DoubleTree by Hilton San Diego/Mission Valley Hotel I San Diego, California

Hilton Worldwide’s 300-room, 11-story DoubleTree by Hilton San Diego/Mission Valley hotel is a popular spot for San Diego area visitors. The property’s existing aluminum windows and doors, installed during mid-1990s construction, had become challenging to operate and had begun to leak during rainy weather.

The hotel was seeking window and door replacements that would contribute to a more sustainable building envelope while also offering high acoustical ratings due to the property’s close proximity to the San Diego airport, three major freeway systems and San Diego stadium.

Evaluating the overall needs of the project, market development manager Brian Guyer and his team at REHAU determined that the steel-reinforced System 4500 commercial windows and doors would be an ideal fit.

The REHAU Construction team and fabrication partner ECO Windows provided an initial project mock-up using REHAU System 4500 compression-sealed vinyl windows and tilt-slide doors, which outperformed their aluminum counterparts in a side-by-side evaluation against the criteria for the project.

In all, 215 System 4500 fixed windows with center mullions and 130 tilt-slide doors were designed, fabricated, delivered and installed within a compressed six-week installation schedule.

“Not only are the new vinyl windows and doors much more visually appealing and completely leak-free, there is also an obvious difference in the evenness of temperature and absence of noise in our updated guest rooms,” said Jerry Harlan, senior director of capital project management at Hilton.

The performance ratings of the System 4500 windows and doors were included in a third-party test of the energy efficiency and coefficient properties of the building prior to and following construction installation of all systems. The tests showed that the installation of REHAU windows and doors directly contributed to an estimated energy savings of 241,00 kWh, and a 1,698 therms kw demand reduction of 29.4.

As a result of this project’s success, REHAU has become a listed vendor on the Hilton Supplier Connection website, indicating the company has met certain criteria as a supplier to Hilton Worldwide. REHAU was also recently featured in the company’s internal communications as a key player in helping the DoubleTree by Hilton San Diego/Mission Valley achieve its sustainable building goals.