Thermally broken steel.
Built for a Texas summer.
Steel is the best thing you can hold glass with and the worst thing you can insulate with. The thermal break is how we keep the first part and solve the second.
A thermal break is an insulating barrier built into the middle of the steel section, separating the metal outside from the metal inside.
Steel moves heat exceptionally well. That is a virtue in a skillet and a liability in a wall. A monolithic frame — one continuous piece of steel from the outside face to the inside face — hands the weather directly to the room. The break interrupts that handoff.
“Same steel. Same sightline. The weather just stops halfway through.”
Two pieces of steel that never touch.
We fabricate the exterior and interior halves of the section separately, then join them with a low-conductivity strut that runs the full length of the profile. The strut carries the structural load between the two halves without carrying the temperature. Once it's assembled, the section behaves as one piece mechanically and as two pieces thermally.
That is the entire idea. Everything else on this page is a consequence of it.
What the break buys you.
The interior frame stays near room temperature.
Stand next to a monolithic steel window in August and you can feel the heat coming off the frame. A thermally broken section doesn't do that. The steel you touch is on the room's side of the break.
Condensation stops being a problem.
Cold steel plus humid indoor air equals water on the frame — and eventually on the sill, the casing, and the floor. Raising the interior surface temperature is the whole fix, and the thermal break is how you raise it.
The mechanical system stops fighting the windows.
Large steel openings are a real load on a house. Breaking the conductive path through the frame cuts what your system has to make up for — which matters most on the elevations carrying the most glass.
Energy code gets easier to hit.
Texas builds to the IECC, and window assemblies are where a lot of projects run out of room. A thermally broken assembly gives your energy consultant something to work with instead of something to compensate for.
None of it costs you the sightline.
This is the part people expect to lose. The break lives inside the section, not on the face of it. A thermally broken frame runs slightly deeper than a monolithic one — the profile you see from inside the room is still steel, still slim, still the reason you wanted steel in the first place.
When you need it — and when you don't.
Specify the break
Anywhere the assembly separates conditioned space from the outdoors. Entry doors, patio and folding systems, exterior windows — anything in the building envelope. It matters most on west and south elevations, on walls carrying a lot of glass, and in any room where a cold frame would show up as condensation: baths, kitchens, wine rooms, indoor pools.
Skip it
Interior partitions, office fronts, shower enclosures, and pantry or closet doors sit between two conditioned rooms. There is no temperature difference to break, so a monolithic section is the right call — thinner, simpler, and less expensive. We'll say so when that's the case rather than sell you a spec you don't need.
Most of our projects end up with both — thermally broken assemblies in the envelope, monolithic sections inside. That mix gets settled during design and engineering, before we cut anything.
The details.
- Where it's used
- Available on every exterior assembly we build — entry doors, patio and folding systems, fixed and operable windows.
- How it's built
- Separate exterior and interior steel profiles, mechanically joined by a low-conductivity insulating strut that runs the full length of the section.
- Glazing
- Insulated glass with low-E coatings standard. Warm-edge spacers and argon fill available where the numbers call for it.
- Sightlines
- Thermally broken sections run slightly deeper than monolithic ones. Face dimensions stay in the same family — we'll show you both in the shop drawings.
- Finishes
- Same palette as the rest of our work — powder coat in Black, Dark/Medium/Light Bronze, Dark/Medium/Light Pewter, plus custom color match.
- Smart glass
- Fully compatible. A thermally broken frame can still carry our integrated smart glass with the wiring routed inside the steel.
- Lead time
- Comparable to our standard assemblies. Bring the decision to us early — it changes the section, so it belongs in the drawings, not in a change order.
Not sure what your project needs?
Send us the elevations, the openings, or a few photos. We'll tell you which assemblies should be thermally broken and which ones shouldn't.