Alpen’s big WinSert™ project provides a great opportunity for the VA to showcase the government’s move towards more sustainable construction.

About the Veterans Affairs WinSert™ Project

The U.S. Veterans Affairs Regional Administration Building at the Texas Medical Center in Houston, TX was having extreme exterior condensation issues due to the combination of hot wet climate, extensive air conditioning use, and the high temperatures of the building’s poorly insulated south-facing windows.

The principal objectives were to:

• Improve occupant thermal comfort behind bronze tinted dual pane aluminum framed windows
• Critically reduce exterior condensation resulting from HVAC being trained on uncomfortably hot glass (which also caused occupants to move workspaces away from glass surfaces).
• Lower overall HVAC loads

Due to project budget constraints, Alpen recommended our WinSert Plus energy efficient secondary interior window insert–in lieu of a full window replacement–due to WinSert’s high performance, light weight, ease of installation, and proven cost-effectiveness.

“The VA came to us looking, primarily, for solutions to an acute exterior condensation problem, to lower their HVAC loads and to increase occupant comfort in proximity to windows,” said Brad Begin, CEO of Alpen High Performance Products.  “We provided them with a reasonably priced, high performance solution that will also save a lot of energy and has a fantastic ROI, further helping them meet their long-term sustainability goals.“

The results of using a high performance window insert solution

An initial evaluation of several units demonstrated that the WinSert inserts solved the exterior condensation problems–often in under 30 minutes!
Additional assessment substantiated both improved occupant thermal comfort in proximity to the windows and likely lower HVAC loads due to improved thermal performance created by the inserts.

In the first week of November 2020, Alpen completed delivery on the last of 900 units to be installed on this project.

We’ll be providing more concrete data as soon as it’s officially released by the Dept. of Veterans Affairs.