The Karoly Team Tours the Simonton Windows Plant!

Karoly Windows & Doors is committed to providing all of our customers with top-quality products. It’s one of the reasons why we work with windows from manufacturers like Simonton Windows. Over the years, we’ve come to strongly trust Simonon’s impact windows after thousands of installs with proven, long-lasting results.

While we could just keep installing their windows, accepting the finished product without digging deeper into Simonton’s production methods, that wouldn’t be enough for our dedication to ensuring that we only provide top-quality products. Sure, Simonton has the AAMA Gold Label, and their windows are checked every hour of production and if a single window fails, they remake the entire last hour’s worth of production, but we felt we owed it to our customers to check things out in person.

Well, that, and they invited us to take a tour of their production plant. We simply couldn’t refuse.

Here’s what we found during our trip to Simonton’s production plant:

Entering the Simonton Windows Production Plant

Here, you can see a group photo with Brandon Shannon, Austin Rader, and our tour guide Brian as they get ready to tour the facility, big smiles on their faces simply because they’re excited to get started:

Inside the office area of the manufacturing plant, we stopped to take a quick look at one of Simonton’s patents:

What’s the patent for? It can be a little hard to read in the picture, so here’s an explanation of the U.S. Patent No. 9,302,425. If you go to the U.S. Patent Office’s search and type in 9302425, you’ll find the patent for a “Method and apparatus for edge sealing of foam boards” that is unique to Simonton, as it’s their patent that they earned in April of 2016—making this month the ten-year anniversary of their securing this patent.

To oversimplify the patent, it’s a proprietary process for heating up a window pane to one temp for sealing it, then rapidly cooling it to make the foam board set more securely and eliminating the risk of air gaps and to give the surface a more uniform appearance.

Innovations like these help impact window manufacturers differentiate themselves from competitors in their field.

Past the framed patent on the wall, our team is led deeper into the facility and we go down a flight of stairs leading to the main plant:

The large banner for Cornerstone Building Brands is a reminder that, as big as Simonton is (they have several plants scattered around the USA), they’re still part of a larger family of brands.

Inside the plant proper, members of Simonton’s management team converse with us among the hustle and bustle of active machinery making windows in the background. Considering that this plant produces thousands of windows every day, it’s easy to see why all of the footage we have inside the plant is liberally slathered in background noise. The place simply never stops producing.

Some of the Activity at the Simonton Windows Plant

Speaking of the manufacturing plant, what did our team of intrepid window experts see while there? Here are a few of the clips we captured from the trip:

Part 1: Assembling Insulated Glass Units

Here we see some plates of glass being passed through a machine for cutting. The plates are already clean and shiny enough to clearly reflect the roof, but they may need some additional processing to create a perfectly smooth, clear surface after being cut, which is why a Simonton plant worker sits at the end of the conveyor belt checking each plate of glass as it comes off the line before allowing it to move to the next step of the process.

After being cutting and some additional prep work to remove any debris or rough edges, the glass panes are joined together to create one part of an insulated glass unit (IGU):

Once the IGUs are assembled and sealed, they may be attached to a machine that pumps in argon gas for windows that are supposed to get this energy-efficiency-enhancing modification. Here, you can see the pumps being clipped to the glass units:

And here, you can hear a beeping noise as a worker removes the clip and the argon gas nozzle right before using butyl to fill the new gaps. The beep lets the employee know that the IGU has reached the optimal gas density.

It’s important to avoid overfilling an IGU with the argon gas, as too much pressure can actually cause extra strain on the glass and the butyl sealant, plus cause the IGU to heat up from the pressure, negating the energy efficiency benefit of getting an argon gas fill.

A key part of Simonton’s quality checks is to test the insulated glass units for potential leaks. They do this by taking the assembled IGU and dunking it in a tank of water, leaving it submerged for a few minutes before lifting it back out of the tank. If there’s any water inside the IGU, it fails the inspection and will be removed from the production line for remaking.

Part 2: Assembling the Frames

As for the frames, Simonton plant workers will manually touch up the frames before the final assembly begins. Here, you can see a Simonton employee grinding out imperfections from a white window frame using power tools:

While automation is a large part of Simonton’s operations, many processes still use good old human craftsmanship to complete. The grinding of the frames was one example, but another is how employees set nails into assemblies to prepare them for the next step of production.

This is partly because so many windows need to be created to custom sizes and shapes that programming a CNC machine to handle the task would actually be less efficient than having a human handle the job.

Once the sash frames are prepared, they’re attached to the insulating glass unit carefully with mallets and other tools to ensure a tight, secure fit:

The sash assembly is then installed in the prepared window frame and put up for a final inspection before being cleared for stress testing:

Part 3: The Stress Test

Every hour, several windows are selected at random from the production line and put through a stress test to verify that they’re tough enough to withstand strong winds and rain without leaking. The window is set in a large machine and locked in place for the stress test:

If any one of the windows subjected to this test fail, the entire last hour’s worth of production is taken down and remade to ensure that no defective products make it out of the factory.

Outside the Simonton Windows Plant: The PVC Silos

To feed the daily production of thousands of windows, Simonton’s plant needs a large amount of not just impact-rated glass, but also the PVC that they use to make their energy-efficient window frames.

That’s where Simonton’s large PVC silos come in handy! Here, you can see two of the massive storage silos in all their glory:

And going from the tanks, we can see the hopper, which helps feed the raw material into a pipeline going into the facility:

Inside the facility, the raw material is processed through an extrusion machine to make the vinyl frames that we all know and love from Simonton’s windows:

That’s right: every vinyl Simonton window is made using virgin PVC processed right there at their manufacturing plant in West Virginia. This eliminates the impurities that so often plague recycled vinyl windows. 

What does that mean for you? It means that the windows you get will have the greatest strength possible because the PVC in them is pure and unadulterated. This provides better chemical and structural stability for your new windows. So, your windows will last longer and survive more punishment and chemical exposure than they would if they’d been made of recycled material.

Saying Goodbye to the Simonton Windows Team

As the saying goes: “All good things must come to an end.” And so, after we finished touring the Simonton windows plant, we had one final discussion with the plant manager took some parting shots of the plant, and said our goodbyes:

We appreciate the Simonton team for taking the time to give us a guided tour of their manufacturing facilities and look forward to another 25 years of installing their awesome impact windows!

Get Expertly-Installed Simonton Windows

Looking for new Simonton Windows for your home? Karoly Windows & Doors is your go-to source for top-of-the-line Simonton installation! We know the ins and outs of impact window installation and how Simonton’s windows are made, so you can rest easy knowing that your new window installation is in good hands!

Reach out today to get a quote for impact windows for your home!