We started in this industry over 30 years ago, and during this time we have seen alot of manufacturers of window film come and alot go. There are several good quality manufacturers and many who also make cheap inferior window film that makes the industry look bad.
I was just talking to a fellow today and I had mentioned to him that if you recieved a bad installation for free it was not a good deal. A window film job can make or break the looks of your home, business or car. So allways choose an "good" installation company.
However with that said, you can have the best window tinting film installation in the world but have bad film and in short time the film can start to deteriorate or just not be effective.
A good brand name window film manufacturer can be relied on most of the time for having accurate performance results on the product data sheets.
Window film that is poor quality can bubble, peel, discolor, turn purple for dyed films, distort, delamiinate, demetalize, have its hard coat or scratch resistant coatings to flake off and many otehr scenarios.
Also depending on the adhesive system used on the window film to cause it to stick to the glass the film can look distorted to some degree even when first applied. Pressure sensitive films are nortorious for this. Especially if it is used on commercial or residential window tint films because they are oftern applied to large panes of glass making the distortion more obvious.
We recommend you stay away from commercial residential solar films that have pressure sensitive adhesives. They are the type that are sticky to touch like tape.
We had a very well known company who makes thousands of products and "also" markets window film. We say market because they really dont make their own film. They have it made for them. But because the brand is used for many household and industrial and automotive markets, their window film is viewed by the genral public as being high quality. This company tried to sell us a few years back that they were the best, that they had made significant changes and on and on. Well we gave it a try, but we immediatley seen on the very first house we used it on that the film was way more distorted than all the "NON" pressure sensitive films we had been using up till that time. It as not long until we dropped that product after this and other issues we saw with the film. At certain times of the day you could look at the film and it would have a hazy look, (we have photos to better explain this), but at other times of the day it would be gone. It was a weird manufaturing issue. The way the film was made.
Anyway after 30 years we have rested with the fact that certain films are good and certain one are not. No matter how much marketing the factory puts into promoting the window tinting film they make.
The most popular main line window films are ASWF (American Standard Window Film), Suntek, Madico, Sunscape, Huper Optik, Geo Shield, V-Kool, Llumar, Vista, 3m, Solar Gard, Panorama. As far a quality we can recommend all but 3 of these. For more detailed information you can contact us at www.sun-tint.com for more information. Louisville Best Window Tinting Films.
