Steel-look windows, without the steel problems.
The narrow black grid of a period steel window is one of the most recognisable looks in New York architecture, and original steel windows are cold, heavy and rusting. We fabricate the same proportions in thermally broken aluminum, so the elevation reads correctly and the building still meets current energy code.
Beautiful, and freezing.
Steel windows were the standard in New York's warehouses, townhouses and loft conversions for a century, and they look superb. They also conduct cold straight through the frame, rust from the inside out, rattle in their openings, and fail every current energy requirement without exception.
Restoring them is expensive and only ever gets you back to a window that performs badly. Replacing them with a standard modern window destroys the elevation. Steel-look aluminum is the third option: the same slim black grid, with a thermal break through the middle of it.
The same sightlines
Narrow profiles and slim glazing bars that hold the proportions of the original, rather than approximating them with a thicker modern frame.
Modern thermal numbers
A thermal break through the profile and insulated glazing, so a landmark elevation can still pass an energy review.
No rust, no rattle
Aluminum doesn’t corrode the way steel does, and multi-point locking pulls the sash tight against the seal.
Buildings that already had steel, and ones that never did.
Half the demand is replacement, a building that had steel and needs it back. The other half is new construction borrowing the look, because a black grid does something to a room that a plain frame doesn't.
A landmark review doesn't ask what the window is made of. It asks whether the elevation still reads the way it should. That's a question about sightlines and proportions; which is exactly what we build to.
Matte black as standard, and everything after it.
Glazing bars can be specified to match an original pattern where a survey or a photograph exists, send us what you have.
Who installs them?
Your contractor does. We fabricate and deliver glazed, finished units labelled opening by opening. On landmark work we'll supply the detail your installer and your reviewer both need.
Steel-look questions.
Usually. Send measurements and photographs, ideally a straight-on shot of a full opening, and we’ll work out whether the proportions can be held exactly or need a small compromise.
Almost always, and it’s the only one of the two options that improves performance. Restoration returns you to a window that still fails an energy review.
Crittall is a manufacturer whose name became shorthand for the style, the way people say Hoover for vacuum. What people mean by it is the narrow black steel grid; which is what these systems reproduce.
