That may have been true in the old days, but isn't that case any longer.

Sputtered coatings are just too difficult to handle in the
window-manufacturing process because
there is no true bond betwe

Ray you are so wrong about this. The majority of windows produced today for the
residential market use spudder coated low emissivity coatings. The largest and
most recognizable name in the window industry Andersen has been using Low e
squared for at least ten years. All of their insulated units for their window
and door products are provided by Cardinal Corporation one of the leading
suppliers of spudder coated products in the US. The also make all the glass for
Marvin and other wood window manufacturers as well as the leading vinyl window
manufactures in the US and Canada.

The coating are on the second surface and are designed to meet the new four
zone energy Energy Star requirements. Hard coat low e cannot meet the strict
thermal, solar heat gain and shading co-efficient requirement of the IBC which
has been adopted in a majority of the states in this country. In fact
Pennsylvania just passed it last year and have begun enforcing the NFRC
labeling requirements.

As for adhesion between the spacer and the glass all spudder coated glass is
edge deleted where the coating is removed allowing excellent adhesion of the
warm edge spacer systems.