Are you in the market to have new windows installed on your screened porch?
If so, I have 3 questions for you:
- Does easy care and low maintenance sound good to you?
- Do you live in an area where you are able to sit outside in your screen porch for at least 9 months out of the year?
- Are you sick and tired of spending hours of your valuable time meticulously putting up plastic sheeting in the winter to retain heat only to remove all of it 3 months later in the spring…and do it year-after-year?
If you answered ‘yes’ to all 3 questions then Eze-Breeze vinyl windows could be the solution to your dilemma.
Eze-Breeze 4-track vinyl glaze windows are a great alternative to plastic sheeting for your screened porch and it can be left in place year round.
How I Found Out About Eze-Breeze
My parents had Eze-Breeze windows installed in their house.
They saw them advertised in the local newspaper and decided to give them a call.
They had measurements taken, they were given a free estimate, and then they made the decision to have them installed.
Why They Had Eze-Breeze Windows Installed
- Less work around the house. They are recently retired and this was one more thing that they wanted to mark off of their To Do List for the constant upkeep of their house.
- They live in sunny South Carolina, so they really enjoy sitting on the screened porch passing the time, watching the multitude of birds that visit their feeders. And they especially enjoy watching storms roll through. Let me tell you, that is quite a site to see with Mother Nature showering down all around you — without getting soaked!
- The alternative — plastic sheeting — looks like… well… like plastic sheeting, and it’s translucent. That kind of defeats the purpose of a screened porch. Vinyl glazing is clear — like a window — but costs less than glass. It looks much better than plastic sheeting. Enough said.
I mentioned earlier that they enjoy sitting out back watching the birds. I asked them if they have any holes in the vinyl — particularly from birds flying into them.
The answer is no. There are no holes whatsoever, and as many birds that visit the feeders (probably hundreds each day) they’ve seen a few fly into the windows. No puncture occurred and better yet, the birds survive the crash with no ill effects. A win-win for humans and fowl alike. Eze-Breeze windows are bird-friendly.
Eze-Breeze is a unique product because the windows are not made of glass.
Instead of glass, they are made of vinyl glazing — a glass alternative.
If you gently push your fist into it, it flexes with your hand and quickly retains its shape.
This is some weird stuff. It looks exactly like glass from as close as an arm’s length. It’s kind of like plastic cling wrap — except that it’s a tough, flexible 10-mil thick to be exact. The manufacturer, PGT Industries, claims it is cheaper than glass.
How Much Eze-Breeze Windows Cost To Install
That will obviously depend on the size of your room, but to give you a fair idea of the cost of materials and full installation, here are some numbers they shared with me:
- Their screen porch dimensions are approximately 11′ x 24′.
- There are 20 four-track windows with screens for ventilation on the top portion and 20 fully glazed windows on the bottom half.
- There are 2 non-Eze-Breeze metal porch doors that were already in place and some small sidelight and transom windows. When the home was built many years ago, the screen porch was never really meant to be fully encased in windows so each window is not exactly the same dimension as all the others. Therefore, a few of the windows had to be custom made on-site.
- It took 1 day to install it all.
- The total cost, including installation: $4,000.
The most important factor to consider here is whether or not they were happy that they decided to have the Eze-Breeze windows installed.
The answer is yes, they are very happy with the way it looks, the time and labor it has saved them, and the quality of the installation job.
You can’t ask for anything more than that.
UPDATE: Eze-Breeze Windows Survived A Tornado!
Unfortunately, an F2 tornado rolled through my parents neck of the woods not long ago.
The good news is that nobody was hurt.
How did the Eze-Breeze windows fare? Like nothing ever happened!
There were trees and limbs down all around them, but the windows made it through unscathed. Maybe because the windows were on the back side of the house when the tornado rolled through helped it out, but the windows have stickers on them that say to remove them if winds of 60+mph are expected.
Randy Boerstler
Writing a home building blog that chronicles new homes during different phases of construction from a consumers' point-of-view is rather unique and loads of fun. Basically, my tips are a collection of checklists for what I think should (and should not) go into building a quality home. So let's have fun seeing what's new in the housing market these days!
