Do you have electric windows in your car?

Do you have electric windows in your house?

Why not?  Perhaps because they are not yet readily available.

This sounds like a business opportunity.  Electric windows in a house would be environmentally sound, save fossil fuel and make life a little bit easier especially for people with disabilities.

Electric windows in a house could be set to open and close based on temperature differences between the indoors and the outdoors saving electricity.  They could be hooked into the air conditioning unit so that the a/c couldn’t turn on until the windows were closed saving even more electricity.  The system could even have a storm override so that the windows would close automatically in bad weather whether anyone is at home or not.  It could all be operated from one switch per room, a whole house master switch or a remote master.  A remote master would allow people with disabilities to open and close windows with relative ease.

After the electric window systems are in mass production the increased cost of installation will be easily paid back by the energy saving on heating and cooling.  The convenience will be a bonus.

Still not a believer: consider that even many inexpensive cars now come with electric windows.  Why, because the cost differential between hand crank windows and electric windows is so low that it barely affects the cost of the car.  The cost in homes will be relatively more because of the cost of wiring but this is a knowable cost in new construction and manageable cost in the replacement window market.  The benefits will be tremendous including helping to fight “global warming”

What about safety?  My newish Acura has windows that go up and down automatically but that stop when they meet resistance.

Who will make this product?  Ideally it would be Pella Windows or one of the other high window manufacturers in cooperation with one of the big utilities like SCE.  In reality it will be a small company that makes high-end windows for rich peoples custom homes.  The design and testing costs will be high but within ten years this will be a multi billion-dollar market in new construction and even more in the replacement market.