New product like sunscreen for windows

The benefits that home-protection technology provides often are seen strictly through the prism of surveillance systems, such as cameras, alarms and other state-of-the-art devices.

However, Coeur d’Alene area businessman Shane Rotchford endorses a new building protection plan for homeowners and businesses.

With his new Hayden store, Prestige Window Tinting – which is shared with the window-treatment business Advanced Window Fashions, in the everything-for-the-home hub, The Design Center – Rotchford and one other employee provide a new product line by 3M, the company behind everyday items such as Scotch tape, Post-it Notes and a variety of home cleaners.

As the only licensed 3M Prestige Window Tinting provider in North Idaho or Eastern Washington, the Hayden window-tinting service weds high-tech innovation with something similar to what’s being applied in the summer on Lake City beaches – sunscreen to shield from the sun’s ultraviolet rays.

“Now, 3M has a product that’s the best around,” Rotchford said. “It’s basically why I’m in business.”

Though Rotchford has been tinting windows of cars and trucks for a number of years, including at his other business, Squeaky’s Car Wash and Window Tinting, the 6-month-old Hayden store is aimed primarily at the homeowner market with the new product.

Unlike other metallic window tints that are reflective and corrode over time, 3M’s Prestige series consists of many microthin polyester layers – more than 100, in fact – which stretch while keeping a home cool and energy bills low.

After being licensed as a 3M dealer last year, Rotchford decided the business needed a new home to showcase the tints to the burgeoning population of North Idaho.

“We want to be here the next 15 years,” Rotchford said as he described the long-term potential in Kootenai and surrounding counties. “There are so many people moving into the area, it’s amazing.”

To get the word out on what Prestige has to offer, it helps to have an ally sitting right across the store. Emily and Nick Hatcher own and operate Advanced Window Fashions.

The two businesses worked together on some jobs more than a year ago and now share an open yet split shop, lined with window displays on each side that demonstrate their separate products.

“They kind of go hand in hand,” Rotchford said about the two businesses while seated at a center table in the store along with the Hatchers and the other Prestige consultant, David Robert.

“It really works great between the two,” said Nick Hatcher, co-owner and installation expert for the custom window-treatment business. “We are really trying to create a long-term business here. …

“We’re able to give referrals to our customers between the two businesses. We really appreciate our customers’ referrals,” he said.

So, one side of The Design Center store at the corner of Government Way and Orchard Avenue offers window treatments in about 40 colors. They include remote-controlled shades that electronically scroll up and down, plantation shutters and faux-wood treatments.

Meanwhile, the other side of the store offers the tinted window product line from 3M.

Both products work to enhance the home, Nick Hatcher said.

The window treatments act as a piece of furniture, he said, adding style and elegance to a room and value to a home.

Some treatments are more durable and soil-resistant, ideal for children’s rooms or high-traffic areas, while others are more luxurious, custom-made for clients.

The window tints come in varying shades and protection levels, blocking up to 99 percent of UV rays and protecting not only anyone inside but also keeping furniture and hardwood and carpet floors from fading.

In addition to reducing glare from the sun, Rotchford said, the tinting reduces the electrical load on an air conditioner over the course of a year by 1 ton for every 100 square feet of tinted windows. The tinting typically costs from $6 to $10 a square foot.

Other 3M products Prestige carries include computer and TV covers, which protect and enhance the picture, as well as another protective film that can be applied to almost anything, including golf clubs, to prevent scuffs and scrapes.

Rotchford also has applied the product to cars, so when the vehicles are washed, they look waxed. “It’s pretty neat stuff,” he said.

Between the window treatments at Advanced Window Fashions and the sunlight softeners at Prestige Window Tinting, the two businesses have something for just about anyone’s glass or windowpane needs.

That’s pretty much guaranteed, Rotchford said.