Diane Mastrull: Malvern engineers marketing high-tech storm windows

Perhaps you were motivated by rebates or other federal stimulus incentives. Or by your budget-busting energy bills.

Whatever the reason, to those who spent a small fortune in recent years replacing home windows, you have the sympathies of a couple of Malvern chemical engineers.

Jay Reyher and John Siegel, along with a Wisconsin partner, Thomas Culp, have put their scientific minds together to create an alternative to replacement windows that is more cost-effective yet proven to be as energy efficient as new, Energy Star units.

Their company, Quanta Technologies Inc., has developed a storm window made with a low-emissivity (low-e) glaze to control heat transfer that has impressed the U.S. Department of Energy; the head of Pennsylvania's energy-conservation program; and the Mark Group Inc., a fast-growing weatherization contractor in Philadelphia that is partnering with Quanta on the sale and installation of its panels.

Equally significant for a start-up, Quanta, founded in April 2009, has secured more than $1.8 million in federal and state investments to broaden its product line for use in different climates.

While there are other manufacturers of low-e storm windows, QuantaPanel's creators say their product's uniqueness, in part, is the glass-coating technology that maximizes insulating performance while optimizing passive solar gain, and the enhanced air-sealing qualities of its frame and sash system.

"These are smart people that are, I think, onto something special," said E. Craig Heim, executive director of Pennsylvania's Office of Energy Conservation and Weatherization.

That is not likely to trigger rejoicing among manufacturers and retailers of full window units, who are already experiencing sales drops since the tax credits for new windows expired Dec. 31. Quanta officials say they are not out to make life miserable for the replacement-window industry, but to serve a segment of the population that cannot afford new windows - or does not need them - but could benefit from improved performance by the windows they have.

"We saw the opportunity to fill this commercialization gap," Siegel, Quanta's chief operating officer, said last week, at the company's factory near Lancaster.