In the United States alone, research shows that up to a billion birds die from glass collisions each year.
The Vollmer Center, serving as the headquarters for Cylburn Arboretum in Baltimore, MD, is a testament to this grim statistic, with numerous birds falling victim to the glass on their own property on a daily basis— the vast majority of the Vollmer Center's architecture is comprised of clear glass facades. As the home base of the Baltimore Bird Club and a prime directive to conserve native and migratory species, this was a serious and contradictory problem that needed an urgent solution.
Birds strike glass because they do not perceive these surfaces as obstructions. Having extensive knowledge of this global issue, Decorative Films developed several bird safety films to combat bird strikes. Following American Bird Conservancy's prescriptive standard, these products utilize a repeatable pattern that makes glass surfaces visible to birds, alerting them to an obstruction that was previously imperceptible.
Seeing an opportunity to incentivize bird safety film specification, the company combined an advanced solar film with a colorless TruEtch dotted pattern, introducing the first energy-saving bird safety film to the market. Not only does the product effectively prevent bird strikes, but for the first time ever, it provides measurable ROI and reduced solar heat gain.
Watch this video where Bill Valway, CEO of AP Corp, talks about his team's experience installing our film and how they look forward to introducing our Solar Bird Safety Film into their Maryland and Miami markets.
Video Transcript:
"Hey, this is Bill Valway and CEO and founder of AP Corp. And we're here at the Vollmer Center today doing an awesome project. It's actually been a long time coming, a collaboration between Decorative Films, Baltimore City, and our company. We've seen a big uptick where, you know, birds are impacting the glass and the customers want to do something about it because they're coming in and they're seeing, you know, obviously dead birds at their locations, and that's not acceptable.
I think the numbers are somewhere around a billion birds per year that die from impacting glass. And with higher buildings and more glass being added to the facade of these buildings, it's really a challenge. And so, a lot of our customers come to us, seeking an option to reduce the impacts from the birds. But now they have a solution that also is going to have a return on investment from an energy conservation side.
We're really excited about this product because it really does solve two significant issues, and it does not require replacing the glass. This is a retrofit. Decorative films really married these two products together, which has been amazing because now we actually have a pretty significant solar heat gain reduction in the space. And the building that's behind me is one of those examples, where they almost couldn't even cool the space down.
And now we have a product that's cutting over half of the solar energy coming through, while also creating this great benefit by preventing bird strikes. We're really grateful to collaborate with Decorative Films on this project because it is a great exterior film. Our team really likes working with it, it installs fantastic. And from a consumer side, we're looking to really expand this product with a lot of our designers, architects, and just general building owners that we know have a need for a product like this.
Something that we've already kind of explored with this product is getting everything to look consistent and uniform. You're applying dots across the surfaces of the glass. You want everything to be synchronized and all the lines to be straight. We have installed other products that have more of a vinyl dot type, application. So you're only leaving these small dots on the film and it doesn't come in a continuous sheet.
This application is really great because the film is a continuous sheet and the dots are already on the film. So there's really not an extra step in the process. And for our guys who are typically installing exterior solar window film or safety film, they're accustomed to working with large sheets and just installing the sheet with soap and water solution.
So that's one of the things I think that is really great about this product, is that it can be installed just like all the other products that you're putting on the exterior. We can significantly reduce the solar gain coming into the building. So you actually have an ROI. That's going to affect the bottom line. It's going to be another buying factor, which again makes it easier to partner with Decorative Films because they're thinking about not just who wants to buy the product, but what it's like to install it, which is just a great partnership.
It's really been amazing to see how an organization like Decorative Films has grown and expanded, but also maintained a fantastic customer relationship and just constantly innovating. This is a great example of that, where you know there's a need in the market. And they didn't just go and launch a product. They really spent the time to develop a quality film that's going to meet the expectations of the client and really solve some significant issues in the market.
And we can attest to the fact that it's a good product. And we really like installing the product."
Thank you, AP Corp, for doing an excellent job on this installation!
Product Used For This Installation:
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