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In English? It’s a realistic surface film that is durable, permanent and totally realistic.

A flexible finish allows a design professional to easily perform refinishing of surfaces that traditionally have been difficult or expensive to refinish. Plastic laminate, metal, plastics and even stone finishes can be
over-laminated using a flexible finish.

In the past, the only option for a shopworn or dated finish on laminate cabinetry was to replace it. Throwing a structurally sound, unattractive but useful product into the landfill, complete with all of it’s toxic adhesives
and plastics. Now the option of over-lamination means that a piece of casework can be entirely refinished, on site, with little disruption to the staff working near by.

Exciting? I think so. Stay tuned as I discuss the details.

Frankly, in most cases, the manufacturers warranty doesn’t matter at all…unless you’re choosing NOT to do business with the right LOCAL window film professional.  Why do I say this?

Simple…window tinters, like most other businesses in our current economy, have HUGE failure rates.  Don’t believe me?  Go find a phone book from a few years back.  Compare the categories for “window tinting” or “glass coating and tinting.”  You’ll be stunned…the turnover rate is probably going to be 80+% depending on where you live.

Sure, if you dealt with a quality brand to start with, that company will most likely find someone to fix your problem should your original dealer be gone.   I can’t tell you how many times my staff has been out to do a repair on behalf of a window film manufacturer who needed a warranty claim fulfilled and had lost it’s local dealer.  No dealer, no service…at least, without a lot of hassle.

The reverse is also true.  I’ve been contacted by customers of dealers of films where the parent company had gone out of business and left it’s dealers high and dry…and unwilling to back it’s own product without the possibility of being reimbursed.

Those issues are only one of the many reasons that I’ve been a fiercely loyal 3M Window Films dealer for over over 30 years now.  Simply put, a company as big and well respected as 3M is going to be around to support it’s dealers and clients.

But aside from the manufacturers side of things, your dealer is your singular link to both warranty service and future work needed by family and friends.  You need to ave a solid relationship with someone you can trust.  In this age of instant contact with the entire world, it’s very easy to be tempted to do business with some vague, online dealer.  Be warned…you’re dealing with someone that will never see your situation and your product is going to be installed by whoever was the cheapest bidder/installer in the area.  Not a very wise choice.

The bottom line is simple.  I’ve been in the business for over 30 years and the total number of warranty claims that we’ve submitted to 3M can be counted on my fingers and toes…with some left over. WE back our warranty…because we value our reputation and rely on you for future referrals.

Besides…what is a warranty, anyway?  A promise to fix when it goes bad? Or….a statement of confidence that it won’t go bad?  I choose the latter.

Did you catch that?  Half.  Worst case?….about 60% of sun fading issues are caused by UV.  Not all, not anything close.  Most of the time UV only causes about half of the total damage…the rest is caused by a combination of the Infrared Radiation, Volume of Light and Environmental Issues.

Complicating the matter is a lot of misunderstanding about UV itself.  UV is not an individual wavelength of light, it’s a big chunk of the electromagnetic spectrum which is located just outside the chunk that we call “visible light.”  Glass itself reduces the penetration of some UV light…I’ve had engineering type husbands argue with me that they don’t need film on the glass to stop UV because glass does that naturally, while looking at a badly bleached hardwood floor.  In order to have good protection from fading, you need broad spectrum attenuation….in English, you’ve got to protect against UV-A, UV-B and UV-C, all different parts of the UV spectrum.

Doubly complicating is the issues of Low-E glass.  It’s a widely accepted notion that Low-E glass “stops” all UV penetration.  Nothing can be farther from the truth.  Almost all commercially available Low-E glazing does nothing to reduce UV…that’s right, NOTHING.  I’ve had lengthy discussions with glass sales reps wherein they adamantly argued that their company’s Low-E glass eliminates all UV.  Then they return ashen-faced when I ask them to go look that up in the technical information on their glass…they can’t…it’s not there, not true.

Having said that, some manufacturers, Pella and Marvin to name two, do offer some glass styles that have greatly increased UV protection.  The maximum protection offered is typically around 70%, so there is still work to do.  All of our 3M films have at least a 98% broad spectrum reduction in UV, so any film will increase the performance of those windows.

One last thing about UV…it’s a repeat of the first thing.  Reducing UV alone will not appreciably slow the rate of things fading in your home, because of the combined effects of the other three factors.  We have a competitor that sells a “UV” film.  It’s specially formulated to eliminate UV almost entirely across the entire spectrum…but that film is intended for burn victims and others who are specifically sensitive to UV only.  The film is incredible and does just what it’s billed for…but it’s not advertised as a “fading-control” film, though it’s frequently sold as such by dealers who simply don’t understand the physics or are, worse, trying to make a quick buck.

For more detailed information on this discussion or simply to talk to a window tinting professional, feel free to call the professionals at Energy Control Consultants ~ 865-947-3013

A number of years ago, we had a client with a very large, modern home on the lake.  This home faced west and the owner had a large collection of art in his home.  He requested that we apply “UV” film to protect his art collection.  I questioned him about whether he had a home overheating issue, to which he responded no, his units always kept the home at 68 degrees.

After completing the installation, the client called me back a couple of months later to tell me that his utility bill had gone down by a couple hundred dollars over that period and he wondered why.  I got to point out that he DID have a heat problem…he just couldn’t fell it because his home AC was capable of keeping the home cool in bright sunlight.  The addition of film to protect his art also lowered the utilities cost to the homeowner…the AC was simply not running as much as it had before.  The temperature in the home didn’t change a bit.

There are films available now that can offer very high heat reduction in a format that has almost no color and no reflectivity…in essence, a clear film.  It’s no longer necessary to apply a dark of shiny film in order to have powerful heat control.

Remember, though, IR isn’t everything.  You still need to control the visible light at least a little to have effective fading control.  I constantly get annoyed at people in the window tinting business selling “clear” films purely for fading protection.  Yes, those films do work, just not as well as a light management film…and they’re not more expensive.  3M’s Prestige Film Series is one of the most powerful combination of protective elements in the film market, yet I instruct my staff not to sell it as a fading protection film from the beginning.  If the client is insistent on a “clear” film, fine…it’s one of the best.  If the show interest in the light management film, we go in that direction as the “traditional” films are far less expensive.

Think about that…who, in good conscious, can sell a more expensive product that offers less performance and call it a quality solution?  In almost all cases, a lightly tinted film is the best solution for a fading issue.

Visible Light: Paper, photography and delicate finishes like silk are hurt badly by light itself. Visible light is part of the electromagnetic spectrum…it’s simply the part that can be seen by the human eye. Intense light can cause rapid and sever damage to items that are sensitive to it. The biggest hurdle that our clients face in dealing with a visible light issue is that the solution is going to involve darkening the glass. Sorry, there is no magic bullet…light transmission is a function of the absorption of the glass. In English, the darker the glass, the better the glare reduction. You have to have very dark glass if you want powerful glare reduction. Having said that, you typically don’t need “powerful” glare reduction to have excellent fading protection. The amount of light reduction needed for good fading protection is typically so little that most people can’t tell that any change has happened. To see an example of this in action, check out the pictures of windows with 3M film on them on our website and ask yourself if you could tell they had film on them if I hadn’t told you already:  Sun Control Films