Optiwin Windows

Innovation and Tradition: BIEBER Windows from Alsace In Use Worldwide

Small family company is the international pioneer of energy saving windows

Clever window developments, valuable patents and diverse innovation and promotional prizes for unusual window developments, in particular for the passive house, are the visiting card of the traditional Alsacian window manufacturer Bieber, which recently celebrated its 80th anniversary. Marked by a love of wood as a material and its ecological sense of responsibility, the traditional French company has become known as the pioneer, internationally, for energy saving wooden windows, particularly for passive house type of construction. Not least increasing oil prices have made the consumer conscious of energy saving solutions and support the growing passive house trend. BIEBER windows are distributed not only in Europe, but also in the rest of the world, for example in Japan, USA or Lebanon. To get quickly its innovative developments into the market, Bieber has joint OPTIWIN, an international business group of manufacturers producing the innovative Optiwin window. The advantages of passive house technology is to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Window Manufacture – French Family company for four Generations.

Bieber Windows was founded in 1928 as a carpenter’s shop and general stores. In 1947 the joinery was added. In the traditional factory in the idyllic Alsation village of Waldhambach, innovation and quality belong to the company philosophy with the aims of a healthy environment, high quality products, satisfied customers and staff. BIEBER was the first French window manufacturer to be certified to ISO 9001 quality standards.

Dedicated wood men with ecological responsibility

BIEBER staff is dedicated wood men and swear by the material so attached to nature: “We do not produce or trade in PVC windows. Using wood is our contribution to active environmental protection”. The love of wood and protection of the environment mark the work for the French window manufacturer. Natural colours for inside and out, winter and moon felled wood, and avoiding plastic, are the result of lively ecology. That wood has a thoroughly positive influence on our well-being is well known to anyone who knows how to appreciate the cosy warmth of a wood burning stove on a cold winter’s day. Wood also radiates a high degree of agreeable cosiness as furniture, wooden windows, doors or natural wood floors.

Minimum Energy Consumption

The use of wood protects the environment. What sounds contradictory can be explained as follows. Our green lung, the forest is not only maintained by us using wood, which allows rejuvenation of the forest; the forest is even strengthened, for each felled tree is replaced by planting a new one. The short transport distance to the point of processing protects the environment and supports environmentally protective building.

Optiwin window wood/wood Series

for passive house requirement

At Full Moon in the Forest

Ensuring a high standard of quality is in the foreground for Bieber. Quality assurance begins with felling, long before processing. Particular store is set on winter felling, that is between December and March. Trees undergo a period of no growth in the winter. This affects the amount of water in the wood of trees felled during that period. It is much less than in the summer and the wood is therefore of a higher quality. Phases of the moon are also taken into account. By using moon wood, which is wood from trees felled at full moon, particular attention is paid to healthy living. Moon wood is a selected air dried wood, which isused particularly for the construction of ecological houses. Thus there is a guarantee all the way through, from felling, through sorting, to final production that only the best quality wood is used. Not least the valuable raw material wood, seen from an ecological viewpoint, receives its full recognition and esteem.

The Passive House Actively Protects the Environment

Innovative developments in ecological building elements for passive house are on the banners for Bieber. The signs for passive houses, that is to say energy efficient building, are good. This certainly has something to do with rising oil prices, which wakes up the consumer to the notion of saving energy. “Up to 90% energy saving, a high degree of comfort, healthy air in the room, increased property value and maintaining the natural environment are only some of the advantages offered by a passive house”, says M. Wekmansof la Maison Passive (French Passive House Interest Group). It is, however, a prerequisite in realising a passive house that comprehensive highly qualified consultation and planning is undertaken and the highest quality standards are maintained.

Passive Houses Advancing

Around 1,000 passive houses are saving about 29 million Kilowatt hours, or 3,000,000 litres of heating oil per year in comparison to other existing buildings’ energy consumption, at the same time increasing the quality of life. As passive houses already do without the ever decreasingly available fossil fuels, their future is bright and warm.

From Local Window Manufacturer to International Group

Today’s boom in the fields of low energy and passive houses shows that pioneer BIEBER is right. His patents for energy saving building elements are proving to be ever more valuable. Because as a middle size company, extensive developments can be realized only with the help of enormous financial and human resources. OPTIWIN Windows is a young but very successful cooperation of small and medium sized window manufacturers. The group has been active for about 4 years in a hard fought for windows market and developed out of a network of partners initiated a few years earlier by Paulus Freisinger. Ingenious innovations in ecological window construction, great craftsman creativity, deep involvement within an attractive cooperation model and nearness to the customer has meant that OPTIWIN has asserted itself.

Bieber Optiwin Window Wood/Alu series

Technology Leader with 1000 Years Experience

About 1000 years of experience in window construction are bundled together as the individual companies have been in the market for a long time. Optiwin can only profit from this enormous experience. In OPTIWIN, small and medium sized companies cooperate in marketing, training, technology transfer and purchasing with the aim of: consistent customer orientated new and further developments from ecological aspects. The development focuses are generated by customer needs and with the help of intensive communication are made transparent to the customers. The basis for the development work is formed by close personal contact between the partner companies. Short communication routes mean that developers in individual companies get on the same wave length quickly and develop new products in a targeted way. This creates a flexible powerful development department which the partner companies could not have afforded individually. The decentralised organisation means that OPTIWIN has excellent customer proximity. Customer proximity and lean structures make it possible for OPTIWIN to react very dynamically to market demands and bring new developments quickly to market.

New Sliding System for Windows and Doors “Seitensprung” Suitable for Passive House

The last international passive house conference showed to be on the right track with for its products. Optiwin showed its certified passive house elements there. Among them were three models of “thermal bridging free connection”, a “Frost Kork” house door unit, and a solar facade. Optiwin has now also made the dream of many architects come true, convincingly and comprehensively, with a sliding door suitable for a passive house. A completely new type of sliding door fitting was developed for “Seitensprung”, the newly developed sliding unit which can be used for windows or doors. Here again OPTIWIN Group was able to demonstrate its technological leadership in building elements suitable for passive houses. The agile window and door fusspots can now already show eight passive house components certified by Passivhausinstitut Darmstadt (Passive House Institute Darmstadt).

Drei3Holz Window Exterior now also opens outwards

The Drei3Holz window suitable for passive house use produced, which has roved itself over the years, now also opens outwards. The “Exterior” version, developed together with the Danish partner and first shown at the international passive house conference in Hanover, means that unit suitable for passive houses with the highest design standards. This window is particularly suited to the Scandinavian, Irish, British, Canadian and US markets, where outward opening windows are common. This successful common OPTIWIN development demonstrates the strength and technological leadership of the cooperation in the field of wooden windows suitable for use in passive houses and proves its attractiveness internationally.

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