![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/f0d89b-20260831-windows-sutphin-600.jpg\")
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Breaking Ground’s new building, called Sutphin, meets the strict Passive House standard, which means it uses at least 75% less energy compared to other existing buildings.<\/p>\n
Wythe Windows 2026<\/p>\n
So the designers went for these super airtight windows.<\/p>\n
\u201c[It] serves really at the end of the day, all of us \u2014 the tenants, the local community, the city, and ultimately the planet \u2014 if enough people engage in green building practices,\u201d said Marc Harary, director of design and construction at Breaking Ground. <\/p>\n
Harary said the high efficiency stuff \u2014 the windows, the insulation, the ventilation system that recovers heat \u2014 tacked on about 3-5% to the total build price. This building is so new that he doesn\u2019t know how much energy it\u2019s saving yet.<\/p>\n
But the other building the Breaking Ground built to a similar standard is using 61.7% less energy than the average of all the rest of the company\u2019s buildings.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich is kind of mind-blowing,\u201d Harary said.<\/p>\n
The windows are a big part of that. The U.S. Department of Energy says windows make up about 8% of the outside surface of the average home. But nearly half<\/a> of the heat that\u2019s lost from that average home goes out through those windows.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you were to look at a standard American window, they slide up and down, or they crank out. They’re inefficient by design,\u201d said Darren Macri, co-CEO of Wythe Windows, which worked on the Queens building. \u201cOur windows have multiple locking points, so you have an even compressive seal against the frame and sash to make it airtight.\u201d<\/p>\n Darren Macri’s company specializes in tilt-turn windows, meaning the entire glass pane tilts from above or swings open, rather than sliding up and down.<\/p>\n Wythe Windows 2026<\/p>\n Macri estimates one of their 3 feet by 5 feet windows costs roughly $600. It\u2019s more than most of the options at The Home Depot, but not by much. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you buy a very pretty window that’s a pretty decent performer, and you buy a more basic window that is a great performer, you might pay the same price,\u201d says Michelle Scism, senior manager of quality and accreditation at the National Fenestration Rating Council<\/a>. <\/p>\n But the window alone isn\u2019t the whole cost. Macri estimates labor will cost several hundred dollars per window, depending on where you are in the country. And it\u2019s about the same for a cheaper window.<\/p>\n Meanwhile the one that\u2019s already in your house costs nothing upfront, which is why roughly 93 million homes<\/a> have inefficient windows, according to the DOE. But the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that energy-efficient windows alone can trim a building\u2019s energy bill by up to 13%<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople sometimes are like, \u2018I can just keep living with it.\u2019 And they put it off, and they don’t see the advantage,\u201d Scism said.<\/p>\n In new buildings, they\u2019re an easier sell. Macri says he\u2019s put the same model in luxury homes and affordable housing projects.<\/p>\n Scism says a typical window has about a 15-to-25-year lifespan. But lots of houses have windows two, or three, or four times that old. The more efficient windows get put off in existing homes.<\/p>\n \u201cAside from getting hit with a baseball, a window doesn’t just break. Your refrigerator breaks. You must buy a new one,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anthony Russell moved into his new apartment in Queens, New York, earlier this year. He moved here from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[433,70359,62087,9,24,63,122,124,123,21768,42086],"class_list":["post-337493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-affordable-housing","tag-energy-bill","tag-energy-costs","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-utilities","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/cc7941-20260831-windows-macri-600.jpg\")
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