The sheer horror of the possibility woke me up. I sat there in bed, eyes wide open, and said to the ceiling: “Is there anyone out there, anyone at all, who is currently providing consistent ratings on window, door, and skylight products? What if there _is_ no nonprofit, public/private organization (based in Washington, D.C. or its environs) whose stated goal is to provide accurate information to measure and compare the energy performance of window, door, or skylight products — preferably one comprised of manufacturers, suppliers, builders, architects and designers, specifiers, code officials, utilities, and government agencies?”

Fortunately, the Internet is open 24 hours a day, so I was able to assuage my fear in no time. You’ll be glad to know that such an organization _does_ exist, and that it furthermore has quite a cool name, as miscellaneous podunk associations go. I give you the “National Fenestration Rating Council”:http://www.nfrc.org/. As soon as I saw the name I was taken by a wild hope that somewhere on their highly informative website they might have a handy brochure entitled “Avoiding Defenestration” or “Defenestration and Your Children” or “The Health Risks of Defenestration” or something to that effect. I looked — sadly, no such document exists. Still, it’s good to know that someone’s out there, standardizing the nation’s, er, fenestrators.