While the crew at Hall’s Window Center thinks single-, double- and triple-paned windows are fascinating subjects, sometimes a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit calls for different facts. Never fear, we have a baker’s dozen of those to share as well:
- The Roman Egyptians were the first to come up with glass windows in 100 A.D. – if you could call them that. The glass was so thick, you couldn’t actually see outof it. Transparency was almost a millennia away.
- In the late 1600s, windows were such a prized luxury, the aristocrats would have theirs removed andstored when the nobles went on a visiting spree of their other estates.
- The average U.S. home has eight windows, the White House a 147, and the British nobility? Well, Buckingham Palace boasts 760 windows to clean.All of that pales compared to the Empire State Building, where you can count (on a long day) 6,500 windows. How many windows, then, would you guess make up the world’s tallest building?
- Even in sunny weather, it takes window cleaners nearly a month to clean the entire Hearst Tower in Manhattan from top to bottom.
- Fenestrais the Latin word for window … and also “hole in the wall,” “loop hole,” “opening for light” and “opportunity.”
- Politicians, turn awayfor a moment. At one point, residents in Amsterdam paid taxes based on the number and size of windows on their home’s façade. The larger the windows, the higher the tax.
- According to the U.S. Department of Energy, 25 percent of the average household’s energy bill is due to leaky or faulty windows, skylights or glass doors. Not a tax, of course, but still an expense!
- Window technology has improved by leaps and bounds in the past decade, butwe still use the same method to make stained glass today as they did in the Middle Ages.
- When George Washington inherited Mount Vernon in 1762, he expandedhis property but ended up with asymmetrical windows and doors, visible to those paying attention to such details.
- Avoid going near windows during a storm, as lightning can actually come in through cracks in the sides of windows.(This is not how you want to determine it’s time for window replacement.)
- It’s brought in billions of dollars for Microsoft. Ooops, wrong Windows.
- Two iconic movie moments involve turning old draperies into clothing: Scarlett O’Hara and her green velvet dressand the von Trapp family childrenmucking through Vienna in drapes that Maria sewed into rompers.
- The Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the tallest building man has built yet, houses 34,348 windows.
Want to have more fun? Drop into Hall’s today. We’re full of amazing facts.