Window and Door Trends With an Eye on the Future

A window with panes looking out at a snow covered forest.

The largest annual light construction show in the world, the International Builders’ Show, will be held from January 10-12, 2017, in Orlando, Florida. It attracts about 60,000 visitors from 100 countries. Of course, some of the top trends in home building will be on display. Though it hasn’t started yet, we can preview some of those products and trends that will be in the marketplace in the coming months. Here are a few items that, at Andersen Windows, we believe will influence homeowners for years to come.

Energy Efficiency

This technology continues to improve, and as homeowners look for more ways to lower their energy consumption, every feature of a house is carefully considered. For example, our Triple-Pane Glass option helps keep more heat in and more cold air out. It's perfect for cold climates where more months of the year are spent heating the home.

Monumental Doors

A deck with monumental doors.

Homeowners want to connect their homes with outdoor living, and big doors make this easy to do. They add flexibility and boost quality of home life. For example, our new MultiGlide Patio Door fits openings 25 feet wide and 10 feet tall. In parts of the country where weather conditions are more consistent, monumental doors will become much more common for new homes and remodels.

Smart Homes

Home products are getting smarter—VeriLock is one such example. This patented sensor is embedded into a window lock and can tell a homeowner if their windows are closed or open and locked or unlocked (more significant when improving energy performance).

Dark Colors

A set of windowed doors opening into a living room.

Color selection for windows makes a noticeable difference in how a home tells its story. For a little added visual drama and contemporary note, more homeowners are incorporating dark colors into their color scheme—both exterior and interior. We recognized this at Andersen, which is why we offer a black color option on several of our product lines.

Sustainability

A house with a small carbon footprint is important to many homebuyers. Their demands have grown more sophisticated in terms of sustainability, and they want to support building products and companies that operate with a similar philosophy. Sustainability is a practice applied throughout Andersen, from the raw material sources used to make our products to our manufacturing processes and even delivery logistics. Of course, we make sure our windows are sustainable, too. In fact, Andersen was the first window manufacturer to publish an Environmental Product Declaration that reports a product’s environmental impacts over its life cycle.

These trends follow a similar tone of recent years, only they're more refined. They are a reflection of how homeowners are educating themselves about investments they can make in their own home.

Sal Abbate is a Senior Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Andersen Windows. For more information, visit Anderson Windows.