If you needed to install a new, thermally efficient skylight in a 120 year old building with sagging, structural purlins and curbs, who would be the best choice in the industry to do that kind of work?  Strong Tower Construction is the obvious choice for building envelope improvements on a historical building!  Strong Tower, with our vast expertise and experience developed through 84 years of leadership in the glass and glazing industry, helps owners of historically significant buildings gain thermal efficiency without compromising the originality of their building.

In the case of the Louisville, Kentucky TARC (Transit Authority River City) building, Strong Tower was chosen to engineer and replace the original sagging structural purlins (the horizontal wood that held up the skylight) and curbs.  This was no small feat as there was a window well which looked like the web of a drunken spider separating the art glass, visible when looking up at the ceiling inside the building, from the skylight.  The bottom of the window well was 82 feet off the floor.  Strong Tower had to build special staging and install protective coverings so that this antique art glass would not be damaged during the repairs and installation of the new, nano-gel filled panels that made up the skylight.  This thermally efficient skylight, made by Wasco Skylights was installed without disruption to the daily business of the train station.

John Karman of Business First Magazine recently spoke with one of Strong Tower Construction’s owners, Benjamin Feinn, about how the company is faring in the current economic conditions.  Benjamin Feinn explained what Strong Tower is doing to keep up in these tough times.  Even though the construction sector hasn’t fully recovered from the recession, as always, Strong Tower is continuing to give the excellent service and workmanship that it has always done for the past seventy-seven years.  An excerpt of the article published on page 23 of the March 22, 2013 edition can be found on their website here: http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/print-edition/2013/03/22/glass-company-koch-corp-stays-steady.html.

Installing 1,569 Blast and Ballistic windows made by Wausau Windows, 1,810 miles from the home office was no small job but it wasn’t too big or too hard to rattle Strong Tower! The 7 story Federico Degetau Federal Building in San Juan Puerto Rico had 1400 windows installed with in-situ water and air tests performed throughout the project. The single story courthouse had 169 Blast/Ballistic windows installed in a fashion similar to the federal building. The biggest test to the integrity of the new windows came throughout the project, however. During the installation, Hurricane Earl, Tropical Storm Emily, Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Maria battered the San Juan area. But despite the delay such storms cause, Strong Tower was able to finish the project on time and when Hurricane Isaac hit San Juan shortly after the Koch team had finished the project, there was not a leak or any issue reported associated from the new windows.

Recently, this project was featured in the national magazine, Glass Magazine’s, E-Glass Weekly’s regular feature titled, “Great Glazing”.

Strong Tower Construction is available to work with your school district to design and install security windows, doors and glass barriers to make your school a safer place for children. Strong Tower has extensive experience installing security and ballistic rated windows and doors in prisons, government buildings, schools, universities and other high risk structures. Many buildings have glass barriers to prevent entry into occupied areas, yet allow for full visual inspection of visitors upon their approach. Strong Tower’s onsite architectural staff can work with your building liaison to offer recommendations for your particular application. Koch’s professional installation teams can complete work even when school is in session, without disruption to the daily flow of day to day activity. Contact one of our highly trained staff members to find out what installation of some of the ballistic barriers and security precautions, currently used in FBI and government buildings can do to protect the staff and students of your school or daycare.

Strong Tower ranked 19th in the Top 50 Glaziers in the Country by Glass Magazine.  The annual Top 50 rankings present what Glass Magazine editors believe to be the United States’ 50  top glazing firms, based on sales volumes. The glazing firms are ranked within nine sales categories. Strong Tower Construction (formerly known as Koch Corporation) has been in the Glass and Glazing business since 1936 and is still going strong!

Not every glass and glazing contractor cares about all the little details, but Strong Tower Construction certainly does!  While replacing the 1,292 windows in the West Virginia Capital Complex with new  Winco windows, Strong Tower worked hard to allow the  normal work schedule in the three state office buildings to be maintained.  Each of the three, 11 story buildings had their windows replaced.  With the use of  wood panel inserts in the window openings during the installation process, along with  forty-foot long swing stages on the outside of the building, Strong Tower made it possible for the employees of the State Office Complex to do business as usual.  Even though there was asbestos present,  protective barriers and procedures were used to ensure the safety of the office tenants.  This is just another example of the excellent work and expertise Strong Tower Construction is so well known for.

The images above and below are thermal images of a school at which Strong Tower Construction installed energy efficient window units into the atrium roof. This thermal study validates the energy savings they gained.

Note: Yellow indicates heat loss and blue shows where there is a thermal efficiency gained. Image explanations are from left to right. In image #1, the atrium is still under construction. The heat lost is evident where the old meets new. The new glass shows significantly less heat loss. The single pane doors show the most loss in this photo. The metal frame is also a source of loss. Similar to the atrium image #1, couldn’t frame the entire atrium in the photo as the door was propped open for student arrival and was washing out the scene. There appears to be high heat loss at the upper right of the installation. Atrium image #3 is good clear photo of the entire atrium. We have two areas of heat loss at the upper center and upper right of the installation. The single pane doors are evident in the scene.

The nano-gel seems to be doing its job in image #4. Some loss at the right flashing. The single pane doors are evident in the lower right of the photo. Image #5 shows some loss at the flashing in the center of the atrium. The center is not assembled.