Located in Iqaluit, Nunavut, the windows in Canada’s most northern hospital are a custom thermal design. Iqaluit is cold, arctic cold. It has 10,117 Celsius Heating Degree Days (18,210F). Put another way one winter there is equivalent to about 2.5 Toronto winters or 4.2 Boston winters.
The design team wanted windows that were condensation free at -40C (which is coincidentally -40F). They also wanted quadruple glazed windows, with the center two glazings being suspended films. Although quadruple glazing sounds warmer than triple glazing, two foam spacers in a conventional triple provide a warmer edge than three metal spacers in a quad. So the quadruple glazing requirement actually made it harder to meet the condensation free criteria.
The design requirements meant that our standard insulated fiberglass window had to be modified to make it even more condensation resistant than normal. In the end the design team considered several suppliers and decided that Thermotech Fiberglass was the only supplier that could meet their design criteria.
