mahogany, exotic hard wood, etc.

These are generally the most common framing types of sub-structures used for these types of glazing applications.

The system itself is much like a large scaled clamp designed to be mounted and fasten to the top of any load bearing sub-structure. They can be made to span up to 20 ft or longer.

As the name, states, Pro-Seal™a qual­ity glaz­ing sys­tem is made from alu­minum sim­ply because it doesn’t degrade with time. It lit­er­ally can last for­ever, that is the main rea­son why alu­minum is the best ele­ment to use.

There is also poly­car­bon­ate con­nec­tor sys­tems made from poly­car­bon­ate mate­r­ial designed to fit with spe­cific dimen­sion thick­nesses of the var­i­ous poly­car­bon­ate sheath­ing that is cur­rently avail­able in the market.

Poly­car­bon­ate for green­houses is prob­a­bly the most com­mon use and need for an alu­minum glaz­ing sys­tem. Many of the green­house kits that are avail­able today all use alu­minum frames that are designed for struc­tural sup­port as well as fas­ten­ing poly­car­bon­ate sheets or glass to their frames.

 The alu­minum clamp­ing sys­tem is basi­cally the top half design of an alu­minum struc­tural bar. This con­cept option defrays much of the cost for a full blown struc­tural alu­minum bar sys­tem when build­ing any type of solar space for your home.

The most com­mon need for an alu­minum glaz­ing sys­tem is applied when build­ing with wood. This is mostly true pri­mar­ily because of cost, its way cheaper to frame with wood.  Another great fea­ture is the fact that when build­ing with wood you should never allow poly­car­bon­ate pan­els or glass to come in con­tact with wood, this nec­es­sary step will pre­serve your wood a lot longer.

For a long last­ing appli­ca­tion that will last for years and years it’s always best to keep the glaz­ing away from the wood.  An alu­minum glaz­ing sys­tem allows any mois­ture to escape through the weep­ing chan­nels that are part of the sys­tem.  Streams of mois­ture beads are cre­ated due to tem­per­a­ture differences.

When­ever it’s snowy and cold out­side and warm inside, con­den­sa­tion will inevitably form on the inte­rior of the glaz­ing sheets. This mois­ture needs a place to weep to and away from the wood. It is for this rea­son alone that any glazed wood struc­ture that is directly glazed with glass touch­ing wood will even­tu­ally cause the wood to turn black and rot away over time.

 In the past I have repaired and viewed many solar col­lec­tor rooms that have been totally ruined by incor­rect glaz­ing appli­ca­tions. Depend­ing on the sever­ity of the dam­age, fix­ing these types of rooms is never easy nor is it ever easy on the wal­let. Sorry to say!

The best and the most afford­able appli­ca­tion for your sun space will require a lit­tle research.

Glu-lam post and beam rooms are very ben­e­fi­cial, use­ful, and attrac­tive and if con­structed cor­rectly they will last a life­time. Alu­minum struc­tural com­po­nents are also just as nice and very prac­ti­cal for any sun space application.

Pro-seal™is a durable main­te­nance free, extruded alu­minum glaz­ing sys­tem. It can be used on any sloped or ver­ti­cal appli­ca­tion. You can mount insu­lated glass units, sin­gle sheets of glass from a 1/4″ to 1″ thick­ness, as well as mul­ti­wall poly­car­bon­ate pan­els on a wood, steel or alu­minum sub-structure.

Water tight EDPM rub­ber gas­kets pre­vent leaks. Pro-Seals™ inte­gral gut­ters weeps con­den­sa­tion away from glass and the fram­ing com­po­nents. Pro-Seal’s™ labor sav­ing design requires min­i­mal caulk­ing and needs only sim­ple perime­ter flash­ing to com­plete the job.

 Com­ments and ques­tions are always welcomed…

Until the next article.…